Guardians of local city school students started approaching Federation of Jharkhand Abhibhawak Mahasangh for violation of Right to Education (RTE) Act in the ongoing academic session. The Mahasangh has started collecting complaints from parents by organising camps at prominent locations and will continue the same till April 20.
The campaign launched by the Mahsangh began from satellite colony on Wednesday. Sources maintained the collected complaints will be given to the district administration for further action over the issues.
A parent whose child is studying in DAV Alok said, “Most of the private schools are raising their annual fees every year. This concept of increasing fees on yearly basis is nowhere mentioned in the RTE Act.”
Similar were the woes of a mother from Morhabadi whose children are admitted in a popular school of the state capital. Some parents pointed on the negligence of School Principals from the 25 percent quota admission of Below Poverty line (BPl) students.
“It was our first day of collecting complaints wherein we came across many complaints from the economically weaker section parents. They told us that schools deny accepting the BPl certificate issued by Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC),” said Vikas, a member of the Abhibhawak Mahasangh.
“In case, a BPl student is admitted in a private school through the RTE guidelines, schools are often found discouraging him or her in academic and co-curricular activities. As a result, the particular child is compelled to leave the school on the basis of poor performance within a year of admission,” Vikas added.
The Abhibhawak Manch will hold such camps for gathering complains at lalpur on Thursday. On April 17, 18, 19 and 20 it will reach out to the parents residing near Albert Ekka Chowk, Harmu Chowk, Dhurwa Bus Stand and Namkom’s Sadabahar Chowk.
Meanwhile, District Superintendent of Education (DSE) Ranchi Jayant Kumar Mishra objected on the approaching of parents to the Abhibhawak Mahasangh regarding the RTE violation. “Parents are free to contact us directly for problems dealt by their children under RTE guidelines. Now when they are using Abhibhawak Manch as medium to reach us, we hope to take appropriate action after receiving the complaints,” said Mishra.
Notably, Ranchi Deputy Commissioner (DC), Manoj Kumar had held a meeting with representatives of all public and private schools on April 9 to ascertain compliance to the norms of RTE Act.
On the same day, Human Resource Development Minister Neera Yadav met members of the Abhibhawak Manch and assured to hold meeting with all DSEs over the proper implementation of RTE in the schools.
City Schools were supposed to provide a detailed report on the amount of school fees taken from students in one academic session to the DC Manoj Kumar by April 14. Sources maintained many schools have failed to submit the details. The DSE will be sending a re-notification to such schools on providing the fee list at the earliest.