25% reservation in private schools

Section 12 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 (the Act) has made it compulsory for every private unaided school to admit at least 25% of its entry level class from children belonging to weaker and disadvantaged groups. For this category of students the state government shall reimburse schools an amount equal to either the fees charged by the school or the per child expenditure in state schools, whichever is lower. In a recent Supreme Court of India’s verdict dated, 13 April 2012, a bench comprising Chief Justice SH Kapadia and justices KS Radhakrishnan and Swantanter Kumar, upheld the validity of the Section 12. The bench said that 25 percent reservation for students from weaker sections of society would apply uniformly to all government and unaided private schools except unaided private minority schools and boarding schools. Center for civil society is following and engaging with the provision of section 12 very closely and in this section, readers can find useful resources, models debates, and counter debates on different nuances of the implementation of 25% reservation in private schools. Resources: 1) Model for implementation of 25% reservation in unaided private schools: A Center for Civil Society publication, New Delhi “Through this document the Centre for Civil Society seeks to highlight the lacunae in the current framework for 25% reservation for weaker and disadvantaged groups in unaided private schools and to provide inputs on effective implementation of the same. In the first section, we have examined the Model Rules (the Rules) with reference to the 25% reservation. In the second section, we have proposed a model for effective implementation of this provision.