RTE seats in private schools not at all free

TRICHY: One of the elite private schools in Trichy chose not to issue textbooks to an LKG student who got a seat under Right to Education last year. This was because his parents failed to pay the fees for textbooks. The boy managed the whole year borrowing books from fellow classmates but the management has now toughened its stand and asked the parents to either pay the fee or shift the child to another school.
The issue highlights a serious drawback of the scheme to admit students for free in private schools under the RTE Act. Under the act, it is only the tuition fee that is waived for the children and not fees for textbooks, uniform and other fees which vary from school to school. According to the Act, all private schools have to allocate 25% of their seats at the entry level to poor and underprivileged children. The priority should be given to students residing within a radius of 1 km.
Though the government scheme had enabled a daily wage earner like B Senthil Kumar of Mela Chinthamani in Trichy to secure a free seat for his son in one of the top English medium schools, he is now helpless in paying the textbook and other fees fixed by the school.
The office of the Inspector of Matriculation School (IMS) says that it has come across a few such cases but remains helpless as private schools are allowed to collect fee as prescribed by the Tamil Nadu Private Schools Fee Determination Committee. Suggesting that the state government must provide free books to students enrolled under RTE in private schools, a senior official from the IMS said that it was ironical that the students of government school got free books while underprivileged children enrolled under the RTE had to pay for books. “Ideally, the government must provide free books to these students in private schools as well,” he said.
The aforementioned private school collects over Rs 20,000 on an average as fee at the entry level for a child of which tuition fee constitutes a little over 25 per cent. The remaining amount is collected for books, uniform and information and communication technology-oriented teaching methodology.
“The government waived tuition fee as it considers other fee levied by schools as optional. But in reality, these are the compulsory fees that the students have to pay. The state government has to take this up at the policy level,” said an official from the school education department.