The Right of Children To Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE) seems to be have been a failure if recent statistics compiled by the state education directorate on the admission of economically weaker sections (EWS) students to private schools in Maharashtra are anything to go by.

A total of 1,17,000 seats in private schools in the state are supposed to be filled under the 25 per cent mandatory quota under RTE. However, only 54,000 (46.15) per cent EWS students were admitted till July end. To ensure these seats are filled the state has proposed the centralised admission procedure (CAP) from next year.