The Bangalore Metro Reporter
THE CHILDREN OF PREJUDICE!
CHILDREN ADMITTED UNDER ‘RTE’ BECOME A NEW TRIBE OF DALITS, FACE DISCRIMATION!
The Right to Education Act has created a new tribe of dalits. The poor students who get admitted to ‘big’ private schools are being segregated by the school managements. They are treated as ‘Third Class’ junior citizens and being humiliated, insulted and treated with utmost contempt. G.R.Sharma, the President of the KUSMA had gone to the extent of declaring that the students admitted under RTE are polluting the entire atmosphere in the schools. The government is not lifting its fingers to discipline the private school owners/managements. It is time, the government especially the education minister Visweswara Hegde Kageri, who is known to be honest, take a firm decision in this regard...
The incident happened at the Oxford School, where few students admitted under the RTE, were segregated from other students. To identify the RTE students, who as a rule are poor, a part of their hair was cut short for identification purpose. They were not allowed to mingle freely with other children. The incident takes us back to the yester years, where dalit children were made to sit separately and face humiliating treatments. If this treatment was given to dalit children now, one could have filed cases against the school owners under Atrocities Act and the school management would have knelt before the children and their parents. But this time, it was to the children admitted to the schools under RTE who are very poor. And as such, there is no protection to the poor children who belong to OBCs and some of them who belong to BPL families.
This incident is not an isolated case limited to Oxford School, but, the story is same in other prestigious private education institutions also. The only difference is that the Oxford School incident got reported and received wide publicity, and rightly so. The episode is definitely a blot on the society and a mockery of the much touted RTE which is aimed at providing social justice to the children of poor.
Shockingly, G.R.Sharma, the President of the KUSMA (Karnataka Unaided School Management Association) reflected the mentality of the school owners in one of his public statements. He stated that like sewage water pollutes the sea, the children from poor and BPL who gets admitted to the schools under RTE, pollutes the entire atmosphere, the school’s standing and reputation!
Sharma’s statement shocked the people at large, but he still got the support of parents who have admitted their children to prestigious schools. These high class people have utilized hefty donations and influence for a seat in the prestigious schools and obviously do not want children from the very poor family rubbing shoulders with their ‘high class’ off springs.
Sharma’s statement and the incident at the Oxford School are interrelated and showcase the mentality of the school owners who also call themselves as Managements. Education has become a highly lucrative business which can bring in crores every year particularly through donations. And it is for this ‘business’ that the education shop owners are opposing the RTE which does not bring them profits or enhances their school’s reputation.
Of course, these education shop owners do not admit the children under RTE for charity. The government bears the tuition fee of these less fortunate children. As on now, the government has fixed Rs. Ten thousand per student. In fact the RTE is aimed at providing quality education to the poor children by sponsoring their education. The RTE is aimed at social justice also. There is nothing wrong if the education shop owners provide 25% of the seats to the neighbouring poor children, free of cost as a sort of social responsibility. At the maximum, they would lose the ‘donation’ from these students.
Interestingly, the government has banned collection of donations while it has allowed the schools to fix the tuition fee for themselves. In spite of the ban on donation, majority of the private schools whether aided or unaided, collect donation from the parents. While the admission receipts are issued for the children in the school’s name, the donation receipts are given in the name of the parent and that too by the society which runs the school. This is known to everybody. There are cases where ‘donations’ are not accounted for. The school owner/management simply receives the donations and do not issue receipts at all. The parents simply cannot demand receipts and if they do, they are denied the admission.
Whatsoever, the RTE has snowballed into a fierce controversy in the state. The education department officials who are allegedly hand in glove with the managements have not done their home work properly. Even though the RTE was to be enforced from this academic year, the department simply sat tight till the last moment. When they started imposing RTE, most of the schools had closed their admissions. It should also be noted that the government has banned the admission to the schools till April. But the hard fact is that most of the schools complete the admissions by January itself. This is going on since years and none of the officials in the education department have tried to stop this menace.
It is high time; the government adopts a tough stand in the matter. It must withdraw the recognition to the schools if they do not implement RTE. As the school managements are financially sound and politically powerful, the government can file a caveat in the High Court, the moment it derecognizes the schools to prevent them from getting interim relief, ex parte. The government can also blacklist such schools - whether state or central syllabus, from getting any permission in the future. For CBSE or ISCE schools, the state government may send recommendations to the concerned boards to cancel their affiliations and also withdraw the NOC given to these ‘Central’ schools. Only then, the private school owners/managements will come to live up with RTE.
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