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  54,000 ‘ghost students’ get promoted each year

54,000 ‘ghost students’ get promoted each year

AGE CORRESPONDENT
Published : Oct 24, 2016, 1:57 am IST
Updated : Oct 24, 2016, 1:57 am IST

It has come to light that there are over 54,000 ‘ghost students’ in schools run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), who have been absentee students for the past six years.

It has come to light that there are over 54,000 ‘ghost students’ in schools run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), who have been absentee students for the past six years. Despite this, these students are being promoted to senior classes year after year, thanks to 2009’s Right to Education act (RTE). This data is based on an independent survey by BJP corporator Shivnath Darade, who happens to be the education committee, BMC member.

According to the RTE, students cannot be taken off the attendance rolls, expelled from school, or even failed, if they under-perform. However, the RTE is silent on what to do with students who remain absent from school throughout the year. Such students, therefore, get promoted year after year, even though they are marked absent each day.

Mr Darade presented the statistics of his survey before the education committee recently. Grasping the gravity of the issue, members unanimously decided to take up the issue with mayor Snehal Ambekar. Mr Darade has written to the mayor, asking her to ‘find’ these students.

Mr Darade said, “This is due to a loophole in the RTE, which does not give schools any direction on what to do regarding absentee students. Principals of respective schools cannot go looking for students, so they keep promoting them on paper, in accordance with the Act.”

Citing an example, Mr Darade’s letter points out that the Deonar Colony Urdu medium school has a total of 2,250 students, of which 750 students have been permanently absent. However, when The Asian Age spoke to school authorities, who did not wish to be named, they said, “We assume they have shifted homes and enrolled in another school, or have changed cities.” Meanwhile, Mr Darade pointed out that such instances couldn’t be possible without the school-leaving certificate from the old school.

Despite several attempts to reach Ms Ambekar, additional municipal commissioner I. Kundan, deputy municipal commissioner Milin Sawant and education department head Mahesh Palkar, they remained unavailable for comment.