As education dept takes over from schools… State officials Right to Education Saraswati Pimpri-Chinchwad Pune district Even as the state education department has directly involved itself in the verification of applications for 25 per cent admissions under the(RTE) Act quota — an activity they took over from schools just this year — a whopping 350 submissions by parents have already been found to be duplicated, leading to their immediate disqualification.The repetitions were found by education officials in parents’ forms, submitted online via either the official website or mobile app, to garner admission for their children to Nursery and Class I.Meanwhile, activists in the field have also pointed out that this happens due to technical gaffes on the admission portals, which is not the parents’ fault.The Pune division of the state education department had from March 5 this year begun checking admission forms, in an initiative to ensure more effective verification of applications received. It has been cleared at their level that if any double application is found, the forms are not even accepted; at the next level, parents who have attached any fake documents will have action initiated against them.Confirming the same, Pune Zilla Parishad education officer Sunil Kurhade said, “We are working on accepting forms and if replication is seen, the applications are rejected at the first level itself. Further to this, the education department has also announced that it will put in place a verification committee soon, assigned to check all documents attached by parents. In case a fake document is found, admission will definitely be out of the question — moreover, criminal action will also be initiated if needed.”The state government resolution (GR) on the new committee’s formation was issued in February this year. The heterogeneous committee will comprise education officers, a centre head, one principal from a private school and one from a government school, two members of parent-teacher organisations, and two members of a social organisation working in the education field.Till 2018-2019, the admission documents used to be verified by schools. But many of them had asserted that they routinely find loopholes in submissions, which they then had to inform the education department about. They had asserted that if this verification was conducted at the education department, only genuine students would be selected, which would then fulfill the point of the Act, helping more impoverished students get access to education.Besides this, in a well-known case, a legal tussle had also erupted with the Balmohan Vidyamandir in Mumbai, wherein parents had complained that documents were not being verified appropriately by the school, causing problems in admissions. Further, several parents had also been claiming that schools kept asking for extra documents and harassing them, forcing them to express dissatisfaction with the whole system, too.Taking all these factors into consideration, the education department changed the entire process.Kurhade added, “The number of instances of parents trying to refill forms stands at 350 this year, but we cannot comment on whether it was the same last year. Now, with our department becoming more vigilant and making scrutiny more stringent, we are trying level best to stop double applications.”Schools seemed thankful for the shift of responsibility. Jagruti Dharmadhikari, director ofBhuvan School in, said, “We found many parents submitting fake documents like income certificates to get in through the 25 per cent RTE quota. It became tedious for schools to both verify and escalate any complaints. If the state government is taking measures to verify documents at their level, it will be very helpful — but at the same time, the verifications should be genuine. Let us hope for the best — that only needy students should be able to get admissions under RTE.”Interestingly, even as the education department’s verifications get stringent, activists working for RTE admissions believe the duplication might be occurring due to technical problems on the site and app. Education activist Mukund Kirdat said, “Initially, parents who tried applying did not receive confirmation passwords or an appropriate location. Due to this, many tried applying again. This could have led to repetitions. Also, the state government has just announced the committee being appointed for verification. It is yet to be formed. The process of verification of documents should be justified by the committee, and its basis should also be finalised.”In, there are 963 schools that take admissions under the RTE quota, with vacancies standing at around 16,623 as of this academic year. While the last date for applications under RTE is March 30, as of now, 52,835 applications have been uploaded to the website, and 238 to the mobile application, indicating the staggering demand for this quota.

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