The Maharashtra Education Department amended the RTE rule restricting unfrotunate students from taking admission to private schools if there’s a government school within one kilometre of a radius as per the new regulation Under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE) published in the Gazette on Thursday.
The new rule takes away the opportunity for a poor kid to go to a private school for free. This means many kids might not get to study in fancy English schools, especially in places like Mumbai and Pune, where there are lots of government schools.
Critical experts have stood against the rule. They say it goes against the RTE Act, a law about kids’ right to education. In Karnataka, they’re fighting a similar rule in court, and we’re waiting for the final decision.
For the past ten years, about 500,000 poor kids in the state went to private schools because of RTE. But recently, the government said they owe a lot of money to these schools for the kids they sent there, making them amend the rule.
An official from the education department mentioned that the amendment was necessary because the state owes ₹1,463 crore to private schools for reimbursing fees for RTE admissions over the past 12 years. If the law wasn’t changed, this amount would have exceeded ₹2,000 crore.
According to media reports, educationist Kishore Darak says, “I wonder how a state government can issue a notification amending RTE rules, nullifying the law of the Union. The notification contradicts RTE in its current form and hence may be struck down by legal authorities.”
Deputy secretary, Tushar Mahajan, from the school department, says they want to make government schools better. They want to give them more money and nicer buildings so that kids will want to go there instead.