Implementing the Act not so easy for city schools

In the case of unaided private schools,the Act makes it mandatory to have 25 per cent of their seats reserved for children coming from deprived classes.

However,most city schools are of the view that in order to do so they will have to expand their existing infrastructure by increasing the student intake for the rest of the 75 per cent so that it is a financially viable option for them. Such a move is bound to result in a fee hike.

Leena Chauduri,principal,Symbiosis School,is of the view that schools need to be given more time to implement the recommendations of the Act. “We are looking into the space constraint. Discussions with the school management are on,but we’re not sure if we will be able to implement the 25 per cent quota by the next academic session also.”

On being asked about the student-teacher ratio,which the Act says should be 1:30 for Class I to V and 1:35 for Class VI to VIII,Chaudhuri said,“It again boils down to the space issue,as it will mean that if we have more than 30 or 35 students in a class,they will have to be put into separate classroom. Also we will need to hire more teachers. While the Act required us to implement it by October this year,we cannot hire teachers in the middle of a session. We will have to wait till February or March when the process of recruitment of teachers starts.”

She said they are yet to get a final copy of the government resolution on the matter. Madhura Kulkarni from MNV Girls High Schools said for their school,being a government aided school,the option of a fee hike does not exist.

“Now,we have 70 students in one classroom. Maintaining a ratio will mean creating double the number of classrooms,which will include massive teacher hiring. We cannot do it on our own,as we don’t charge fees from the students. Also the process of recruitment will have to be started at the Zila Parishad level. So far it has not been started.”