What the law says

Section 12(1)(c) of the Right to Education Act, 2009 requires every unaided private school in India to admit at least 25% of its Class 1 (or pre-primary, depending on the school) intake from children belonging to "Economically Weaker Sections" (EWS) and "Disadvantaged Groups" (DG). The state government reimburses the school per child up to the per-child cost in nearby government schools.

Eligibility — Delhi

  • EWS: household income below ₹1 lakh annually (Delhi threshold; varies by state).
  • DG: SC, ST, OBC, children with disabilities, transgender children, orphan children.
  • The child must reside within a 1-3 km radius of the school (varies by school's published policy).

The Delhi process

Applications go through the Directorate of Education's centralised lottery, not the school directly. Parents register with the DoE, list up to 5 preferred schools within their distance band, and the DoE allocates seats by lottery once applications close.

The lottery is held publicly and the results are published online — both the school's selected list and the waitlist.

Three things parents in this category should know

  1. The 25% covers Class 1 (or pre-primary). Mid-cycle EWS admissions to Class 5 or Class 8 are not part of the standard process. The 25% is locked in at the entry class.
  2. The reimbursement is below market. The state pays schools the per-child cost in government schools (about ₹40,000-50,000/year in Delhi). Schools whose own per-child cost is much higher absorb the difference. This sometimes shows up as quiet under-investment in EWS-cohort facilities — bus access, lunch, uniform — even though the law requires equal treatment.
  3. You cannot apply to both EWS and the open category at the same school. The DoE enforces this — a child registered as EWS is removed from the open-category lottery for that school.

What the rule does well

Where it works (and it does in many Delhi schools), EWS admissions create genuinely mixed cohorts that change the experience for both EWS children and their open-category peers. The longitudinal data on EWS-cohort outcomes through Class 12 is encouraging: completion rates, board-exam grades, and university acceptance are competitive with the open-category cohort at the same school.

What the rule does not do

It does not solve school access for Classes 6, 9, or 11 (the lateral-entry years). It does not cover non-tuition costs reliably (uniform, books, transport are technically supposed to be covered but often are not). And it does not extend to schools below the unaided-private threshold — government and aided schools follow different rules.