All schools to admit 25% poor students

By Ruchi Shrimali

Doing away with all the long standing controversies, the Supreme Court has given clear directions to all schools, including private schools, to admit at least 25% students in each class from poor and socially backward families from this academic year (2012-13). Irrespective of the boards they are affiliated to, schools will now have to ‘restructure' themselves to accommodate such students in their mainstream classes and implement the Right to Education Act or RTE Act in its true spirit.

The RTE Act guarantees free education from class I up to the age of 14 years to poor students. The court has sought a clarification from the government about how will the RTE Act be implemented for orphanages and boarding schools, since the legislation is only applicable to day scholars at present.

Only Madarasas and Vedic schools have been exempted from the RTE Act. See which schools are covered under RTE

Until now, schools for either floundering on RTE norms or were holding a separate shift for poor students after the classes of main school were over. But now, these students will have to be a part of the main school classes. Educationists feel that the social integration will make education more meaningful for all students.

But some parents and schools that are considered ‘expensive' and high-class do not agree. They think that free education to 25% students will push up the expenditure of schools, which will have to be borne by rest of the 75% students. This will lead to yet another school fee hike.

Even though the government has promised subsidies to schools (65% from the Centre and 35% from the states), it is not considered enough by private schools. The subsidies have been limited to expenditure done by government-run Kendriya Vidyalayas per student, which is much less than the actual expenditure incurred by most good-quality private schools on their students.

Estimates say that on paper at least, government spends Rs 3,000 per child per year for primary education. States are free to have their own grants and aids but they often run into financial problems. While Delhi spends nearly Rs 1,200 per child per month, Haryana does not offer any aids to schools. Read more about RTE implementation

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