Darshana Puri, 60, who runs a tea stall outside the district education office in Patiala, wanted to send her 10-year-old grandson Vishnu to a leading private school close to her house at Lahori Gate.
But Puri could not afford the hefty fee with a monthly income of just ₹7,000 that makes her struggle month after month to feed the family and bear the expenses of her son’s cancer treatment. Vishnu now goes to a small private school for which, too, his grandmother has to pay from her meagre means.
This is not the story of Puri alone. There are thousands of other economically weaker and disadvantaged families in Punjab whose dream of sending their children to private schools of their choice has remained unfulfilled despite the provision of free education under the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009. According to Section 12 (1) (C) of the Act, private unaided schools have to reserve at entry level at least 25% seats for children from economically weaker section and disadvantaged groups in the neighbourhood and provide them free elementary education, for which the government has to reimburse per-child expenditure to these schools.
But not a single child has been admitted to any private neighbourhood school in the state under the economically weaker section (EWS) quota since the law was implemented in the state, according to information received under the Right to Information (RTI) Act from district education officers of 17 of the 22 districts . The remaining five districts – Patiala, Bathinda, Moga, Sangrur and Pathankot – did not respond to the RTI query.
{{/usCountry}}But not a single child has been admitted to any private neighbourhood school in the state under the economically weaker section (EWS) quota since the law was implemented in the state, according to information received under the Right to Information (RTI) Act from district education officers of 17 of the 22 districts . The remaining five districts – Patiala, Bathinda, Moga, Sangrur and Pathankot – did not respond to the RTI query.
{{/usCountry}}Punjab frames own rules
Director public instructions (elementary education) Dr Inderjeet Singh admitted that children from EWS and disadvantaged sections had not been admitted in private unaided schools in the state. He said the RTE Act mandated 25% reservation for children from economically weaker families at neighbourhood private schools, but if students were getting free and compulsory education at government neighbourhood schools, “why would they go to private schools?”
“The children are entitled to admission in neighbourhood private schools under the EWS quota only if they are not admitted in government schools,” he said, citing the state rules. Section 7 (4) of the state rules provides that if children from economically weaker and disadvantaged sections are unable to get admission in government-run schools due to non-availability of seats or any other reason, then their parents or guardian may apply to get admission in private schools.
Apart from this, the state government, through a notification on August 9, 2017, has also changed the definition of neighbourhood or habitation, extending the area from three kilometres, as provided earlier, to jurisdiction of gram panchayat in case of villages and jurisdiction of the ward concerned of nagar panchayat or municipal bodies in case of towns.
What’s more, the state education department has also been carrying out enrolment drives for pre-primary and other classes, thereby restricting the chances of children desirous of going to private schools.
Amrit Kaur, president of Patiala Sahodaya School Complex, a cluster of private schools, said the state rules were very clear that private schools would give admission under the EWS quota to children who were denied admission by government schools. “Also, we have not received any order or instruction from the state government regarding the per-child reimbursement to be provided to private schools for free education to children admitted under this quota,” she said.