Over 1k RTE quota seats yet to be filled

NASHIK: With several seats under the 25% RTE quota remaining vacant in the city, the civic administration has decided to conduct another round of admissions soon.
Of the total 2,203 seats available under the Act in the city, 1,183 students have taken admissions so far. Tuesday was the last day for the parents to get their children admitted to schools under the 25% RTE quota.
The online admission has been extended to the entire district this year.The procedure was only for the city in 2015. As many as 5,585 students filled up forms for the available 5,900 seats in the entire district.
"In the first phase, we recorded 969 admissions, while 214 students took admissions in the second phase. We are expecting to get more admissions. But as Tuesday was the last opportunity for the parents to secure admissions for their wards, we are thinking of conducting a third round to ensure maximum admissions under the Act," said Nitin Upasani, administrative officer in the Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC).
Earlier, the former administrative officer had conducted hearings and issued notices to the headmistresses of private schools asking them to admit eligible students under the Act. In June, the NMC received 31 complaints against 16 schools on various issues that were resolved in a number of hearings. The complaints included issues related to rented houses and incomplete or false documents among others.
Upasani said, "We have not yet received any complaints from parents about the schools denying admissions. We will see what can be done if we get any such complaints."
The online registration of schools for 25% RTE quota admissions began in the first week of February. However, the process had to be extended from March 5 to March 15 as all the 106 schools had not registered with the NMC's education department. Thereafter, the website developed some snag and the repair took some time. As a result, the deadline to fill forms was extended till April 15. The deadline kept getting extended for one reason or the other.