Right-to-education: Fee reimbursement of 142 private schools in Varanasi set to be stuck

 It is mandatory for private schools at the primary and junior level to register on the Right-to-Education (RTE) portal. For this, instructions are also being given to the schools time and again. Despite this, 142 private schools in the district have not yet registered themselves on the RTE portal. Whereas in these schools, children are studying free of cost under RTE. In the absence of registration, the fee reimbursement of these schools is believed to be stuck.

Under the Right to Free and Compulsory Child Education-2009, there is a provision to determine 25 percent free admission in private schools in respect of seats in pre-nursery and class-I, children belonging to disadvantaged groups and weaker income groups. For this, schools have to register on the website of Right-to-Education. Apart from registration, uploading of geo tag mapping is also mandatory. In this regard, instructions are also being given repeatedly to private schools.

In the order of instructions, so far 948 private schools in the district have been registered on the portal of RTE. The special thing is that the number of schools that have uploaded geo tag mapping on the RTE portal is 1048. That is, 100 schools have not registered even after doing geo tag mapping.

District Basic Education Officer Rakesh Singh has taken such schools seriously. He has also given notice to these schools to register themselves on the RTE portal at the earliest. He told that the portal of RTE has been opened once again for registration. In such a situation, private schools can register till June 24. RTE District Coordinator Vimal Kumar Keshari said that there are about 1250 recognized schools in the district which operates Pre-Nursery and Class-I. Out of this only 948 schools are registered on the RTE portal. Due to non-registration on the portal, children of weaker income group are being deprived of the facility of free admission in these schools.