Parents battle nursery admission blues

NEW DELHI - Cutting short vacations, filling in niggling details on heaps of admission forms, or sitting at the computer for hours - the capital’s nursery admission process has left the parents of toddlers a worried lot.

According to most parents, the admission process if full of hassles this time - much in contrast to the government’s claim of making it a regularised and smooth process,

Parents say that while all schools started giving the forms on the same date, Dec 15,

the schools had their own different dates of accepting the completed forms.

Said Amiya Sharma, mother of a four-year-old: “The Directorate of Education (DoE) may be saying that the admission process has been made regular, but the reality is that schools are still doing things as per their own whims and fancies.”

“For one, almost every school has different dates for submission of the forms. Initially when the process began Dec 15, the impression was that it will be a uniform affair. But now some schools will start accepting the forms only next week, while there are others that would have closed form submissions by then,” Sharma told IANS.

“I am so worried that we may miss some deadline, that I have cut short our family vacation to Mumbai from two weeks to one. I don’t think I will be able to enjoy the holidays until my daughter’s admission is done,” Sharma added.

Tedious paper work and questions demanding lengthy answers on the application form which have to be filled by parents is another often heard complaint.

Avanti Das, a bank employee, said that she and her husband have been staying up late into the night to fill up the lengthy forms.

“Yesterday for instance I was filling the online form of a school, and when I scrolled down I saw a few questions which needed in-depth answers expressing our opinion. So I had to log out, write down the answers separately, discuss with my husband, and then fill up the form,” Das said.

“Questions like how can the school and parent work together for the benefit of the child, are expected. But to ask me what do I think about the current education system, or have I read any text of Aurobindo is not!” she added.

Sharma further said the process was made “unnecessarily” complicated by some schools that are asking for affidavits which have to be attested by a first class magistrate and photocopies of educational qualifications of parents attested by a gazetted officer only.

Sharmila Ghosh, an entrepreneur, said: “The government may have said that no school will conduct interviews, but schools are doing it on the sly. I had applied in a south Delhi school for my daughter and yesterday was the last day of submission of the form. I sent my driver to submit it. He called me to say that my husband and I have been asked to come for an interaction immediately.

“The school had only mentioned the time of submission of the form - but it was actually meant for the interaction. Since my husband was at work in Noida and I was in my office in west Delhi at the time, we couldn’t make it to the interview,” she added.

Ghosh said after the experience, she and her husband have decided to take turns to fill and submit forms personally, and have pushed back their vacation until the process is complete.

Since the admission process began for nursery classes Dec 15, the education department has received more than a hundred complaints against various schools. Last week the department warned 19 schools after receiving complaints against them.

As per the schedule, schools will stop accepting application forms Jan 30 and bring out the first list of successful candidates by Feb 1.