Oct 13 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)
by Shreya Roy Chowdhury
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New Delhi:
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The south district branch of the Directorate of Education probably didn’t know it had complaints at all till a RTI query arrived. Replies to a RTI, filed by NGO Pardarshita on July 15 on the newly-established grievance redress mechanism, show the school district received eight complaints—five of them admission-related—over April May. They addressed none and said, “Since the link (to complaints) was not working the contents of the complaints could not be seen.” This didn’t bother them till July 30—nearly two months after the last complaint was filed—when they wrote to headquarters about it.Pardarshita sought data on the number and nature of complaints filed over April-June and the orders from the District Deputy Directors of Education (DDEs)—the “local authority” to whom complaints are ad dressed—to test how well the system is functioning. Not too well, they’ve found.
Five of eight cases with south district had been admission-related, which, the new guideline asks officials to “endeavour” to resolve in 15 days. “Then the act says the “the local authority shall decide the matter within a period of three moths after affording a reasonable opportunity of being heard to the parties concerned” but we couldn’t find a single instance where anyone was called for a hearing,” says Rajiv Kumar of Pardarshita.
The DDEs weren’t exactly swamped. Just 67 complaints were filed over three months.
The majority of complaints were registered against schools in east and south west B districts (12 each), north west B (10), north east (nine) and south (eight). The count of complaints is under five in the remaining eight school districts. Despite the low burden, the response isn’t satisfactory.
Five of eight cases with south district had been admission-related, which, the new guideline asks officials to “endeavour” to resolve in 15 days. “Then the act says the “the local authority shall decide the matter within a period of three moths after affording a reasonable opportunity of being heard to the parties concerned” but we couldn’t find a single instance where anyone was called for a hearing,” says Rajiv Kumar of Pardarshita.
The DDEs weren’t exactly swamped. Just 67 complaints were filed over three months.
The majority of complaints were registered against schools in east and south west B districts (12 each), north west B (10), north east (nine) and south (eight). The count of complaints is under five in the remaining eight school districts. Despite the low burden, the response isn’t satisfactory.
