Schools claim to meet parents only to understand their expectations

Updated on: Thursday, December 20, 2012

While discussions surrounding the Right to Education (RTE) Act have been going on for the past three years, its slow implementation has been questioned by many. Keeping in line with the RTE provisions, education minister Rajendra Darda announced in the legislative assembly on Monday that no schools in the state will conduct interviews during admissions.

City schools said that even though RTE mentions this rule and the government has been highlighting its compulsion for past couple of years, the practice was stopped long ago. Ramakant Pandey, principal of Bansidhar Aggarwal Model School in Wadala said, "Earlier, some schools used to conduct tests for children, which has stopped. Now we meet parents of the child only to understand their expectations from the school and to explain them the institute's rules and regulations. It is an informal meet between the school and the parents just to familiarize the candidate."

While some schools are still waiting to get a government notification and schedule to conduct pre-primary admissions, most have already started the process. said M P Sharma, principal of G D Somani School, an ICSE school in Cuffe Parade said, "We have distributed the admission forms and once the admission is confirmed, we meet parents to build a rapport. Most schools have stopped interviews."

Activists and experts in this field, however, claim that parents and children are still being asked to sit through various 'forms of interviews'. "Schools have renamed these interviews and call it 'counselling' now. We receive complaints from parents who have been asked questions about their income during such interviews. Why does the school need to know the parents' income?" asked Jayant Jain, president of Forum for Fairness in Education (FFE).

Schools claim to meet parents only to understand their expectations

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