This is an archive article published on May 15, 2024

Admission under RTE quota set to start from May 17 in Maharashtra

As many as 9,138 schools are offering 1,02,434 seats for admission under the RTE quota for the academic year 2024-25.

RTE, Right to Education (RTE), RTE quota, Maharashtra admissions, academic year 2024-25, education department, registration process, Bombay High Court, amendment, government schools, private schools, economically backward sections, self-financed schools, reimbursement, fees, original system, private schools, economically backward sections, society, Aurangabad district, Director of School Education, online registration

In February this year, the state government amended the rules of implementation of RTE in Maharashtra. (Representational Photo)

By: Express News Service

2 min readMumbaiMay 16, 2024 08:19 PM IST First published on: May 15, 2024 at 10:52 PM IST

Admissions under the Right to Education (RTE) quota for the academic year 2024-25 are set to restart in Maharashtra from Friday with the education department clarifying that those who had registered for the process earlier will have to start the application process afresh.

Currently, there are a little over one lakh seats available for admission to schools under the RTE category as the Bombay High Court stayed the recent amendment to the RTE rule in Maharashtra, which included government schools for RTE admission and the number of seats increased to 9.5lakh.

In February this year, the state government amended the rules of implementation of RTE in Maharashtra. As per the amended rules, private schools within a one kilometre vicinity of a government or aided school in Maharashtra would not be obligated to provide admission under RTE quota. With diversion of RTE admission to government and aided schools, there were a total of 75,000 schools offering 9.5 lakh seats under the RTE quota.

After the Bombay High Court stayed the amendment, the RTE admission process in Maharashtra has gone back to the original system as per which 25 per cent of seats in self-financed and private schools will have to be reserved under RTE quota for students from economically backward sections of the society with reimbursement of their fees by the government.

Following the stay, there are now only 9,138 schools offering 1,02,434 seats for admission under the RTE quota for the academic year 2024-25. With 573 schools, Aurangabad district has the maximum number of schools with 4,441 seats reserved under the RTE quota.

The already delayed RTE admissions were put on hold this year after the amended rules were challenged in the high court. Close to 70,000 applications were submitted for admission under RTE in Maharashtra when the process first began in April, following the amendment.

Director of School Education (primary) Sharad Gosavi said, “The new admission process will start from Friday and the window for online registration will also be restarted on the day. Parents should note that this is a fresh application process. All those who had registered in the previous system will have to re-register.”