Ahmedabad: The Gujarat education department has reserved 43,896 seats in private schools for Class 1 admissions under the Right to Education Act 2009 for the academic year 2024-25. The registration period starts on March 14, with the deadline on March 26.

This is a decrease from the 82,853 seats reserved last year, attributed to an age criteria adjustment requiring students to be 6 years old instead of 5.

Application scrutiny begins on March 28, with a correction window from April 1 to April 3. The first round of admissions starts on April 6. Parents must choose schools within a 6km radius, with the department providing a Google map of eligible private schools.

Under the RTE Act, private primary schools must allocate 25% of their seats to financially disadvantaged students. Eligibility criteria include parents with an annual income not exceeding Rs 1.5 lakh in urban areas and Rs 1.25 lakh in rural areas. In the previous year, the RTE admission procedure took place for 82,853 seats in 9,873 schools within the state, resulting in the allocation of admission to 52,365 students. DeshGujarat