TN government initiates fees reimbursement under RTE admissions for private schools

The RTE is being implemented in the state from 2013-14 ensuring 25 percent reservation for students belonging to the disadvantaged groups and weaker sections in all private non-minority self-financing schools at entry level such as LKG and Class 1.

Though the previous AIADMK government had allocated Rs 304.14 crore for reimbursement to the schools during the year 2020-2021, it was not paid to the schools till now. In addition, many schools have not received the dues for the last two to three years.

A senior official from the School Education Department said that a circular was issued to all the private schools to get the details of the students, who were admitted under RTE.

"We have asked the management of self-financing institutions to update all the RTE admission data including bank details in the Education Management Information System (EMIS), a common online platform connecting government and schools", he added.

The official said that fees reimbursement will be done based on the data provided by the private schools, which have already started receiving online/physical applications from the parents seeking admissions for their children under RTE.

Stating that this year's RTE admission activities will be carried out till August 3, the official said that schools were also asked to ensure that not even a single student should be left out citing fee dues from the government.

He said the schools should ensure that children admitted under RTE should not be discriminated from the rest of the children in any manner pertaining to entitlements and facilities such as textbooks uniforms, library, and information, communication and technology facilities, extra-curricular and sports.

"According to the rule, if the eligible RTE applications are more than 25 percent of intake capacity, random selection method shall be adopted,” he pointed out.

The official also said the schools were also asked to submit written statements to the concerned district level authority after completion of the admission process on or before August 14.