No room for poor kids in Mumbai schools despite SC order

Schools are caught in a quandary as the Supreme Court (SC) has ordered private institutes other than unaided minority ones to reserve 25% seats for economically backward students — a provision under the Right to Education (RTE) Act — from the academic year 2012-13. Most city schools say they have already completed the admission process and have no room to accommodate economically backward students.

Private schools begin the admission process in December and complete it by February-March. In such a scenario, schools hope that the government gives them at least a year to implement the new provision.

“This provision will be extremely difficult to implement this year as we have finished the admission process for primary classes. Standard I especially will be packed with students who have been promoted from senior KG. There is no space to increase the number of seats,” said Vandana Lulla, principal and director of Podar International school in Santa Cruz.
 
Educationist Arundhati Chavan agrees. “Implementing this provision is going to be a time-consuming affair. It will take time for schools to get permission from zonal department and to decide the seating arrangement among other things,” she said, adding that the government must grant more time to schools to implement the recent provision under RTE.
 
Indu Mathur, principal of Apeejay school in Kharghar, is worried about classrooms getting crowded if the institute has to accommodate students from the economically backward classes from the coming academic year. “We are awaiting specific instructions from the government. But if we are told to implement the provision from this year, we will have to add extra chairs in classrooms. This will increase the strength of students per classroom and the classrooms will get crowded,” she said.
 
Some schools are in a fix as they have opened seats reserved for economically backward students for those from the general category. “We had reserved some seats, but after a recent government announcement in the assembly saying the provision might be implemented next year, we released those seats for general admission. There is much work to be done by the government as it has not even defined what constitutes economically backward students,” said Rohan Bhat, chairperson of the Children’s Academy group of schools.
 
A senior education official said the state education department has not yet examined the issue. “We are yet to go through the court order. We will strictly follow the instructions after reading the order. If the provision has to be implemented this year, it will be done,” he said.