Corporator proposes aid to nurseries to bring them under RTE

A corporator has proposed that the civic corporation can grant aid to private nursery schools, which would not only bring them under the Right To Education ambit and cater to poor children, but also ensure a steady supply of students to civic-run schools.

Ritu Tawde, chairman of the Education Committee, will take up the issue in next week's Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) meeting. The proposal, written by committee member Shivnath Darade, aim to ensure that BMC's Marathi-medium schools don't lose out to private, English-medium schools. This is usually the case because civic-run schools start admitting students from class one onwards, when a child is at the age of six.

"They miss out all the students to private, English-medium schools as the parents want their children to go to schools at an earlier age. By the time a child is 2.5 years old, parents start taking admissions for them in nursery schools," said Darade. "By the time they are six, they have already completed their junior and senior kindergarten (pre-school) studies in the English-medium schools. This leaves no choice for the parent to shift the kid to municipal school from a private one."

Parents often feel the pinch while admitting their wards to private pre-schools, but they don't have any other alternative, said Darade adding that these pre-schools don't fall under the ambit of the Right To Education law. Darade has suggested that if the BMC cannot start pre-primary schools within civic schools, then the civic administration can start giving grant-in-aid to private schools. Doing so will automatically bring these schools under RTE, and poor children could be catered to.