RTE dilemma: Now, Std IX students sans ‘free’ cover

Nagpur: The first batch of students in Maharashtra who secured free school admissions in 2012 under the Right to Education (RTE) Act are now stepping into Std IX and out of the ‘free seat’ purview. RTE is applicable only till Std VIII, which means these students have to now pay up or face the threat of being removed from schools.
Maharashtra English Schools’ Trustee Association (MESTA) says around 10,000 students fall under this category. Sanjay Tayde-Patil, president of MESTA, said “The government has still not decided what will be the future of these kids. They have not even initiated a dialogue with us to discuss options.” The reason this issue has not yet snowballed into a major controversy is because schools have not physically reopened.
Murmurs of the union government planning to extend RTE provisions till Std XII have been doing the rounds for a couple of years, but the central Act never got amended. The only official statement came during the hearing of a PIL in the Delhi High Court filed by well known activist Ashok Agrawal. “In 2019, the government filed an affidavit indicating that RTE provisions will be extended, and added that the same will take a few months. It was expected to be done by December of the same year. But now, the new session has started and the government’s apathy continues,” said Agrawal, who takes up social causes through his organization Social Jurist.
“In Delhi, the free admission provision had been implemented much earlier than Maharashtra and I have seen students being forced to leave schools because of their inability to pay the fees. Lakhs of children will be forced to drop out of formal schooling,” said Agrawal.
In Nagpur, around 1,100 students will be affected as admissions were low in the first year of RTE. Currently, on an average, 5,000 students take admission in Nagpur under RTE. Due to the delayed reopening of schools, all stakeholders are adopting a wait and watch policy with a few applying pressure in a ‘measured’ manner.
“Discrimination has started in some schools and their online access has been stopped,” said RTE activist Shahid Sharif.
The owner of a school, who did not wish to be named, said that it’s not financially viable to provide free education to RTE kids. “Most of us have shifted to minority status, which puts us outside the purview of RTE admissions. Now, we will continue free education for everyone who is already enrolled, because new admissions have stopped,” said the owner.
TOI reached out to Union HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal but received no response.