The Gauhati High Court on Thursday issued a directive to private schools in the state regarding the admission of students coming from families belonging to the economically weaker section (EWS) of the society.
In a stern directive to the state education department, the Gauhati High Court asked it to come up with a Central Portal. According to 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 own portals. 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. The Supreme Court’s directive was issued in 2022 itself. However, the Central Portal has not been made functional in Assam yet.
Meanwhile, the court has set June 13 as the next date for hearing in the case. Following the intervention from the court, private schools will now have to mandatorily admit students belonging to EWS section as stated under the Right to Education.
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 sources, the high court issued few important directives on the education system of the state.
The directive was issued while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL). The court directed private institutions to provide free education to EWS students for whom 25 per cent will be reserved.
The directive will come into force from 2023 itself. The court 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 advertisement in regard to the reservation for EWS category in schools by March 14.
Last year, the Assam government had decided to cut down on its reservation for the EWS in state government jobs during a session of the Assam Legislative Assembly. The state government had decided to do away with the 10 per cent reservation for EWS category in state government jobs, drawing flak from the opposition.
It may be noted that this decision of the government was against the verdict of the Supreme Court of India. Moreover, this meant a trackback of the decision taken in this regard during the Sarbananda Sonowal led government in Assam.
