Over 50 private school principals of the State have decided not to charge student’s fee for annual re-admission and capitation besides no hike in transportation from this academic session onwards. Also, they have pledged to fill the 25 per cent seats reserved for Below Poverty line (BPl) students under the Right to Education (RTE) Act from 2016-17 session.
The decisions were taken during a State-level meeting headed by Sanjay Kumar, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister and Human Resource Development (HRD) Secretary Aradhana Patnaik. Principals from Ranchi, Bokaro, Dhanbad, Hazaribag’s schools affiliated to Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) participated in the meeting.
“A mutual decision by State Government and school principals on annual fee for readmission and capitation was taken. As far as the BPl seat reservation is concerned, schools have requested us to start it from next session since the particular admission begins in April. On the other hand, the admission for other students is held between October to March. This creates confusion. So, we have decided to enroll BPl students with the other students in the latter’s admission period,” said Patnaik.
Many Principals have requested Patnaik to scrutinise the documents of BPl students through a mechanism as some miscreants are found admitting students in the name of economically weak category. “The forms of the BPl students applying in a private school will be approved by the school administration after it is scrutinized by a committee comprising Deputy Commissioner, District Superintendent Education and District Education Officer,” Patnaik said.
The government has directed the schools to submit a list of their fee categorization to the respective district administration within 15 days. “We will be deciding on other types taken like development fees by the students after the fee categorization list are submitted. The infrastructural facilities of each school will be noticed here,” the HRD Secretary said.
The principals claimed that the fee charged by students of this state is comparatively lower than other neighbouring states. Patnaik said they will be consulting the fee structure of states like Odisha and Chhattisgarh for this reason.
Delhi Public School Principal Ram Singh said they have requested the government to ensure security of principals. “Recently, a school principal was assaulted by people for an issue over RTE Act. The protests of some groups on banning re-admission fees are hampering the image of school as well as of Jharkhand. We hope the decisions will create a peaceful social atmosphere,” he added.
Singh said the payment of notebooks charged by students will soon be reimbursed as per the government rule.
Meanwhile, Cambrian Public School Principal Neeta Pandey said guidelines of RTE will now be effectively used by all the private schools.
The Federation of Jharkhand Abhibhawak Mahasangh will continue its protest on the RTE violation despite the decisions taken today. “We cannot understand the meaning of capitation fee. Apart from re-admission and transportation fees, our demands focused on banning development fees. Government has to specify us the decisions. Unless, they are not implemented, we will not stop protesting,” said Mahasangh’s president Ajay Rai.
Capitation basically means payment for health arrangements.