Change in rules for age will push many students out of RTE

BENGALURU: Many parents were in for a shock on Tuesday when applications for their children's admission to Class 1 were rejected by the education department's website. The children, admitted under the Right To Education (RTE) Act when the age criteria was a few months lower, have finished UKG, but now find themselves without a chance to get to the next class.In 2014-15, the rules set the age for admission to LKG under the RTE quota between 3.5 and 4.5 years, and for Class 1 between 5.5 and 6.5 years. As per the new guidelines for the 2016-17 academic year, a child must be aged 3.10 years for LKG and 5.10 years for Class 1 as on June 1, 2016.So, thousands of students admitted under the previous rules who will not be 5.10 years on June 1 will not be admitted to Class 1. Parents say there is no hope as the website rejects those who are younger than the stipulated age.Uma B, a maid from Yelahanka, said, "My son is in UKG now and will be 5.8 years old by June 1. The school has told us that they cannot admit him to Class 1 this year, but we tried filling the application form online. The website rejected our application on Tuesday."A senior officer in the education department admitted to the blunder. "Give us some time. We will see how best we can rectify it. I will have to discuss it with the RTE consultants," he said.More than 30,000 students are in UKG under RTE quota in the state. Some parents did not know that the government had amended the rules. Mahesh M, an autorickshaw driver from Whitefield, said his daughter is in UKG in a private school under the RTE quota. "An activist told me that the education department has changed the RTE admission criteria. If they don't admit our children, we will protest," he said.The state government has messed up while framing new RTE guidelines admissions and has created more problems. Last year (2015-16), the age criteria for admission to LKG was changed to 3 to 4.6 years and between 5 and 6.6 years for Class 1. Not only are the existing RTE UKG students suffering, but those who joined LKG last year will also be in trouble because many of them will not meet the age criteria for admissions to Class 1 in 2017-18.QUOTEToday, the RTE Task Force received more than 600 calls regarding the age for admission to Class 1. The education department seems to have intentionally changed the age criteria to keep existing LKG and UKG students out of RTE to save on the reimbursement of fees. We will stage a protest. - Nagasimha G Rao, convenor, RTE Task ForceYear-wise statistics of RTE seatsYear-LKG--Class 12012-13-5,656- 43,6262013-14 - 24,244 - 48,8642014-15 - 40,501 - 53,1892015-16 - 49,429 - 50,638(Source: DPI)