The school in Pimple Saudagar had put on its notice board the schedule of the interview The school in Pimple Saudagar had put on its notice board the schedule of the interview

With the admission season approaching, schools have become battlegrounds for parents scrambling to get their wards into the “best” institution. The growing rat race for admissions has made the state education department put up various notices against exploitation of parents.

With complaints of parents and their wards once again being subjected to interviews by a Pimple Saudagar school surfacing, the Pune Zilla Parishad has sent a notice to the school asking it to cancel the interviews or face consequences under the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009.

The school in Pimple Saudagar had put on its notice board the schedule of the interview — from February 16 to 18 — for parents who wanted their children to admit in the primary section. A photograph of the notice announcing the dates was taken by a parent and sent to a ZP education official who then issued the notice to the school.

“It is very wrong that despite being told many times schools still carry out the interview process. The RTE Act bans any kind of interview for admission to any class in primary or pre-primary section. A fine of Rs 1 lakh can be collected from the guilty school if anyone is found indulging in this practice,” said Pradeep Desai, a supervisor at ZP.

The ZP has also sent a notice to all education officers, extension officers and other local body education officers to make sure that schools in their areas do not take capitation fee or interview the parents or wards. “The officers have also been asked to visit the schools during the admission process and check whether any kind of illegal activity is going on. An official may also go unannounced and if any wrongdoing is found at any school the official concerned is supposed to immediately draft a report and send it to us without further delay so that we can take appropriate action against the school under the RTE Act,” said Desai.

Ramps in all schools by Dec-end

For the last two years, the state has not received any grant from the Union government under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan for improving the infrastructure of schools. “In Pune ZP alone, there is a requirement of 596 classrooms,” said Jitendra Memhane, ZP executive engineer. He added: “After looking at the schools, we have identified that 234 ZP schools, out of the total 3,740, do not have ramps or have ramps that are not in a usable condition. We have started the work of building ramps in all these schools and the work will be completed by the end of this month.” The work is being done from the state funds.

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