No school choice in RTE Act
Tags:
The Madras high court has held that a child is not guaranteed a particular right to be admitted to a particular school under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, and dismissed a batch of petitions from parents seeking admission for their wards in particular unaided private schools in the city.
Justice K. Chandru said the petitions from M. Abimanyou and four others were misconceived and bereft of legal reasons.
The judge said the Act was not clear about what constitutes a neighborhood school and if there were more than one school in which school the parent can have a choice and which authority can direct admission to such school and in case of an unaided private schools who will supervise the admission.
“Under the present scheme of the Act, if the school justified that it had admitted minimum of 25 per cent of its seats to children belong to weaker and disadvantaged sections, that will be sufficient compliance of section 12 (1) © of the Act,” the judge said.
“The process of admission has to be in a transparent manner. But there is no particular right of a child to be admitted to a particular school is guaranteed under the Act,” he said.
The judge said the respondents schools were unaided private schools. Their obligation to implement the admission to an extent of 25 per cent for the weaker sections and disadvantage group only starts from Class I or in the alternative from the pre-school education. Therefore, the petitioners’ claim for admission other than Class I was not maintainable.
Post new comment