This meeting was organized on the DPI premises. The sources among the school heads who participated said that the senior officials of the department briefed them on the guidelines to implement the RTE Act. A principal said “The process has just begun and we don’t have much clarity yet. Such meetings will help us understand the clauses better”. The secretary of the School Education Department, D.Sabitha has urged the school heads to come back with any clarification, they might need to move on the Act.
The time has already come for the admissions of the next upcoming academic year. But still, some school chiefs felt for postponing the admission process so that by the time being their jobs get lifeless . To get this view described an chief of a school said “We would have a lot of work ahead of the public examinations, and later, the results. Until last year, we were able to finish the admission procedure well in advance and that helped us concentrate on the public examinations”.
Despite of this, they still have a little choice in the matter, since the act clearly states that admissions shall not be made before closure of the current academic year. The meeting included a detailed presentation on the Act and also a question and answer session . The conference included chiefs nearly around 60 institutions, including Matriculation, Anglo Indian, State Board in-aided and Nursery and Primary schools were also present. Their were lots of queries raised in the session such as '' How do we reserve 25% of seats for children from underprivileged backgrounds” to What if parents volunteer to give donations for specific facilities in our schools?”.
“This session has been termed as a purely official and preliminary meeting” said a senior official of the School Department in order to comment on the purpose of this meeting. The session was anchored by the Directorate of Teacher Education Research and Training (DTERT) and similar orientation programmes would be organized in other districts with selected school heads and DIET faculty as a key to the resource persons.
Source : The Hindu