Amritsar, February 4
A five-member delegation of the Minority People’s Welfare Organisation, led by Satnam Singh Gill, who is also an RTI activist, met Governor Banwari Lal Purohit to submit a request on the issue of misuse of 25 per cent quota seats for economically weaker section students in recognised private schools.
The quota was ensured under the Right to Education Act and Gill has requested the Governor on the latter’s visit to Amritsar recently to order investigation of recognised private schools for violations.
Gill claimed that private schools in several blocks in the district were violating the provisions to reserve 25 per cent seats for students belonging to EWS category. “To fulfil the objective of providing free quality education to poor children in recognised schools, the state government in 2010 under the Right to Education Act had ordered that all recognised schools across the state were bound to restore 25 per cent of the quota. But the situation is that from the year 2010 to the current year, which amount to 13 years, not a single school has publicly intervened to restore the quota seats,” said Gill.
Organisation’s president Gill also informed the Governor that the Punjab State Child Rights Commission, while intervening, had written a letter to the DPI to constitute a SIT to identify the schools involved in RTE violations. “But till date, the matter has not been taken up by the DPI office,” he said. “An inspection commission should be set up to carry out an investigation and a status report should be sought,” he said.
