Officials at BMC's Education Department said on Tuesday that there are no instructions about conducting more rounds Even as 37 per cent seats under the Right To Education (RTE) quota in the city are lying vacant this year, the government might not conduct any additional rounds of admission. Officials at BMC's Education Department said on Tuesday that there are no instructions about conducting more rounds. "There are no instructions from the goverment about conducting additional rounds for this year. We have already conducted five rounds of admissions and there are no further requests." said Mahesh Palkar, BMC's Education Officer. This year, a total of 7,449 seats were open for admissions across 334 schools in the city for which the BMC had got over 9,000 applicants, a trend which was observed in the city for the first time in the last four years. However, when it came to confirmations, only 30 per cent (2,798 admissions) were confirmed by the end of fifth round which ended on March 29. "Several students are left out of the RTE process for no fault of theirs. Students have been allotted schools far from their homes due to an issue in the online system that could not read the decimals in kilometer distance. Several other parents did not get allotment letters and SMS despite registering. There should be an extension to ensure that all these children get into schools" said Sudhir Paranjape, activist from the Anudanit Shiksha Bachao Samiti, an NGO working for students from the disadvantaged sections. Several parents and activists from the city had also participated in the statewide protest against the poor implementation of the Act in Pune on March 20. Activists are unhappy about the fact that those left out of the process will now have to waste an entire year. While asked about these issues, Palkar said "We have not received any official complaint from any parent regarding such an issue. We shall forward them to the government if we get it." ...& ANALYSIS Not having an additional round of admissions will mean that over 4,600 seats in schools across the city would remain vacant. Several students who were wrongly allotted schools or who might have missed seeking an admission despite registering are at a risk of remaining out of school for another year. THE NORMS

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