MADURAI
Lack of transparency and minor irregularities were alleged in the lot conducted for admissions to entry-level classes in schools in Madurai district under the Right to Education Act on Thursday.
Most allegations revolved around non-communication from schools to parents. Commotion developed in a private matriculation school at Villapuram here after a section of parents, with the support of Students Federation of India members, objected to commencement of the lot with the presence of the parents of only a few children.
S. Vel Deva, Madurai urban district secretary, SFI, said though more than 100 parents had made applications to the school, a majority of them did not receive any communication about the lot. “There was no announcement on the school notice board as well,” he said.
Though the lot was conducted again due to the insistence of the parents and the SFI members, it was not done in a transparent manner, he added.
K. Hakkim of People’s Awareness Trust, who ran a helpline to help parents apply for RTE admissions, said a few city schools had misled parents by showing only fewer seats as available. For instance, he said, a school at Goripalayam had told parents that only eight seats were available whereas it had 15 seats last year.
A senior administrator of the Villapuram school denied the allegation of lack of transparency, saying there was commotion primarily due to lack of information and proper guidelines from School Education department.
A few other schools The Hindu spoke to had similar allegations. They said the list of applicants in every school was not provided until June 3 (Monday). The correspondent of a school near Mathichiyam said School Education department initially informed that all the selection would be done by it and only the list of selected candidates would be intimated to schools.
“However, this was changed last week and a training in selecting students was conducted for us. We were provided the list of applicants only two days prior to the lot. In between, we had a holiday for Ramzan,” he said.
Mr. Vel Deva alleged that the officials sent by the department were not sufficiently sensitised to the process.
When contacted, a senior official from the department said there were minor hiccups in the process since the number of applicants were significantly high in Madurai for around 5,800 seats available. However, the official said the number of seats filled on Thursday was not immediately available.