01215nam a22001337a 4500 533140 533140 260427b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d Hegade, Sandeep and Andalgavkarkulkarni, Yogini 60252 Inclusion-exempt schools : How policy enables elite educational insulation Economic & Political Weekly 61(7), Feb 14, 2026: p.19-22 India’s Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 proclaims universal inclusion, yet elite private schools remain structurally exempt through regulatory autonomy, fee discretion, and selective enforcement. Operating via interlocking mechanisms of fee-gating, board-gating, and spatial-gating, these institutions consolidate caste–class homogeneity while evading equity mandates. This article contends that such policy-induced bifurcation undermines constitutional equality and fragments democratic citizenship. Genuine equality of opportunity demands system-wide inclusion that deliberately encompasses the very institutions shaping privileged trajectories.-Reproduced https://www.epw.in/journal/2026/7/commentary/inclusion-exempt-schools.html Economic & Political Weekly AR 0 0 ddc 0 0 408312 IIPA IIPA 2026-04-27 61(7), Feb 14, 2026: p.19-22 AR138651 2026-04-27 AR