Any citizen of India, NGO can use RTI to access the following details:

Copying a few paragraphs from the write up by Vinita Deshmukh, she is the consulting editor of Moneylife, an RTI activist and convener of the Pune Metro Jagruti Abhiyaan. She is the recipient of prestigious awards like the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting which she won twice in 1998 and 2005 and the Chameli Devi Jain award for outstanding media person for her investigation series on Dow Chemicals. She co-authored the book “To The Last Bullet – The Inspiring Story of A Braveheart – Ashok Kamte” with Vinita Kamte. She can be reached at [email protected]

Para 1

Accordingly, Mr Sharma and his colleague Aheli Chowdhury sent an official complaint to CIC Shailesh Gandhi on 8 June 2011 requesting him that citizens be allowed inspection in schools of the following documents that come under suo moto disclosure of Section 4 of the RTI Act:
Admission records
Students’ attendance records
Teachers’ attendance records
Budget allocations, sanction issued and expenditure incurred
Expenditure on educational tours, mid-day meals, VKS/SMC, sanitation, and CEP
records of disbursements made to students on account of scholarships, uniforms, books, and all other incentives given under any scheme
Copies of circulars/notifications/orders received from the Directorate of Education & other departments/authorities from time to time
Various registers like inspection register, visitor register, movement register

They also stated in their complaint, that, “as the education department and the Government of Delhi runs and maintain a large number of schools in the city, they should have all the mandated information mentioned in Section 4, in hard copy at the school premise for the benefit of the beneficiary community. This will be of immense help for them in ensuring transparency and accountability of the functioning of schools.”

So, Mr Sharma knocked the doors of CIC Annapurna Dixit against the order of the additional director of education (schools) which came under her jurisdiction.  He sought the inclusion of the words “inspection of infrastructural facilities” to be brought under the ambit of school inspection. On 11 March 2012, Ms Dixit gave the following order: “I therefore am reasonably certain that right to inspect the work being undertaken/completed by schools (i.e. infrastructural facilities provided by schools including  water and sanitation facilities, boundary wall, classrooms and teaching facilities within the classrooms and  mid-day meals, (the inspection of which is required to verify that the facilities do exist) and that they adhere to the prescribed such inspection should be allowed to common citizens. 

 Para 2

“Be that as it may, it is felt that such physical verification of infrastructural facilities is definitely required to be undertaken in the larger interest of school-going children.

“I therefore direct the Directorate of Education to quash the earlier circular and to issue a fresh circular clearly giving lists of both records and the physical facilities which can be inspected by any citizen under RTI as also the dates/timings when such inspections can be carried out. The information seeker shall, however, not be free to question the school authorities about inconsistency/infirmities/inadequacies, if any, found in the inspected records or work, at the time of inspection. For this, the information seeker may approach the public authority for information while following the due course of law.”

These trend-setting CIC decisions have a direct impact to government and government-aided schools in every corner of India, which have to be accountable and transparent. It also gives fillip to organisations like the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) to ensure that schools function as per the stringent RTE norms.

To get information from CBSE schools as per RTI click here

The link for the full article is here from Moneylife.in

To read about RTI and schools click here

To read about RTI and CIC click here

To download the PDF of Private Schools to provide information through DEO click here Private Schools to provide information through DEO