Close to 9,000 RTE seats remain vacant

PUNE: More than 8,900 seats remain vacant under the 25% reservation scheme of Right to Education Act in city schools even after three rounds of online admissions.
Since April, the deputy director of education has managed to fill up about 55% of the total seats under RTE in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad. Parents of children who have not been allotted any school so far are waiting for the announcement of the fourth round.
Kiran Jadhav, a parent who has applied for admission for his daughter in Class 1, said, "I have been sending my daughter to a nearby Marathi-medium government school.However, I want her to study in an English medium and so tried under RTE. Despite three rounds being announced, she was not allotted any school and we are still waiting for the fourth round."
Mushtaq Shaikh, primary education officer, Pune Zilla Parishad said, "Over 2,000 students were allotted admissions in the third round, of which 544 students confirmed their admissions. Considering the number of vacant seats in the schools, we would be conducting the fourth round and the schedule will be announced soon." The first lottery round of admissions was conducted on April 30 at Pawar Public School in Hadapsar.
Around 16,894 seats are available for RTE quota admissions in Pune district this year. Of these, 10,988 seats are available for Class 1 admissions, while 5,906 seats are for the pre-primary section.
As many as 17,128 applications were received. In the first round, about 6,050 admissions got confirmed.
Under the RTE Act, 25% seats in entry-level classes (Class 1 or pre-primary) of all unaided schools must be reserved for students from backward classes of society. Admissions to these seats are marred by chaos every year, either due to technical problems in online admission procedure or with schools refusing to admit students. After admissions dragged on till the end of last year, it was decided that RTE admissions for 2016-17 would be held early.
While education department officials had initially said that the process would start in the first week of January, official announcement mentioned March 8 as the date when it would begin.
However, the admission procedure did not begin till April, initially because of technical glitches and later because many schools refused to register on the online portal.