Govt relaxes norms for nursery admission

Dec 05:  The black clouds that had overshadowed fate of parents of ready-to-go children to schools are disappearing gradually have been cleared in the decision that was taken at a meeting of School Advisory Board, headed by Arvinder Singh Lovely, Delhi Education Minister here on Tuesday.

It was decided in the meeting that educational qualification of parents will no longer be given weight age during admission of their children in the nursery classes.

This would provide level-playing field to all the parents including the poor, economically weak and less educated parents," he said.

After restructuring the entrance process for nursery students, the Directorate of Education (DoE) has also set guidelines to the admission procedure for pre-schools, or playschools. They will now have to adopt and submit the same admission criteria as for nursery admissions.

The DoE directed the school in a firm way that parameters for the nursery admission would be same as that of pre primary admissions and schools would have to approve them.

So far the admission process to nursery classes has been the subject of much controversy in recent years. Private unaided schools, in particular, have come under critical scrutiny for their admission procedures. This issue has been agitating the minds of educationists, parents, jurists and all those concerned with the education of young children as to how the trauma and tension associated with the admission process can be eliminated and a child - friendly method evolved. 

The chaos and confusion prevailing over age criteria, for admission into nursery in different schools across the city is now gradually waning and government is trying to intervene to ease out the situation.

The Delhi High Court order has specified three basic criteria to be followed for the common admission procedure:

- The entire process leading to the admission of tiny tots should be transparent.
- The system of interview should be eliminated.
- Discretion of the Management/Principal is minimized.

The Delhi High Court had appointed Ashok Ganguly, chairman of Central Board of Secondary Education to give recommendation on nursery admission.

Parameters proposed by Ganguly committee included neighbourhood policy, sibling factor, educational qualification of parents and alumni status. But after a hue and cry by schools and parents, the committee reduced points for siblings, educational qualification of parents, and alumni status and increased points on neighbourhood policy. The revised formula, which was submitted by the committee to the court in July, also gave preference to the poor sections of the society.

The High Court barred interviews process for the admission to Nursery and pre-nursery classes for both children and their parents since October last year and advised Ganguly committee to resolve alternative formula.

Consequently, the Ganguly Committee had suggested the "points system" by assigning points to different requirements sought from the admission seekers while doing away the interview for admission process. The committee also recommended the award of additional 5 points to the children belonging to the schedule caste and schedule tribes.

But most schools had not adhered to a number of factors comprising sibling, alumni, educational qualification of parents and school specific parameters as laid down in the 100-point formula recommended by the Ganguly committee.

The Delhi High Court also held that point system proposed by the Ganguly committee for admission to pre-nursery and nursery classes in unaided public school did not apply with the minority school.

On March 7, High Court had asked the committee to examine the issue of a child's right entry age to nursery class after the government refused to accept the court's suggestions to reduce the two-year nursery period to one year.

On November 20 this year the Bench comprising justice M K Sharma and justice Sanjiv Khanna said the schools would be at liberty to approach the Delhi Government’s grievances cell if they have any complaint against the Directorate of Education, while the parents of the children would have the option of approaching monitoring cells, to be constituted in each district, if they have any complaint against a school.

The Bench once again reiterated its absolute “No” to interviews either of the children or their parents. It said the school managements would interact with the parents only to the extent of verifying the information given in the admission forms.

And yesterday on December 4 the School Advisory Board decided to nullify the qualification of parents as a criterion for the nursery and pre-nursery classes admission.

The Court extended the date for the admission process from November 30 to December 15 this year.