State agrees to extend RTE admission deadline till May 8

Nagpur: The state government has extended the deadline for school admissions for seats under the Right To Education (RTE) Act quota till May 8. The earlier deadline was for April 25 but both parents and education activists demanded an extension to submit the documents.
Activist Shahid Sharif said that the other issue of parents submitting fake documents continues unabated. “The most recent incident is of a parent submitting a fake date of birth certificate. Such cases are seen every year with parents forging documents related to income, residential address, caste etc. Unfortunately, some government officials seem to be overlooking such violations,” he said.
Every private unaided school (non-minority) has to set aside 25% seats for RTE quota. This quota is filled up directly by the government and selected students are eligible to study free of cost till Std VIII. The state government then reimburses schools for such students. Students who are economically and socially underprivileged are eligible to apply under the RTE quota.
Almost the entire process is now online and handled by the state’s education department. Parents fill up application forms online in which the preferred school is chosen. As per RTE rules, students who live the closest to the school get preference. This is the reason why some parents provide fake address proof.
An online lottery is conducted by the education department following which students are allotted seats. These are just provisional admissions and parents now have to submit physical documents in schools in order to confirm the seat.
This confirmation of seat was the process for which April 25 was the last date. However, server snags and huge rush at offices from where documents had to be obtained led to demands by parents to extend this deadline.
With the government extending the deadline, it will also give more time for the document verification committee to scrutinize them for authenticity.