– Ronita Torcato

Under the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 (RTE), private schools are mandated to fill 25 percent admission seats with students from economically weaker sections. The fees of these students are reimbursed by the state government.

Maharashtra’s school education department conducts the online RTE admission process for English-medium schools and has fixed the reimbursement rate for 2025–26 at Rs 17,670 per student.

Currently, the state government owes a whopping ₹2,930 crore to private, unaided schools for RTE quota fee reimbursements. These schools have not been reimbursed since 2017.

Though strapped for cash, these schools will not be allowed to charge fees for tuition or school materials, school education minister Dadaji Bhuse told the Legislative Assembly yesterday in response to a suggestion from member Yogesh Sagar.

Bhuse recalled that the government had given clear instructions to all self financed schools in the state in this regard way back on July 1, 2015

Necessary action will be taken by issuing notices to schools which are levying fees. However, there is no plan to close these schools; the pending fee reimbursement of the schools will be done in phases as soon as funds become available, Bhuse said. He did not specify when that would happen.

As things stand, the government has defaulted for over nine years.

The government is also impervious to the fact that as many as 800 schools have already shut down following severe financial crunch. Existing schools have been forced to cut back on facilities and have had difficulty paying staff salaries.

In some schools, as many as 400 students are enrolled under RTE. Costs are borne by the educational institutions themselves, with no support from the government.

Sanjay Tayde Patil, president of the Maharashtra English Schools Association, said that despite repeated requests for reimbursement, schools have received no concrete response from the state administration.

The problem is not confined to Maharashtra. Private colleges in Telangana strongly decried the state government’s failure to reimburse dues. The Federation of Associations of Telangana Higher Institutions (FATHI) also warned of holding a state-wise protest following which the Telangana government released only Rs 357 crore of Rs 12,000 crore reimbursement pending.

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