Students fail,parents allege RTE violation by school

Snehita Shivsagar,another parent,said,¿We complained against a teacher who never used to teach properly. Following this,that teacher refused to check the notebooks of the children whose parents had complained against her. The school is going against the RTE. As per the Act,they are not allowed to fail a student till class VIII. As many as 10 students,out of 40 have been failed by the school. They have failed the students saying they are an ICSE school and only SSC schools are supposed to follow the RTE norms.¿

Principal Bakul Bhosale maintains that whatever is being done is for the greater benefit of the children in a long run. “The intention behind writing ‘failed’ in the marksheets of the students is to make the parents realise that their children lag behind in certain subjects and need to work harder. We are not holding back any of the students in the same class.”

A few parents also alleged the school was running a “tuition business” after the school hours and children were being forced to join the tuition classes. To this,the principal said,“We do organise tuition classes. But that is because many of the parents were sending their wards to teachers’ homes for tuitions. We started this to help students,who are a little weak,improve. However,even this is being misunderstood by parents. If the parents have a problem with this,we will stop it from the coming academic year.”

When contacted,deputy director of education Sunil Magar said,“Even if they (school) are not following the RTE,we cannot do anything as they are CBSE and ICSE schools.”