The Tripura government will bear the expenses of 3,000 students from below poverty line (BPL) for studying in private English medium schools of their choice from the next academic year.

Education minister Ratan Lal Nath said here on Saturday: “Children from BPL category cannot afford to study in English medium schools. Therefore, we have decided to support them. As per the Right to Education Act, 2009, schools have to admit 25 per cent of total students from local poor families at entry level. Their fees have also been specified in the act.”

The Right to Education Act, 2009, was implemented in Tripura in 2011 after the state rules were formulated. However, no private school in the state placed demands for reimbursement of fees for poor students admitted till 2019. This indicates that no such student was admitted in these schools, Nath added.

“We wrote to 10 renowned private schools across Agartala and asked them how many students from BPL category study there. They replied that no BPL category student was enrolled in any of these schools. As per statistics, 24,000 students lost their chance to study in these schools owing to lack of government support during the Left Front regime,” he said.

Tripura has 4,398 government and government-aided schools. There are 335 private schools too. According to the U-DISE 2017-18 data, 11,941 students were enrolled in class I in these schools, while nearly 3,000 students should have been admitted from BPL category. Nath assured that his government would ensure admission of 25 per cent students from poor families in each of these schools from the next academic year.

As per the education department’s statistics, the state government spends Rs 21,138 per annum for each student at the primary level (classes I-V). The expenditure is Rs 76,000 for a student at the elementary level (classes VI-VIII).

On June 21, the Tripura government decided to hand over the administration of 20 government schools to the Indian Tribal Care Trust, a wing of International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon), to “ensure quality education”. Nath said “the decision was taken during a cabinet meeting”.