Private schools not in favour of taking EWS students: Report

As per the 22-page report of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights(NCPCR) accessed by Millennium Post, principals and schools find that EWS students are more prone to initiating a fight with other children or stealing stationary items such as pencil box or pen. "Abusive language and misbehavior by EWS category students more difficult to solve due to wrong precedents set in the home environment," claimed the report.

The section mandates 25 percent reservation for children from economically and socially disadvantaged sections in private unaided schools. The child rights body further claimed that some schools and principals were having an opinion that Disadvantaged Sections (DG) and EWS category students are slow learners or find English language difficult to follow and therefore find it difficult to concentrate in studies in the class. Few principals have complained about the false Income and Caste Certificate produced by the parents of EWS students.

"To get an understanding of the trends of compliance in Delhi with regards to the RTE Section 12 (1) (c), an analysis of the admission data of more than 1100 schools in National Capital was done," said NCPCR official. Based on the data submitted by the school, analysis of the overall compliance of RTE in Delhi witnessed increasing trend every year, but the rate of admission witnessed no increase from 2015-16 to 2016-17.

The commission also investigated the average shortfall from the target of 25 percent EWS category admissions as per RTE across various regions of Delhi for the year 2016-17 at entry level class only. As per the analysis, South Delhi has the lowest shortfall with average 3 percent while North East Delhi has an alarming shortfall of 14 percent. The commission further claimed that out of the 1145 schools, 67.7 percent schools have a shortfall regarding admissions of around 0-11 percent, 16.5 percent schools have a shortfall of 11-19 percent and 15.8 percent have a shortfall of 24 to 25 percent.

Priyank Kanoongo, NCPCR member, claimed that based on the data submitted by schools analyzed year-wise dropout rates of 650 schools across Delhi in the initial phase in 2011, the dropout rate was at around 26 per cent which has come down to 10 per cent in 2014 but shows no major progress after that. "Parents have complained that cost of books and extra curricular activity is too high and the reimbursement amount is not enough," said Kanoongo.

Lack of monitoring from concerned bodies are responsible for the shortfall of admission in the school, claimed the child rights body.