Posted: Jun 30, 2012 at 0248 hrs IST
Only about 40 per cent of seats reserved for the economically
weaker section (EWS) in schools had been filled until June 22, Pune Municipal
Corporation (PMC) school board officials said.
One reason for seats lying vacant is the strong preference
among EWS parents for only a few English-medium schools, board officials who
carried out a survey last week said. Until the end of the week, only about
3,000 of the 7,361 seats reserved under the 25 per cent EWS quota had been
filled, they said.
The parents’ insistence on admitting their wards only to a
few schools had resulted in a skew with extra pressure on these schools while
seats went abegging in other private schools, the officials said.
“Parents are thronging only a few famous English-medium
schools under the quota. It is putting an unnecessary burden on these schools,”
Subhash Swami, assistant administrative officer of the school board and project
officer of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, said.
“We will get the latest figures about vacant seats in the
meeting to be held on Saturday to sort out these issues regarding the
implementation of the Right to Education,” Swami said.
Parents were finding ways around the provision in the RTE Act
giving preference to children of residents in the school’s neighbourhood, the
official said. “Even if the parents do not have a ration card to prove that the
family lives in the neighbourhood of the school, they often make a claim by
obtaining a document to show that they were staying on rent in the locality,”
Swami said.
Seats were vacant also
because many parents were simply not approaching schools to claim seats under
the EWS quota, Swami said. “Very few parents have approached us complaining
that a private school has denied them admission under the EWS quota. If they
approach us we can take action against the school and make them admit EWS
students,” he said.
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