Hyderabad: Four years after the Right to Education Act (RTE) came into force, only a handful of schools in the city have adopted the lottery system or draw of lots to select students for admissions as stipulated by the Act.
Over 95 per cent of the prominent schools in the city still continue to give admissions based on entrance tests, interviews of students and parents, apart from the ability to pay donations ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh.
The only thing that has changed for schools after the RTE came into force is the names of entrance tests, donations, interviews. In a bid to escape government action, entrance tests are now being conducted under the guise of talent tests, scholarship tests, merit tests etc, while interviews go under the names of management-student-parent interactions and donations are called tuition fees. Regular fees have become term fees in some schools.
Hyderabad Public School, in Begumpet and Ramanthapur are the only schools to strictly implement the lottery system for admissions. Of the prominent private schools, Sanghamitra School, Nizampet and P. Obul Reddy Public School, Jubilee Hills have adopted the lottery system.
“Recently, a prominent school in Secunderabad demanded a tuition fee of Rs 55,000 and term fee of Rs 49,000 for Class I. Normally, schools collect tuition fee as term fees but this school collects tuition fees and term fees separately.
Other parents confirmed that the school collects donation in the name of tuition fees and tuition fees as term fees separately to escape government action, in case of complaints to regulatory agencies by parents. But if donation is paid, admission is confirmed,” said P. Sujatha, a parent.
According to the RTE Act, children between the ages of 6-14 should not be subjected to any form of tests. The Act also mandates schools to give admissions on a first-come-first-serve basis. In case of excess applications, selection should be based on a draw of lots. However, students continue to be tested in Maths, English, Hindi and story-telling.
