Chandigarh, Jan. 16 -- Over 1,500 private unaided schools have registered on the online portal of the Punjab government to begin the admission process for children from weaker and disadvantaged groups for the 2026-27 session under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009. The school education department last week issued written directions to all private unaided schools to mandatorily register on the school registration portal and furnish details such as the number of seats in entry class, annual tuition fee, school category (girls/boys/co-educational), medium of instruction, education level, and registration certificate number and year. The RTE Act's Section 12(1)(c) mandates that private schools which do not receive any kind of government aid must reserve at least 25% of seats in entry-level classes for children belonging to weaker and disadvantaged sections. According to the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) report for 2024-25, Punjab has a total of 7,589 private unaided schools. "So far, around 1,500 private schools have registered on the portal. The remaining schools have time till January 19 to complete their registration," officials monitoring the progress said. The order issued by director school education (secondary) Gurinder Singh Sodhi on January 6 to all the district education officers, block primary education officers, and private schools stated that the portal would facilitate the online registration of eligible private unaided schools for admission of children belonging to disadvantaged and weaker sections. The department had initially directed all eligible schools to complete their registration by January 12. The deadline was later extended by a week. On August 14 last year, the school education department had issued the standard operating procedure (SOP) for the implementation of the RTE Act. The SOP laid down the applicability criteria for schools, eligibility conditions for students, category-wise seat reservations, neighbourhood criteria for candidate school mapping, and norms for fee reimbursement. It stated that all private unaided schools, except minority schools, must admit children belonging to EWS and disadvantaged groups at the nursery, LKG, UKG or Class 1 level, whichever is the entry level class of the school, to the extent of at least 25% of the total seats as per the RTE Act. As per the guidelines, children belonging to weaker sections (family income below Rs.8 lakh per annum), Scheduled Caste (no income limit), backward class or other backward class (non-creamy layer), as well as children of war widows and destitute parents are eligible for these seats. The state government also sub-classified the 25% seats, reserving 12.5% for EWS category children, 5% for SC children, 5% for BC/OBC children, and 1.25% each for war widows' children and destitute parents' children. The SOP came almost six months after the Punjab and Haryana high court had ordered all private unaided schools in Punjab to reserve 25% of their Class 1 seats for children from such backgrounds. In its February 19, 2025, order, the court had directed strict enforcement of the ruling in the 2025-26 session....