Kautilya Vidyalaya School has questioned the Chief Executive Officer of the Mysore Zilla Panchayat and Deputy Director of Public Instruction whether the Government had modified the RTE Act to permit children living beyond a radius of over 10 km from a school to gain admission under the Act.
Taking exception to the remarks of the DDPI at the meeting held on Monday, that the school had not admitted nine children under the Act, R. Raghu, chairman of the institution said that the school was prepared to admit its quota of 10 children, provided they were residing within a radius of 1 km from the school (as RTE rules stipulate).
The 10 students who were given admission admitted to the school under the Act were from far off places and none were residing in the radial distance of 1 km.
The school had admitted a student who was residing within a 5 km radius, after Primary Education Minister Kimmane Ratnakar urged all private schools to admit children residing within these limits, he said.
The CBSE private school management association, of which he was vice-president, is contemplating a legal battle against the Education Department against its whimsical decisions, he said.
Mr. Raghu told The Hindu here on Tuesday that the school has been providing free education to deserving poor students in its locality every year since its inception about 10 years ago, and the school management thought it was their social responsibility to give education to a few poor students every year. Hence the DDPI’s remark that the school was not abiding by the Act was far from truth, he said.
The 10 students who were alloted seats were from far off places and none was residing within a 1-km radius: chairman
