Last date for school recognition under RTE Act nears but very few apply

Mhow: The last date for applications to be submitted by private schools for recognition under Right to Education Act (RTE) is January 23 but negligible number of schools of Mhow tehsil has applied for it so far. There are about 300 such schools all over the tehsil and the education department is very much surprised on such a low response to the call by the department. The reason for such a low or no response is the conditions laid down at the portal to be fulfilled by the private schools for recognition, which are so tough that small schools are finding it very difficult. A delegation of Mhow, which was part of the state level delegation had met Commissioner, School Education at Bhopal and had handed over the memorandum to him on Friday afternoon.

When some of the school owners and directors were asked about the reason, they said that there are three main reasons and their association has given memorandum to draw attention of the government to those demands. First is that schools have to submit an FD of Rs 30000 as security deposit for the recognition, which is a big amount for the small schools having strength of about 100 students. Second point is that they have been asked to deposit Rs 12000 as recognition fees for a term of three years and third point is that they have to submit registered rent agreement of school building and playground. As per the school owners, they will have to spend at least one lakh rupees for getting registered rent agreement, thus even small schools will have to spend between 1.25 and 1.5 lakh for getting their school recognized under RTE this time.

Some of them were of the view that schools have already been badly affected due to free education to one-fourth students as they get very meager amount from the government, that also in two years. Taking that as a moral responsibility, almost all schools have accepted that too but new conditions for recognition are being seen as exploitation of private school owners.

When Mhow Block Resource Coordinator Anurag Bharadwaj was contacted in this regard, he said, “It is true that schools are not applying for recognition but I can’t do anything as the rules have been made by the directorate and the government and I have to follow them for RTE recognition”.