Three years ago, teenager Preeti Kumar was able to join a private school in Delhi thanks to the Right to Education (RTE) Act that made it mandatory for unaided private schools to reserve 25 per cent seats for disadvantaged children like her.
But Preeti is an exception as a new report shows that only 29 per cent children like her benefitted from the law in the last academic year. In numbers that's just 6.1 lakh students though 21 lakh students could have gotten admission.
This report by four organisations, including Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, finds that a majority of states are lagging when it comes to giving admission to socio-economically weaker students.
"I think this 25 per cent provision is important because it recognises that private schools play a very important role. 40 per cent plus children already go to private schools," he added.
Professor Ashish Nanda, Director of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, said, "We should maintain quality while providing access to everybody and we ought to make sure that well-meaning are actually implemented in a way it gives wide ranging access to quality education."
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