Nishant Yadav’s NGO Gunjan Foundation Pleads Lucknow’s Private Schools To Admit Unprivileged Children

Each year, about 20 lakh seats in private schools in India are allotted to children from the economically weaker sections (EWS), yet barely 20% of them get filled.

Nishant Yadav, Founder, of Gunjan Foundation and a social activist from Lucknow, is working hard to ensure that underprivileged children receive a good quality education. His NGO has drafted more than 50 application letters to various schools in the city since last week, but it appears that many of them are not convinced by his humanitarian cause.

Post lockdown this year, Gunjan Foundation reached poor families in the city and prepared data revealing the number of young children not enrolled in schools. There are a number of causes for poor admissions in the EWS category, ranging from private schools refusing to admit students to parents who are unaware of the RTE initiative.

"The social stigma is a major issue that prevents EWS children from enrolling in private schools. Many schools refuse to admit children from low-income families, fearing that they will not be able to fit in with the rest of the students," said Nishant Yadav, Founder, Gunjan Foundation.

"The RTE Act initiated in 2009 feliciated all EWS children aged six to fourteen receive free and compulsory elementary education in a neighbourhood school. However, one of the main causes of a low fill rate is a lack of school engagement in the programme," he added further.

Apart from this, another concern is that Schools are supposed to get reimbursed for books, fees, and uniforms by the state government. But, every year during admissions, the issue of non-reimbursement of RTE funds to private schools-assured by the RTE Act-resurfaces. Private schools have been demanding compensation from the state government for overdue RTE reimbursement and have been refusing RTE admissions due to a lack of funds.