How to Start a School as a Minority Educational institution?

Vinod Kakumanu
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An institution that is established by a religious or linguistic minority community qualifies as a minority educational institution. A minority institution in India avail of the constitutional guarantee given in Article 30(1). The minority institution get a say in deciding the quantum of reservation for their institution and the state intervention is minimal.

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It implies that schools established as minority schools, whether aided or unaided, will have a say in deciding the number of seats reserved under RTE for disadvantaged sections.

A school will qualify as a minority institution if it is established and administered by a minority or a group of religious or linguistic minorities, an exemption from the RTE Act-mandated reserved seats follows. RTE Act is universal with few exceptions—the schools in J&K, religious seminaries and Minority educational institutions.

Who qualifies as a “Minority”?

The “minority” is defined on the basis of the context i.e. the state or the region in which the group in question is domiciled. If the religious or linguistic group is in a quantitative minority in a state it will be adjudged a minority, regardless of its status in the country overall. The educational institution established and run by such groups will qualify as minority educational institutions regardless of whether they are government-aided or unaided.

How to apply for a Minority status for your school?

If the school is being established, and is going to be run by a trust or society that has a majority of its members i.e. more than 50 percent, from the minority community, it can apply for the status of a minority educational institution.

As stated above, such educational institution will have the right to decide the reservation quantum, it will also have the right to admit students from the minority community provided that it also admits members form the non-minority groups in adequate numbers.

The state government has the right to prescribe admission numbers to be fulfilled for both minority and non-minority groups.

The trust and societies desiring a minority status have to educational trusts and societies seeking minority have to get registered with the NITI Ayog.this applies to both aided and unaided institutions. They will be registered as an NGO.

The trust/society has to apply on the website of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI) wherein they will be required to give requisite information along with a unique ID of trust/society as given by the NITI Aayog portal NGO Darpan.