Ex-bureaucrats write to CM, seek transparency in EWS admissions

High court recently directed unaided private schools to reserve 25% seats for EWS category

- Navneet Sharma

CHANDIGARH: Days after the Punjab and Haryana high court directed the unaided private schools to reserve 25% seats for children belonging to the economically weaker section (EWS), social activists have urged the Punjab government to put in place a transparent system, including draw of lots, appointment of a nodal authority and centralised admission monitoring, to implement the provisions of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, as time was running out.

Social activists Jagmohan Singh Raju and Onkar Nath, both former bureaucrats who had moved the high court against the restrictive state guidelines, have written to chief minister Bhagwant Mann and senior government officials to issue comprehensive guidelines on the lines of the Delhi government to streamline the process of admissions in private unaided schools. Without a clear and transparent admission procedure in place, the desired objective of the high court's order would never be achieved, they wrote.