School admission procedure should be rational, transparent

NEW DELHI - The human resource development (HRD) ministry Thursday said the admission procedure under the right to education (RTE) act should be “non-discriminatory, rational and transparent”.

“With regard to admissions in class 1 (or pre-primary class as the case may be) under section 12(1) of the RTE Act in unaided and ’specified category’ schools, schools shall follow a system of random selection out of the applications received from children belonging to disadvantaged groups and weaker sections for filling the pre-determined number of seats in that class, which should not be not less than 25 percent of the strength of the class,” said a statement by the ministry.

Admission to remaining 75 percent of the seats in respect of unaided schools and specified category schools, and for all the seats in the aided schools, each school should formulate a policy under which admissions are to take place.

“This policy should include criteria for categorization of applicants in terms of the objectives of the school on a rational, reasonable and just basis. There shall be no profiling of the child based on parental educational qualifications. The policy should be placed by the school in the public domain, given wide publicity and explicitly seated in the school prospectus,” the release said.

The ministry said there should be no testing and interviews for any child/parent falling within or outside the categories, and selection would be on a random basis.