Lucknow: Under the joint aegis of Association of Private Schools, Uttar Pradesh and National Independent Schools Alliance (NISA), representatives of various private school organizations of Uttar Pradesh discussed serious issues such as formation of State School Standards Authority as per Chapter 9 of National Education Policy 2020, determination of fee reimbursement amount under the Right to Education Act, determination of payment and admission process, implementation of School Safety Act and validity of Right to Information Act (RTE) on private schools. On this occasion, some eminent educationists who have rendered important service in the field of education were also honored with ‘Uttar Pradesh Shiksha Ratna Award’.
On this occasion, Director General of Police, Uttar Pradesh, Prashant Kumar, who arrived as a special guest, also assured the private schools of full cooperation of the police department in effectively implementing the School Safety Act. Along with this, Bharat Malik, G.N. War, Shashi, Dr. Ashok Thakur, Vijay Shah, Pradeep Shukla, Dr. Mansoor Hasan Khan, Bijendra Sharma, Om Ji, Rakesh Nandan, Poonam Baranwal, Shashi Bhushan etc. were also present on this occasion.
On this occasion, Dr. Atul Kumar said that our demand from the government is that following Section 12(2) of the Right to Education Act, the fee reimbursement amount should be calculated from the year 2013-2014 to 2023-2024 and accordingly the outstanding fee reimbursement amount of the last 11 years should be paid to the private schools.
The government has been paying only Rs.450/- to the private schools since the year 2013-14, which the government is doing injustice to the private schools by not determining it as per the Act.
President of National Independent Schools Alliance (NISA), Kulbhushan Sharma said that the news of admission of ineligible children on the basis of fake certificates under the Right to Education Act is coming from all over the country, which is quite worrying for both the government and private schools.
In such a situation, private schools should have the right to admit students in their schools only after thoroughly checking the eligibility of the students seeking admission, because on one hand, the school becomes liable for punishment for admitting ineligible children, while on the other hand, the fundamental rights of eligible children are violated due to their rights being taken away, which is against the Constitution.