RTE still a paper tiger: Activists

“Admissions to the pre-primary section are almost over in most of the private unaided schools. It has been observed that most of the private schools have flouted the RTE norms and guidelines by continuing with stringent screening processes,including written tests and interviews of parents,” Jayant Jain,president of FFFE,said.

“Even after the completion of a year,the RTE is not being implemented in more than 80 per cent of the schools. There are so many clauses in the Act from which children can gain- 25 per cent reservation for the economically weaker students,the neighborhood policy which gives a preference to students staying in a one km radius of the school- being some of them,” said Jain.

Sandeep Chavan,another activist who will be part of the hunger strike in Mumbai,said,“The schools are not implementing the Act because they don’t fear action. They know that the Government has not yet come up with a committee which can look into the implementation of RTE.”

Speaking on the importance of the Act for minority communities,Razia Patel,head of minority education cell,Indian Institute of Education said,“Forming a rule is not enough. What is the government doing today to see where the Act is lacking. There is no data available on the the number of students who join a school or the number of drop-outs. The Government should put in place a transparent system,form a committee to look into these issues and provide a data to show that the Act is being implemented.”