ON June 11, hundreds of students across Tamilnadu staged protest actions in front of district educational offices demanding proper implementation of the Right to Education Act (RTE Act) in the state. The Students Federation of India organised these actions. While the academic year 2014-15 has started, one sees the utter commercialisation of education making its way in the state without any hurdles. This year, private players in the field of school education in particular openly challenged the constitution of India which ensures the right to education. On My 6, the Tamilnadu Nursery, Primary, Matriculation and Higher Secondary Schools Association announced that their schools would not admit any students under the 25 percent quota mandated by the Right to Education Act 2009. They cited the reason that the school education department had not paid the reimbursement of fee for admissions made in the last two years. The association claimed to have around 10,000 schools as members. As per the act, the government has to reimburse the schools for the admissions made. In Tamilnadu, the amount to be reimbursed is either the fee fixed by the government appointed private fee determination committee for the school or the amount spent by the government per child, whichever is lesser. But officials of the school education department have said that the private schools would get the amount in three to four months and that they should not refrain from issuing admission forms under the RTE Act. Criticising the stand of the private schools, the SFI asked the state government to allot funds for implementation of the RTE Act in the state. It also demanded cancellation of the recognition of such private schools as refuse to implement the 25 percent reservation for the weaker sections of society. Further, the SFI noted that the private schools in the state are not ready to implement the act even if they are reimbursed and, also, they are indulging in a loot of the parents and students by collecting abnormal fees as against the norms fixed by the government. In this background, the SFI’s Tamilnadu state committee organised a seminar on “Challenges in the Field of School Education,” at Chennai on June 7. This seminar gave a call to protest for the implementation of the RTE Act. It was in response to this call that on June 11 hundreds of activists and students organised protest actions in front of the district education offices across the state, under the banner of the SFI. SFI state secretary J Rajmohan led the protest at Chennai and SFI state president P Uchi Makali led it at Coimbatore. Numerous places in Madurai, Thanjavur, Virudhunagar, Nagapattinam, Thiruvarur, Villupuram, Krishnagiri, Cuddalore, Tiruppur, Karur and Ariyalur districts also witnessed protest actions. Almost in all these places the police brutally manhandled the students and arrested them. The SFI leadership in Tamilnadu condemned the rough action of the police. The organisation vowed to continue the students’ struggle against the raj of private players in the education sector. The next action programme of the SFI is to organise a statewide strike in schools on June 18.