|
|
Students at Kerala Samajam Model School on Monday. Picture by Bhola Prasad
|
A number of private schools in Jamshedpur are in a fix after the East Singhbhum district administration made it clear that they need to follow the random selection process for taking students beyond the entry-level under the Right to Education (RTE) Act.
The district education department wrote to all schools on Saturday, saying that the random selection process for admission was applicable till Class VIII.
The new rule — which will come into effect from January 2012 at nearly 340 city cradles, including 45 most sought-after English-medium schools — came as a surprise as the institutes had assumed that the new selection process was applicable only at the entry-level.
“Every time we discussed the issue, it was said that the random selection process would be followed while enrolling students at pre-nursery and nursery. Now suddenly, they (the district administration) comes up with a new rule that states that the lottery process is applicable till Class VIII, which is baffling,” said A.P.R. Nair, secretary of Association of Jharkhand Unaided Private Educational Institutions, which monitors around 45-private English medium cradles in the city.
He added that the association would convene a core committee meeting later this week to discuss the issue and try and clear the confusion. Since admission tests for Classes I to VIII have been scheduled in March, the secretary said they had ample time to sort out the matter.
Speaking to The Telegraph, nodal officer for RTE Sushil Kumar said he was not in a position to tamper with government laws.
“These are rules made by the government and I or anybody else cannot change them. The RTE Act says that there will be no screening of students during admission. The act, however, does not specifically mention whether the lottery system has to be implemented at the entry level. The RTE Act in general is supposed to be implemented till Class VIII and not just at the entry level,” Kumar clarified.
Parents and principals, on the other hand, hoped that there would be an end to the confusion soon and the rules would be clear to everybody.
“For Jamshedpur schools, the issue of implementing the RTE Act is different. Schools elsewhere still prefer the conventional method of admission instead of lottery system, as was made clear during a national conference of ICSE schools in Hyderabad last month. We will take a decision soon,” said Puneeta B. Chouhan, principal of Hill Top School.
|
