City schools dragging out RTE admissions? It appears so

City schools, it seems, are not only giving a tough time to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC's) education department, but also delaying underprivileged children's dream to study. Till now the BMC's education department has been able to finish only 80-90% of the admissions during the first round lottery of RTE quota. Officials claimed that they may finish these admissions by June and also decide on the second round of lottery.

Recently, the Anudanit Shiksha Bachao Samiti that helps economically weaker section children's parents to fill forms online for the RTE quota admission have written a letter to BMC's education department to either finish the 25% quota admission process before June 30 or face massive agitation.

The first lottery was held on April 20 in which 3,411 applications out of the total 6,409 received were selected. The total number of seats available for admission in pre-primary is 3,359 and for Std I is 6,305.

BMC education officer Prakash Charate said, "We have till now completed 90% of the admissions. We expect to finish the remaining by June 27. By then, we will also decide on when to hold the second lottery process, perhaps on June 30 or in the first week of July."