Gandhinagar, May 12 (IANS) The first round of admissions under the Right to Education (RTE) Act in Gujarat has ended with 13,384 seats still vacant in private schools across the state, officials said.

The process, which offers free admission to Class 1 students in private schools under the 25 per cent RTE quota, saw 86,274 seats allotted in the initial round. However, only 80,378 admissions were confirmed by parents by the May 8 deadline, as per official reports.

This year’s RTE drive received a significant response, with 2,38,916 online applications submitted -- marking a noticeable rise from previous years.

Officials attribute this surge to a sharp increase in the income eligibility limit, raised uniformly to Rs 6 lakh for both urban and rural families. Previously, the limit was Rs 1.5 lakh for urban and Rs 1.2 lakh for rural applicants.

The expanded threshold is believed to have added nearly 45,000 more applications to the total pool. Of the total applications, 1,75,685 were approved at the district level after verification.

Meanwhile, 13,761 were rejected, and another 49,470 were cancelled, mainly due to duplication or documentation issues.

The state had notified 93,860 seats across 9,741 private schools under the RTE quota this year. The first round of seat allotments, conducted on April 28, was based on parental preferences, reservation categories, and merit criteria.

However, 7,586 seats were left unallocated simply because no parents had selected those schools. The second round of admissions is expected to begin in the coming days to fill the remaining seats.

Officials are hopeful that the remaining vacancies will be filled in the next phase, as more eligible children are expected to participate.

The Right to Education (RTE) Act in Gujarat provides free admission to children from economically and socially disadvantaged backgrounds in private unaided schools.

As part of the 25 per cent reservation mandated under Section 12(1)(c) of the RTE Act, the Gujarat government facilitates an online centralised admission process every year for admission to Standard 1 in private schools.

--IANS

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