A Class VI student admitted to a private school in Delhi under the economically weaker section quota was told that she had failed and could continue studying only by paying a Rs 2,700 monthly fee. This is a flagrant violation of the Right to Education Act, which guarantees students like her free education till Class VIII and no failure in Class VI. Unfortunately, this case is not an aberration. In 2018-19, nearly 13,000 of 48,122 EWS seats in Delhi’s private schools were vacant, while 74 private schools admitted not a single EWS child in two academic sessions. More than 450 schools across Madhya Pradesh have been flagged for falsifying seat data to reduce admissions under the EWS quota. And Punjab began implementing the EWS quota in private schools from this year’s academic session — nearly a decade after the EWS quota came into effect. The government is as much to blame as schools for this infraction. Maharashtra has over Rs 2,000 crore pending in reimbursements to private schools, a major reason for their resistance to accepting EWS students. Such violations are glaring omissions given that the Supreme Court has made it clear that the implementation of Section
12(1)(c) of the RTE Act — mandating the reservation of 25% seats in private, non-minority schools for EWS children — is central to the constitutional vision of equality and cannot be treated as a peripheral welfare measure. A parliamentary standing committee, too, has expressed concern at the scale of these violations and recommended that penal action be taken against errant schools.
The damage caused by these violations is far-reaching. A study of EWS students in a Delhi private school found that half of the interviewed children said they were uncomfortable in mixed classrooms, most socialised only with other EWS students, and many felt judged, inferior, and reluctant to ask questions in class. The exclusion feeds directly into poor learning outcomes, which bedevil students from other categories too. Annual Status of Education Report data show that 25% of Indian youth aged 14-18 cannot fluently read a Class II-level text in their regional languages, and only 43.3% can solve basic division problems expected by Class III or IV. When EWS children are informally charged fees, segregated, or pushed out after failure, the RTE Act’s promise is belied. States must frame binding rules, publish transparent seat declarations, create local grievance redress systems, and impose swift penalties on schools demanding illegal fees or forcing silent exits. Without that, the constitutional promise of education remains selective rather than universal.