89% seats under RTE lying vacant in Ranchi: RTI

ducation Act, Fauziya Parween had dreamt of getting her son educated in an English medium private school. It was under the provisions of this Act, regulations of which were notified by the state government in May 2011, that her son Umar Farooq could have got his education free of cost. As per the regulations, she arranged for necessary documents and applied online at dseranchi.com, but her application was rejected without any reason being cited.
Umar Farooq is not the only child deprived from the right of child to free and compulsory education as 89% of the applications received under Section 12 (1) C of the RTE for the academic year 2019-20 have been rejected in Ranchi district alone while 74% of the free seats are lying vacant and no one owes responsibility.
Talking to TOI, social activist and visiting fellow at the Institute of Human Development, Swati Narayan said there is lack of transparency in the matter of admissions against the free seats. “Two of our fellow activists — Kareem Ansari and Hasan Al Banna — of the Association for Parivartan of Nation (a not for profit organisation) filed an RTI. In the reply, it was found that for the 3,383 seats available in private schools of seven districts, 3,578 applications were filed in 2019-20, but majority of them were rejected and only 40% seats corresponding to 1,471 students were filled up,” she said.
Though the RTI application asked for the status of admission at private schools in all the 24 districts, information was available only for Ranchi, Bokaro, East and West Singhbhum, Godda, Seraikela Kharsawan and Garhwa.
While secretary, school education department, Rahul Sharma did not respond to repeated phone calls, Ranchi district’s superintendent of education Kamla Singh said government had no role to play in rejection of applications.
“The seats must have remained vacant because there was no application and if there were applications they might not be fulfilling the requirements,” he said and clarified that accepting applications is a prerogative of the private schools.
Asked if the government maintains any record or ensures that the seats do not remain vacant, Singh said every year during the start of the academic session, online applications are invited. “We cannot push for admissions midway. In January, we will again invite applications,” he said.
The data also revealed that of the different districts in Jharkhand, Ranchi is the worst performing with 89% of applications being rejected. Godda and Bokara had more than 50% of applications rejected and more than half the seats are vacant. Of the data available, East and West Singhbhum are the best performing, but several districts have a suspiciously low number of private schools registered or do not provide any information.