Applicants for admission under the Right to Education (RTE) Act’s 25 per cent reserved seats for underprivileged section in private schools faced a harrowing time Thursday when the online process crashed within minutes of its launch at 9 am. Already delayed by months, on the first day of RTE online applications on its official website rtegujarat.org on Thursday, parents failed to apply as the dedicated website repeatedly crashed since morning. Disappointed, parents gave up after trying till late evening, hoping to return Friday. Though another server was added around 2.30 in the afternoon that too faced technical glitches, leaving parents harassed and resorting to different helplines for help but to no avail. The education department authorities had claimed that the delay in starting the admission process was due to additional caution and time being taken over issues faced in the online process during the previous year. “Hundreds of parents have been queuing up here since morning to get their applications submitted. We have been trying since 9 am but throughout the day are able to submit only one application,” said Gulmoin Khokhar, an advocate and a Sarkhej resident, who has turned his office into an assistance centre for the admissions. Asked about these snags, director primary education M I Joshi on claimed that these issues had been resolved. “There was some issue, but it we resolved them. The site is working fine. About 2,000 applications have been received too,” M I Joshi claimed. However, parents rued that complaints were made to the helpline and education department’s office but no help was offered till late evening. “I have been sitting here since morning for admission of my son. I took a break from my work only for this but I could not fill the form,” said Sultan Pathan, a labourer and a resident of Fatehwadi area. The online portal was launched by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani in February 2017. In it first year, applicants faced numerous issues, including locating the school on the Google map. Applicants were allocated schools as far as 25 kilometre from their residence. There was a great deal of confusion, decline of admissions and school allotment discrepancies. Boys were admitted to all-girls schools. And the education department was flooded with aggrieved parents. This continued for weeks till the department decided to conduct hearing and resolve these issues. Thus, to avoid these blunders, this year, the education department claimed that technical care has been taken in the online process. Apart from parents, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) Right to Education Resource Centre (RTERC) too shared similar experiences. “Right from the morning, there were complaints on our helpline numbers about the website not working. This continued till late evening where each time the parents tried to submit the form, it crashed,” Karan Singhal, one of the researchers at the RTE Resource Centre, said. Another parent from Vehjalpur area, Naresh Patel, who is seeking admission for his daughter, expressed similar complaints. “For a very short time, the website started working. But soon, it crashed again. Till late evening, after spending so much time on filing the details in the form, when we try to submit it, it has been failing repeatedly.” Mujahid Nafees from Gujarat RTE Forum, a non-government organisation based in Ahmedabad, said that sitting at cyber cafes since morning turned out to be another financial burden on underprivileged parents. “The parents are forced to spend at cyber cafes. Seeing the experience last year, we had already demanded to make the process easier. The administration took so long in starting the admission process and when they did, it failed. Then what was the reason for the delay,” Nafees asked. This year, the state education department had announced a total of 1.02 lakh seats for the EWS and underprivileged children across the state.
