School Admission Problem

Updated on: Thursday, April 12, 2012

Seats in many matriculation as well as central syllabus schools in the city have already been filled and parents are on a scramble to get admission for their wards in the ‘best schools', with over one-a-half-months left for the academic year to begin.

While there were complaints about the violation of norms in the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, the parents complied with the “conditions”, which included the fee factor, laid by the school managements to ensure that their children were admitted to the school.

In an emerging trend, many matriculation and CBSE schools in the city said that they had started distributing admission forms for pre-K.G. and kindergarten classes on Vijayadasami Day (October 24), considered an auspicious day for initiating children into learning, whereas many others completed the admission procedures in January-February.

T. Rajendhiran, Chief Education Officer, Coimbatore, said that the admission procedures in the Government schools were usually carried out in May-June.

Many Government-aided matriculation schools revealed that they could not wait till May to admit students as per the directions from the Education Department as CBSE, ICSE and international schools had already began admissions.

According to R. Vishalakshi, president, Tamil Nadu Private Schools Association, many parents got their children admitted to CBSE schools because they did not want to wait anxiously for other schools to start admission procedures.

Hemalatha Sheshadri, principal, The PSBB Millennium School, said that the admissions to the school were closed but, it would follow the reservation norms to accommodate children from disadvantaged sections if someone approached them.

Whereas, many school managements said that they did not have to follow the 25 per cent reservation norm as there were Government schools nearby.

P. Elanko Jayaprabhu, lecturer and resource person from District Institute of Education and Training for conducting RTE training programmes in the district, contended that this could not be used as a ground to deny admission to any student.

Other instances of violation of RTE observed are collecting capitation fee and conducting screening tests for even pre-K.G. students. These remain under the carpet as most parents yield to the demands of the managements.

Many school managements revealed that they selected students after screening to make sure that the child would be able to cope with the training methods followed.

According to Mr. Rajendhiran, all schools should follow the norms set by the Government and action would be taken against schools that violated rules.

School Admission Problem

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