Details of admissions of children under RTE in TN to be verified for the fees reimbursement

With the schools for kindergarten  being reopened, the Tamil Nadu government has decided to check details of the children, who were admitted in the private schools under the Rights to Information Act (RTI) this year in order to reimburse the fees to the institutions.

Accordingly, the School Education Department has also taken measures for the effective implementation of 25% reservations for students belonging to disadvantaged groups and weaker sections in all private non-minority self-financing schools at the entry-level class.

This year about 70,000 children, who hail from economically poor family backgrounds, have got admitted under RTE. The admission process, which was made online to curb irregularities, was started on July 5 this year. The state government has also allocated Rs 469.63 crore towards reimbursement of fees to the schools.

A senior official from the School Education Department told DT NEXT that a detailed review meeting involving high-level authorities was held whether private schools have adopted all the guidelines with regard to RTE admission this year.

He said all the private schools were instructed to use only the Educational Management Information System (EMIS), a common platform connecting government, schools, and students, to upload the details of the children, who were admitted under RTE.

"In addition, it was also decided to give permission to the chief educational officers in all the districts to review and alter the list of the students, who were provided admission under the act according to the merits", he said adding "after thoroughly cross-checked the details of the admitted children along with the application, the report will be submitted to the government to release the allocated funds".

Stating that the wrong information of the students will be removed from the list, the final list of the students admitted under RTE will be uploaded in the central government Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE).

More than 8,000 private schools across the state have the provision to provide 1.10 lakh seats under RTE this year.” The official also said Thiruvallur district is on the top list with as many as 554 private schools were providing admissions through RTE, which is followed by Chennai with 438 institutions. Perambalur district is at the bottom of the table by providing RTE admissions only in 64 private schools.