New Delhi, January 15: A Right to Information (RTI) application filed recently by RTI activist Mohit Goel has revealed that even though the Directorate of Education (DoE) had received numerous complaints regarding the violation of admission norms by schools, it has failed to take any action against the violating schools.
The RTI appeal has revealed that even though the DoE stipulates admission norms, most schools are freely able to have their own way regarding the admission procedure for schools. The DoE had last year let off most schools without any form of penalty even though it had received numerous complaints.
This year too, the DoE several complaints from parents regarding schools that had been violating admission norms have been received by the DoE but no action has yet been taken.
The violating schools had been sent show-cause notices by the DoE last year but most of them had failed to reply to them. It had been clarified by Delhi Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely that schools were not allowed to consider the parents’ educational qualifications or occupations as criteria for admissions, schools had quite blatantly violated the norm.
The RTI application has also revealed that the DoE had not followed its own procedures. Also, on many occasions, the DoE officials had failed to file weekly summary reports at various district zones from the duration between December 15, 2009 and January 15, 2010.
The DoE had made it compulsory to create weekly summary reports of the admission procedure in December 2009.
Mohit Goel said that he had filed the RTI appeal after seeing the blatant violations of the admission norms by schools and had wanted to know what happened to the several complaints filed against such schools and whether some action was taken against them.
“The education minister and the DoE had assured in statements given to the media that action would be taken against schools that had violated the admission norms. This had made me hopeful but no action has been taken till now,” Goel said.
–Agencies