COIMBATORE: A day after the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act), private schools in Tamil Nadu have decided to invoke their Right to Appeal against the judgment.“We will approach the Supreme Court to constitute a larger bench and review the judgment. Our lawyers suggested that we have a case for review,” Tamil Nadu Private Schools Association president R Visalakshi said on Friday. Arguing that government elementary schools, “which are functioning in every nook and corner”, can cater to the educational needs of poor students, Visalakshi said there was no need to enforce the RTE Act on private unaided schools in TN. “If all unaided private schools are brought under the purview of RTE, then parents will choose to enrol their kids only in the private schools. This will affect admissions in government schools; and, the government will incur additional expenditure to reimburse the fees,” she added.The association was also awaiting details of the apex court judgment to determine if only unaided religious minority schools were exempted from the RTE Act or even linguistic minority institutions would enjoy the privilege. “Minority-administered schools do not do more than what non-minority schools do. So, the exemption given to the minority schools should be extended to non-minority schools as well,” Visalakshi said.Striking a different note, Tamil Nadu Private CBSE Schools Managements Association president S Namachivayam said majority of the CBSE schools had begun reserving 25 per cent of seats for poor students after the State government held meetings with the association.“Private CBSE schools want to help poor students. Our only request is that the reimbursed amount is increased,” he said. K Navamani, principal of Coimbatore-based Angappa CBSE Senior Secondary School, however hinted that schools would not be in a position to implement the RTE Act in the coming academic year as admissions are complete.
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