Following the haphazard implementation of the Right To Education (RTE) Act in the state for the academic year 2013-14, the Anudanit Shiksha Bachao Samiti (ASBS) has decided to raise its voice by holding a march to the Assembly on July 24. According to ASBS, absence of any initiative by private school managements to fill up 25 per cent quota reserved for disadvantaged and worker sections of the city in their respective school, coupled with the government’s lack of interest in enforcing it has prompted them to take this step.
According to a member of ASBS, even a month and a half after schools reopened for the new academic year, there has been no progress in the implementation of the 25 per cent quota. “It is only after a long and bitter struggle led by the ASBS that the government of Maharashtra ended its procrastination and promulgated on March 15, 2013, the rules, under the RTE Act for regulating admissions for this academic year in the above quota. The education department then published belatedly the timetable to be followed by all schools, especially those run by private managements except those excluded in the rules of March 15, so as to ensure the Right to Free and Compulsory Education.”
The ASBS also claimed that most managements in the city had chosen to ignore this directive, falsely taking shelter under non-existent “minority” status. The state machinery is inactive in bringing to book the guilty managements (sic),” said a member.