RTE quota may spoil Govt’s LKG admission target

After the introduction of LKG classes in State-run schools, the Tamil Nadu government’s ambitious target to admit at least one lakh children in LKG is unlikely to be achieved with parents evincing interest to admit their kids in private schools through Right to Education (RTE).

Even after the deployment of teachers to market and create awareness among the parents about the government’s kindergarten initiative, admissions to LKG is going only in a snail’s phase.

Thousands of teachers did various field works including circulating pamphlets to the parents about the facilities available in government schools that have kindergarten classes.

“Though we work hard, the admissions to LKG in government schools is low since government is concentrating only to implement RTE by getting admissions to more than 1.2 lakh children in private schools,” said Tamil Nadu Teachers Association Secretary P K Illamaran.

He said that the government is also spending Rs 100 crore every year to reimburse the fees to the private schools that admit students from underprivileged group.

“While government takes up the responsibility to help private schools for RTE admissions, authorities should also concentrate on increasing admissions in government and its aided schools by improving its infrastructure facilities,” he added.

Stating that the smart classes proposal should be implemented immediately, Illamaran said, “The proposed 3,000 smart classes should be established in the coming academic year.”

A senior official from School Education Department also admitted that the admissions in government schools are decreasingevery year.

He said that the students’ enrolment from the academic year 2014-15 to the current year in Tamil Nadu government schools has reduced drastically bymore than 17%.

In 2014-15 the enrolment of the students in government schools was 56,55,628 compared to 2018-19 figure of 46,60,965, registering a decrease of 9.9 lakh students.

“After the introduction, so far LKG admissions are also moving in slow phase with many parents looking at RTE admissions,” he said adding, “We expect that only about 25,000 children will join LKG as against our target of one lakh.”