Private schools continue to deprive poor of their right to education

NEW DELHI: Private schools continue to deprive the poor of their right to education even five years after the government enacted a law to this effect, a study has found.

The study, co-authored by IIM Ahmedabad, Central Square Foundation, Accountability Initiative and Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, showed that just 29% of the total seats in unaided schools in Class I reserved for students from economically weaker sections were actually went to the poor candidates in 2013-14.

While this is an improvement from 21% in the previous year, a lot of ground still remains to be covered as far as implementing the Right to Education Act in its true spirit is concerned. According to section 12 (1) of the Right to Education Act, all private schools (except for residential and minority institutions) are meant to reserve 25% of its seats for children of economically weaker sections.

Although the national fill rate under this category stood at 29%, only two states — Madhya Pradesh and Haryana — made up for more than half the enrolments of EWS candidates.

The implementation of section 12 (1) has been most successful Delhi where 92% of the reserved seats were filled up by private schools.