Educating poor is no priority for Telangana government

“Nil” was the reply even to questions asking the department how much funds were allocated to private schools for reimbursement of RTE admissions and about the central and state’s share in RTI. To a question asking what was the projection for the next academic year regarding the number of students who might be admitted under RTE, the Education department said that "orders were awaited" from the government.

On being asked about these contradictions, a senior official of the Education department said, "Under Right to Education Act, children from poor economic backgrounds can take admission in private schools in Telangana but the government is yet to ratify the 25 per cent compulsory quota rule in private schools, so no official figures are available. It requires a lot of funds to implement the 25 percent rule.”

Ironically, the government, which states that it has no funds, is promising to provide free Kindergarten to Post Graduation (KG to PG) education which will be completely funded by the state. Mr Kalyan Yakaiah , who filed the RTI said, “RTE is the most important of all the social welfare schemes as its implementation will result in a generation which will not require social welfare schemes for survival. It is unfortunate that it is not being implemented in to to.”