Delhi schools to set nursery admission criteria, parents jittery (Second lead)

NEW DELHI - Heeding to pressure from schools, the Delhi government Wednesday allowed them to set the criteria for nursery admissions but said they must reserve a quarter of their seats for poor families. Parents, however, feared the freedom will be misused.

Announcing the guidelines, Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely said 25 percent of nursery seats will have to be kept aside for children whose parents’ annual income is less than Rs.100,000. Schools can randomly select from applicants in this category.

As for the remaining 75 percent, Lovely said schools will be free to formulate their policy for admission but it should include a criteria for categorisation of the applicants.

“The schools will be free to base their criteria like sibling, alumni, single parent, transfer case or neighbourhood. They will be asked to formulate their plan and submit it to the education department. The schools should consider that categorisation should be rational, reasonable and just,” Lovely told reporters.

He also said there should not be profiling of the child based on the parents’ educational qualification and income.

The parents, however, had doubts over the implementation.

Ashok Aggrawal, president of All India Parents Association, said the guidelines were in favour of schools and it seemed that the government had succumbed to their pressure.

“The rights of children and parents should have been protected, but this is not the case in the new guidelines. If the need arises, we will knock the doors of the court to get justice,” he added.

“Everything should not have been left to schools to decide on the admission. The control should always lie in the government’s hands,” said Meena Agrawal, who is trying to secure admission for her toddler.

According to the guidelines, all the schools - both which are built on government land and others - will have to reserve 25 percent of their seats for the poor. At present, schools built on government land provide a quota of 15 percent to the economically weaker sections.

Lovely said the government will reimburse the amount to these schools for providing additional 10 percent seats.

For schools not built on government land, the reimbursement amount will be announced within a week, he said.

Schools, meanwhile, welcomed the decision.

The government has done justice to all the schools and we will implement the decision on reserving 25 seats for economically weaker sections, president of Delhi Public Schools Management Association R.C. Jain said.

The Delhi government guidelines come a day after the human resource development (HRD) ministry clarified the meaning of “random” used in the Right to Education Act.

Delhi has around 2,000 schools. The admission process will begin Jan 1, 2011 and will be completed by March 31, 2011.

“The government will ensure that no child will be left without admission in Delhi but there is a possibility that parents may not get a school of their choice,” Lovely said.

Another controversial point in nursery admission - management quota of 20 percent - has been left untouched.