RTE third round lottery today

MUMBAI: Over two months after schools reopened, the much-delayed third lottery for admissions under the Right to Education (RTE) Act will be held on Wednesday. The second round was held on July 4. The education department has cleared the pending admissions of the second round to conduct the lottery for the third round of Right to Education (RTE) admissions. While 105 admissions were pending, an official communication was made to keep these pending admissions aside and proceed to the third round.The department had come under pressure from various quarters including parents and local representatives to conduct the third round, the letter said. These admissions were pending since schools refused to give admissions.The number of children denied admissions is believed to be higher than 105.To avoid the system showing these cases as pending, they had been put in the ‘not approached’ category. Ten CBSE and IGCSE schools had been named in the letter which said that these schools, in spite of several notices had not yielded, hence delaying the process.Though many state board schools had also refused admissions, they got away using political influence. In the second round, 1,618 children had been allocated seats. Of these only 373 secured admissions. Many children were shown as ‘not approached’. Totally, in the first and second rounds put together only over 2,414 admissions have taken place. There had been over 6,400 applications for RTE admissions this year in the city.