Fee structure panel mooted for RTE Reserved

PUDUCHERRY: The dream of sending their wards to the best of schools might soon come true for economically weaker families in the Union Territory. In a much awaited move, the School Education Department, on Saturday, decided to constitute a committee to fix the fee to be charged from students of the deprived communities, who will be admitted to private schools under the mandatory 25 per cent reservation in the Right to Education Act. Sources in the school education department said that with the Territorial Government notifying the Right to Education Act in November, it had now become mandatory for schools to provide 25 per cent reservation to the economically weaker and deprived families at the entry-level classes under the “neighbourhood schools” concept.However, it had come to the notice of the department that the fee charged by certain private schools was beyond the reach of such economically weaker families. Therefore, in order to ensure that fee structure did not act as an impediment in implementing the 25 per cent reservation, the department decided to regulate the fee structure for this category of students in private schools.The official said this regulation would not apply to the remaining 75 per cent of students in the private schools.On the composition of the committee, he said that the department was in touch with the constituents of the Centralised Admission Committee (CENTAC), which oversees the engineering and medical seats counselling in the UT. “We are analysing if we can have the same committee for ascertaining the fee structure as well,” said the official source and added that the process of forming the committee would be completed within the next fortnight.