Maharashtra opens its RTE first list; admission closes May 23 1.14 lakh free seats

MUMBAI, May 21 — Maharashtra's School Education and Sports Department has published the first selection list for 2026-27 admissions under the Right to Education Act, opening 1,14,826 free seats across 8,701 private schools. Families whose children were drawn in the lottery must verify documents and confirm the seat between May 15 and May 23.

The 25 percent quota is the only route into a fee-paying private school for lakhs of children from economically weaker and disadvantaged homes, and the confirmation window is short. A seat allotted but not claimed by May 23 returns to the pool for later rounds, so the days after a list drops are the most anxious in the admission calendar.

Roughly 2.89 lakh families applied this year for the 1.14 lakh seats, leaving more than half the applicants on waiting lists that move only as confirmed seats free up. The computerised lottery was drawn on April 6 in Pune, and the regular selection list followed on April 10; the first admission round opened on May 15. Selected parents log in at student.maharashtra.gov.in, download the allotment letter, and carry it with proof of age, address and income to the allotted school for verification. The School Education and Sports Department said in its admission notice that schools cannot turn away a child holding a valid allotment, echoing a Supreme Court direction this month that barred private schools from denying RTE-allotted seats.

Maharashtra is the latest state to run its quota lottery this season, after Karnataka and Tamil Nadu set their own deadlines and Chhattisgarh's reimbursement standoff dragged into a contempt hearing. The confirmation crunch sits against the ruling that schools cannot refuse RTE-allotted admission, which removed a common excuse used to stall poorer families at the gate.

Parents who miss the May 23 cut-off are not out of the running — the department runs further rounds as seats lapse, with waiting-list movement published on the same portal. A second list typically follows within a few weeks of the first.

Source: Careers360, AcademyCheck. Official portal: RTE Maharashtra.

Related on Inkwelly

For the school admission desk:

• Student Information Management — enrol RTE-allotted children and tag them as quota admissions from day one
• AI Auto-Fill for Admission Forms — turn a stack of allotment letters and documents into clean student records fast

Document verification at the counter:

• Student Documents Management — store age, address and income proofs against each RTE admission

Claiming the reimbursement:

• How to mark RTE students and prepare a reimbursement claim — flag quota seats so the state claim is ready
• How to submit an RTE reimbursement claim to the government — file for the per-child amount the state owes

Earlier in this thread:

• Maharashtra RTE deadline pushed to May 8; final extension