GUWAHATI: The Gauhati High Court issued a directive to the private schools in the state regarding the admission of students coming from families belonging to the economically weaker section (EWS) of the society, on June 1, as per reports.
In a strict directive to the Assam Education Department, the Gauhati High Court asked it to come up with a Central Portal wherein as per the directive, the education department will have to prepare the portal ahead of the upcoming academic year. Moreover, private schools in the state will have to provide details of admissions for EWS candidates on their portals, reports stated.
Subsequently, the high court also directed the education department to file an affidavit regarding the setting up of the Central Portal. It may be noted that as many as 22 Indian states have created a Central Portal after a direction from the Supreme Court of India, as per reports. The Supreme Court’s directive was issued in 2022. However, the Central Portal has not been made functional in Assam yet.
Following the intervention from the court, private schools will now have to mandatorily admit students belonging to the EWS section as stated under the Right to Education. Earlier, in March this year, the Gauhati High Court had directed the private educational institutions to reserve 25 per cent of seats for EWS students. According to media sources, the high court issued a few important directives on the education system of the state, which was issued while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL). The directive will come into force in 2023, as per official reports.
The court also asked the Education Department to take relevant action on this directive and to inspect the schools if they are implementing and reserving seats for EWS category students. It had further directed to publish advertisements regarding the reservation for the EWS category in schools by March 14.
Meanwhile, the court has set the next date of hearing as June 13 for this case.
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