RTE amendment: Only 118 applications for 424 seats in the district

Mangaluru: The government has amended RTE and given preference to modern schools because of which only 118 applications have submitted for the 424 reserved seats available in Dakshina Kannada district.

The Right To Education (RTE) was implemented in the state with the aim to provide quality education to children belonging to financially poor families. Post this rule, many eligible students from various locations of the state took advantage of the facility. But this time, seats under RTE has been amended according to which, RTE seats have been limited to only modern Kannada medium schools. Consequently, the number of applications for the seats has fallen.

Opportunity at only 96 schools

Earlier, 102 seats were RTE reserved in Mangaluru North, 138 in Mangaluru South, 16 in Moodbidri, 77 in Bantwal, 24 in Belthangady, 41 in Puttur and 26 seats in Sullia. However, according to the revised RTE rule, only 426 seats have been provided to the total of 96 schools in the district which include 86 aided and 10 unaided schools. Excluding 3 and 7 private schools in Mangaluru North and South respectively, no opportunity has been provided for the entry of students into private schools in Bantwal, Puttur, Sullia and Belthangady educational zones.

In 2018-19, the opportunity of entry into aided and private school was provided to only 2,727 students. But in the current year (2019-20), the limits has been drastically reduced to 424.

Zero applications in Sullia

It is worth noting that in the present year, of the 7 educational zones in DK district, not one application has been submitted in Sullia. Of the remaining zones, there are 20 applications from Bantwal, 2 from Belthangady, 62 from Mangaluru North, 28 from Mangaluru South and 3 each from Moodbidri and Puttur zones respectively. In this way, the highest number of applications have been submitted from Mangaluru North and South zones.

Drop in application numbers

“In the backdrop of RTE amendment, the number of application has fallen drastically throughout the state. April 20^th was the last date for application submission. Since the number of submitted applications was beneath expectations, the date was extended. Hence, only 118 applications were received by April 25^th,” informs Vishwanath, Nodal Officer, RTE Act, DK district