Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act
Hyderabad : Thinking of admitting your kids in
a private school in your area in June this year? Better verify whether that particular
school is a state recognised one and has facilities that are mandated by the new
Act, Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act.
Otherwise, years of your child's hardwork too may go 'unrecognised' because such
schools will be closed down by the authorities.
Under the new Act, every school must be recognised by the state government. And
to get recognition, each school has to meet certain parameters, like playground,
good faculty etc set by the Act. Also, these schools have to accommodate 25 per
cent children from the neighbourhood in accordance with the rules of the state.
A division bench of the A P High Court comprising justice Goda Raghuram and justice
Ramesh Ranganathan, which was hearing a related public interest litigation case,
has been taking the state's negligent education authorities to task and has been
monitoring the way this Act is being implemented in the state for the last one year.
The authorities, who woke up from a deep slumber, told the bench in writing that
after the court's initiative they had closed down as many
as 572 unrecognised schools in Vizag alone and that they would be launching
criminal proceedings against other errant school managements soon.
Even during pendency of this case, despite knowing the fact that the HC is monitoring
the situation, the state government issued two GOs, one after the other, granting
certain exemptions to schools for certain specified periods.
When this matter came up for hearing, the HC bench noticed this anomaly and warned
the state that it would quash these two GOs. The government pleader T Srikanth Reddy
assured the bench that the state would strictly implement the new Act and would
not give anymore exemptions to the private schools. "We will
also launch criminal proceedings against the managements apart from closing such
schools," he said. Though the new Act came into force in 2009, the state
prepared the connected rules only in March 2011. Certain school managements also
started complaining about the very same education authorities who are delaying things
in granting them recognition under the new Act.
Making it clear that the court would not tolerate any more exemptions in this regard,
the bench posted the case to June indicating it would continue to monitor the functioning
of the authorities in this regard.
Courtesy: Times of India
