Indian
Express: Mumbai: Tuesday, 29 December 2015.
If rules
under the Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009 are strictly enforced, 1,017 aided
and unaided private primary schools in Mumbai, including several prominent
ones, are likely to be shut down. These schools, with a total of 4 lakh
students, have been operating without recognition for the past seven months,
having failed to get their recognition extended this year.
In addition,
these schools may have to shell out Rs 1,00,000 as penalty and Rs 10,000 per
day as fine for operating after expiry of recognition, as per rules under the
RTE Act. The 1,017 schools include several very popular and reputed
establishments, and officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)
that gives the recognition said they are looking at how to resolve the issue,
especially as it involves lakhs of students and thousands of school employees.
According to
the RTE Act, all schools must comply with 10 infrastructure norms, such as a
compound wall, toilets, drinking water and playground, etc. The schools have to
apply for extension of recognition every three years. Following the
implementation of the RTE Act, recognition is renewed only if schools have
complied with these 10 norms.
In addition,
under the RTE Act, 2009, no school can operate without a certificate of
recognition from the government authority. For primary schools, the BMC is the
statutory body issuing the recognition certificate.
“Schools had
to meet RTE requirements by 2013, still they were given enough time following
which a compliance report too was released. Despite this, the schools failed to
fulfill the norms. A Supreme Court judgment of April 12, 2012 too does not
leave any space for accepting extensions after the deadline. Technically, the
BMC and state government cannot renew or extend recognition of these schools.
However, due to reasons better known to them, BMC and state government are
hesitating to take action against these schools,” said Ramesh Joshi, general
scretary of Brihanmumbai Mahapalika Shikshak Sabha (BMSS). Joshi accessed
information on the expiry of recognition through an RTI query.
There are 427
aided and 678 unaided private primary schools under the BMC and their
recognition expires at different times. Of this, recognition of 334 aided and
583 unaided private primary schools in the city expired on May 31, 2015.
“Of the 334
schools, recognition of 105 schools which do not have compound walls will be
renewed as their proposal has been approved by the municipal commissioner.
However, we have submitted a list of 210 schools to the municipal commissioner
and the state government, which we cannot give extensions as they have not
fulfilled the RTE norms. We are awaiting a response from state government on
the same,” said Shambhavi Jogi, BMC education officer.
As per a
government resolution dated June 19, 2010, under RTE Act schools could be fined
Rs 10,000 per day until they meet the norms and for running the school in the
absence of the recognition, and managements of these schools will also have to
pay a penalty of Rs 1 lakh. Jogi said,”These schools were recognised at some
point of time hence according to me on humanitarian grounds we have to consider
many factors before taking any action. A proposal towards this has been already
submitted by me to the municipal commissioner last month. We will be able to
take a call on this issue once we get a response from the state government.”
The 334 schools
have a student strength of 1,19,703 and the 538 unaided schools have 2,99,000
students “These schools may have flouted norms, we want to penalise them.
However we have to consider the fate of lakhs of students as it will be
difficult to accommodate them in other school at this stage,” added Jogi.
The BMC has
already informed the state education department that it cannot renew the
recognition of these schools as they have failed to fulfill the infrastructure
and other norms prescribed under Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009.
Principals of
some of the institutions said the issue is a complex one. Principal of St
Mary’s School at Mazgaon Fr. Jude Fernandes said, “If the government is not
willing to extend our recognition then what can we do, they are welcome. We are
a reputed school and have been operating for a century now.”
Hanif Kanjer,
director of Rustomjee Internation school which runs Rustomjee Troopers, a
primary school, said, “ We had already submitted our proposal for extension of
recognition. We are still clueless why it has not been approved as we are a
private unaided minority school and do not come under the purview of RTE Act.”
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