Private institutions are clamouring against the Right to Education Act, first asking for a year's stay on the act and then wanting it abolished altogether, which is what the Karnataka Unaided Schools Management (KUSMA) wants. Unaided minority schools are exempt from the reservation. A list of minority institutions is up on the Department of Public Instruction website and it seems ebveryone now wants to be listed as one.
“Ever since the RTE began, schools have been applying in hordes for the minority status,” says Tushar Girinath, Commissioner, Department of Public Instruction. “We are no longer issuing this to anybody.” They may be exempted from the quota but minority schools will have to comply with the other terms of the RTE, which includes no corporal punishment, no detaining of students till the eighth standard and no background checks on the students they enrol under the RTE. “I am in Ramnagara at the moment and so far, every school has agreed to the terms,” added Mr Girinath. The problem of defiance, he said, exists only in select schools in Bengaluru. "We may be the capital city of Karnataka, but that doesn't mean we should lose the fight for the rest of the State," he added.
KUSMA has raised a hue and cry, saying in a statement that if the RTE is enforced, there will be no choice but to shut their schools down. “If that happens, those students will go somewhere else,” said Kumar Naik, principal secretary, Department of Education, who does not seem unduly concerned by the threat. "How long can we go on responding to these people? It is the law of the land and they must follow it.”
The admission process has been peppered with much confusion, but BEOs have been sent out to schools already to make sure that applications are being handed out. There will be no exemption from the rule unless the school is already a certified minority, which can happen only when the majority of students in a school come from the same minority group the school belongs to. “If you are a minority already, you will be exempt and those who apply should know what the conditions are before they do," Mr Naik emphasised. He added that the management being predominantly from a minority group does not mean the school is a minority institution. The problem is that the qualification for minority status is still a gray area. Mr Naik says this is being sorted out and will be clarified soon. “All schools that do not have the certification must start working on the RTE at once,” he said.