Mumbai, Aug 9: Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray today urged the Union government to bring pre-primary admissions under the purview of the Right To Education (RTE) Act. The Sena leader today met Union ministers Nitin Gadkari and Harsh Vardhan in Delhi over a range of issues. In a letter addressed to Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, Thackeray demanded that the pre-primary admissions be brought under the purview of the RTE, as young parents find it daunting to pay donations for their wards.

"The little child and parents are interviewed for admissions. The child is expected to know poems and parents are expected to have a certain educational or economic status. Such pre-conditions prevent many families from attaining the quality education in our country," he stated.

"There should be a law that covers the pre-Primary education and should include minimum quality and safety norms each pre-primary school needs to have," Thackeray demanded. Referring to rising incidents of sexual assaults on young girls, the Thackeray scion urged Javadekar to make it mandatory in all the schools across the country to teach all kids from standard fifth the meaning of "right and wrong touches".

He demanded that pre-primary schools should have a common syllabus. Thackeray also demanded that all schools should have a lesson on gender sensitivity and on treating each other as equal. Further, he demanded that girls of class 8, 9 and 10 be taught self-defence in schools compulsorily. Thackeray requested Harsh Vardhan to take steps to curb plastic pollution and ban the production, possession and sale of single-use disposable plastic by 2019.

He requested Gadkari to install solar panels on both outer sides of highways which will act as barriers for grazing animals as well as generate electricity.

The Yuva Sena chief also recommended that rain water harvesting system running alongside the roads or median which could help government harvest large amounts of fresh rain water for agricultural purposes.