RTE admissions: Over 47,000 TN kids apply in 10 days

Chennai

The RTE is being implemented in the State providing 25% reservation for students belonging to the disadvantaged group and weaker sections in all private non-minority self-financing schools at entry level such as LKG and Class 1.

A senior official from the School Education Department, said, RTE admissions under 25% reservations have been made online from 2017-18 to stop malpractices and to ensure transparency.

“This year the RTE online admissions should have started on May 3. However, due to the pandemic, admissions began only on August 27,” he said, while noting that in less than 10 days, more than 47,000 applications were received from various parents as on Friday night.

He said the number of online enrolments will further increase since till now many private schools, which did not make online RTE registration arrangements to parents, were asked to do it immediately. “Apart from filing online enrolment in the school portal, the government had also made arrangements for the parents to file applications at block level education offices and e-seva centres across the State,” he added.

Pointing out that in 2019-20, the number of RTE admissions across the State stood at 76,927, which was higher than the previous year’s figure of 64,385, the official claimed that in 2020-2021 the enrolments are expected to touch 1 lakh due to the financial crisis, as many parents, who had pay cuts due to the lockdown, will also apply for their children.

The official also said that if the number of eligible applicants is more than the intake capacity of a school, a random selection method would be adopted in the presence of an officer deputed by the Chief Educational Officer of the district concerned.

“The government has so far reimbursed a sum of Rs 644.69 crore to the private schools and 5,60,829 children have been admitted under RTE from 20132019,” he said, adding, “Rs 304.14 crore has been provided for reimbursement to the schools by the government during 2020-2021.”