Indian
Express: Mumbai: Wednesday, 09 December 2015.
AT Least 204
private primary schools under the jurisdiction of the BrihanMumbai Municipal
Corporation (BMC) are unauthorised, revealed an RTI query. The education
department of the BMC in its reply has also revealed that it has issued notices
to these schools asking them to shell out Rs one lakh towards fine.
Under the Right to Education (RTE) Act, every
school must comply with the regulations on the basis of fulfilling 10
infrastructure norms. After the RTE Act was implemented on April 1, 2010, a new
rule mandated all private schools to apply for fresh recognition from the
education department every three years. This was done to keep a check on
whether schools are following RTE norms under parameters like good
infrastructure, toilets, water etc, including implementation of a 25 per cent
quota for underprivileged children.
Schools
failed to submit their compliance report and renew their approvals/ recognition
based on that, hence were declared illegal. In July 2013, of the 1,702 schools
in the city, 1,600 were not given the approvals on the grounds that they did
not meet the necessary norms. Following the rejection by the municipal
corporation, principals said they had reapplied in August 2013 after fulfilling
the requirements.
“After we
complied with the required norms, we informed the education department to
conduct necessary checks and issue the approvals. While approvals for many
schools were sanctioned, they are yet to act on it for many schools,” said
Prashant Redij, convenor and spokesperson of Maharashtra State Secondary and
Higher Secondary School Principals’ Association.
Redij said
the BMC education department and the state government were being unfair to the
schools imparting education to poor and underpriviledged students. “ These
schools were approved decades ago under previous school norms. Suddenly, they
changed the rule and now expect them to implement it immediately. The ten norms
under RTE includes major infrastructural changes which is not possible as
schools are located around slum areas and face space constraint. Besides, in
many cases BMC does not get sanction to carry out necessary construction,”
added Redij.
A Patil,
principal of a private primary school in Goregaon, said, “They have not even
made a visit to the schools to check the status, at least not in my area.
Except for a playground and a proper compound wall, we comply with all other
norms. Still, our approval has been pending since 2013.”
Under the RTE
Act 2009, these schools will have to pay Rs 1 lakh as fine for non-compliance
under Section 18 (5) of the Act and if the schools still continue to operate
they will have to pay a fine of Rs 10,000 per day. The BMC education department
claims to have already issued notice to these schools, but sources said no fine
had been collected yet from any of them.
The RTI plea
filed by activist Anil Galgali has revealed that M (East) ward Govandi, Deonar,
Chembur tops the list with 36 unauthorised schools. This is followed by L ward
(Kurla, Sakinaka) with 30 illegal schools. P-North ward has 20, N ward and M
east ward have 12 each, F-North, K-East, R-Central and R-North wards have 10
each, R- South and S ward have nine each, P-South and G-North wards have eight
illegal schools each, E and K-West wards have five each, B ward has three
illegal schools, T ward and F south have two illegal schools each, A ward, H
east ward and D ward has one illegal school each.
“Even though
there is a rule of penalising such unauthoirised schools by levying a fine of
Rs 1,00,000. There seems to be no clarity under which head will the BMC
education department collect this fine. Besides the civic body is yet to
collect the fine. Apart from this BMC should also initiate criminal proceedings
against these schools as these schools make so much profit that paying fine is
not a big deal for them.”
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