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Verdict
on student quota: Government welcomes, schools not too happy
Friday April 13, 2012 10:23:13 AM,
IANS
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New Delhi: The
Supreme Court upholding the constitutional validity of the right
to education act and mandating that unaided private schools keep
25 percent seats for students from economically and socially
weaker sections has been welcomed by the government, but schools
have expressed their reservations over the verdict.
The apex court court made it clear that the quota would not be
applicable to unaided minority institutions.
An apex court bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justice
Swatanter Kumar upheld the constitutional validity of Section 12
1C of the right to education act that provides 25 percent
reservation for students from the weaker sections of society.
"I thank the Supreme Court which has given direction to be
followed by the government. The policies under the act should be
child centric and not institution centric... Big schools can
surely take this burden," Human Resource Development Minister
Kapil Sibal told reporters Thursday, welcoming the verdict.
Holding the same view, National Commission for Protection of Child
Rights chairperson Shanta Sinha said: "It is a historic judgment.
I think it is good for all children, rich or poor. I think it is
good for the poor as disparities between them and other children
will be bridged and there will be greater sharing of culture,
values and constitutional values of equality and justice in
schools."
The court said the judgment will come into force from Thursday
itself, but the admissions already made will not be disturbed.
The Supreme Court was giving its verdict on a batch of petitions
challenging the constitutional validity of the RTE law that
requires private schools to earmark 25 percent seats for poorer
students.
Some private schools in the capital expressed reservations over
the verdict saying that the government wants to "abdicate its
responsibility".
"It seems that the government wants to abdicate its responsibility
and pass the buck to private schools. The government does not want
to give us subsidies, and then it wants private schools to reserve
25 percent seats for poor children," the principal of Tagore
International School, Madhulika Sen, told IANS.
"Why are government schools not up to the mark? The RTE act is
good in spirit but flawed in implementation," Sen said.
The principal of Springdales School, Ameeta Wattal, said that
there is need for holistic approach for streamlining education in
the country.
"The government needs to improve the infrastructure of government
schools and should not think that the onus of education of
students is only on private schools," Wattal told IANS.
Ambarish Rai, convener of RTE Forum, said in a statement : "We
welcome this decision as a step towards bringing in greater
equality of opportunity for all children in India."
A batch of petitions by the Society for Unaided Private Schools,
Independent Schools Federation of India and others had contested
the provision in the law under which they had to reserve 25
percent seats for economically weaker sections in their schools.
The schools contended that the reservation for children from
vulnerable sections of society violated their right to run
educational institutions without the state's interference.
The schools' contention that reserving seats for poor students
would drain their resources was contested by the government.
Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan, in a dissenting judgment, held that
the mandate under RTE providing for reservation of seats was not
constitutionally valid, thus none of the unaided schools, be it
majority or minority, could be compelled to earmark 25 percent
seats in their institutions for weaker sections.
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