more-in People’s Awareness Trust, a Madurai-based non-governmental organisation, with the support of members of Students’ Federation of India, has opened four centres in the city to assist parents from socio-economically weaker sections in filing online applications for school admission for their wards under the Right to Education Act. K. Hakkim, an activist from the People’s Awareness Trust, said that his organisation made the decision to open the centres following poor number of applications filed last year, which led to a large number of the 25% seats reserved in private schools for entry-level classes (LKG or Class I) under the RTE Act remaining vacant. The online system of application for RTE admission was introduced last year in Tamil Nadu. “Despite conducting the admission in three rounds to fill all the vacancies, hundreds of seats remained vacant last year in Madurai district since many people did not apply. Seats in only some of the popular schools were filled,” he said. According to the School Education department website, a total of 5,895 seats are available in 459 private non-minority schools in Madurai district this year. Sources at the department said that while the entry-level in a majority of these schools is LKG, it is Class I for a few of them which do not have Kindergarten. Interested parents can approach the centres located in Mahatma Gandhi Nagar, Vandiyur, Subramaniapuram, and Bypass Road after contacting 99527 25599 with relevant documents such as birth certificate, income certificate (or community certificate), Aadhaar card and photos of the child. An official from the School Education department said that parents could also approach the office of the Chief Educational Officer to seek assistance in online application.

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