The Bill promises free and compulsory education to all children between the ages of 6 and 14. As per the Bill, all unaided schools should reserve 25 per cent of their seats children from economically weaker sections. But objecting to the norm, some schools contend that this will create additional financial burden that might turn into a bigger crisis unless the government steps in to reimburse their fees or sanctions more land to these schools for building additional infrastructure to run extra sections.

This will help schools generate additional funds required to meet the responsibility, S K Bhattacharya, president of the Action Committee of Unaided Recognised Private Schools, said.

The action committee represents around 1,900 private unaided schools in the region. “We need to increase the roll strength, or else the 75 per cent fee-paying parents will have to bear the additional costs,” he said. “An additional 25 percent of students would also mean more teaching staff and more infrastructure. This will present new challenges.”

Most schools in Delhi are run on land allotted by the DDA or the MCD, so they are eligible only for a limited reimbursement as per lease agreement, Bhattacharya said.

Education Minister A S Lovely said, “It is too early to say whether we will grant building permits to schools. We have their financial accounts and we know which school stands where. We are not asking schools to increase seats but implement the quota in limited number of seats they already have.”

The EWS quota in the city’s private schools is around 15 percent at present. Some schools spend as much as Rs 4,000 on each child per month, school principals said.

Need reimbursement: schools

National Progressive Schools Conference chairman S L Jain said, “We spend around Rs 2,000 on (education of) each child. The government pays us only a nominal amount of this as reimbursement; that does not cover all expenses. Our classrooms are already saturated.”

Jain said schools under his umbrella organisation welcome the initiative of providing seats for economically weaker students but “rules need to be framed”.

Jain said schools might protest some of the clauses if they have not been resolved in the Parliament. Schools cannot construct additional sections without licence from the government.

Some experts, meanwhile, criticise the schools for making such demands. Uma Nair, art critic and a teacher, said schools must show results before asking the government to provide land at concessional rates. “They should first work with what they have, show results and then ask for more land,” Nair said. “Where can the government get more land? It is impractical.

“Education must involve and embrace all children — we have to look at reducing the gap between the rich and the poor.”

Jain said the Right to Education Bill also makes it a school’s responsibility to provide specially designed courses to make children of migrant workers cope with curriculum demands. For this, too, “we will ask the Education minister for reimbursements,” Jain said.

Grey areas

Among issues overlooked by the Right to Education Bill is that of disabled students — Education Secretary Rina Ray said the provision for alternative arrangements for disabled children remains undefined. While the Bill is due for debate in Parliament, views of teachers, students, NGOs and the general public should have been taken, she said. “This should have been more adequately addressed.”