AAP in HC for re-imposing upper age limit for nursery

Abhinav Garg | TNN | Apr 26, 2017, 01.54 AM IST

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NEW DELHI: The AAP government has moved the high court seeking to re-impose upper age limit for nursery admissions in private schools.

Last year, HC had stayed its decision, but now the government wants the court to modify its order, citing "diverse age" difference between children being admitted to the same class.

Justice A K Pathak, after a brief hearing on Tuesday, transferred the government's plea to Justice Manmohan who had stayed the decision last year.

In its plea, the directorate of education informed the court that "almost 150 students ranging from 6 years to 12 years will be double the age of the youngest children, that is 3 years old in nursery alone, which cannot be conducive to proper education of the child concerned."

It has further cited the RTE Act Section 4 to argue that a child above the age of 6 should be admitted to a class appropriate to his or her age. The DoE has also referred to a representation received by Federation of Public Schools pointing out that there is a "drastic age difference" amongst the latest admission list of students of pre-school, ranging from 3 to 7 years.

The federation argues that admitting over age students would create disparity among students of the same class and disturb dynamics of classroom teaching . They also argued that it can lead to isolation of students with varied age group having different learning abilities.

However, NGO Social Jurist has opposed the plea and argued that on this criteria the government wants to remove nearly 10000 EWS category students who have been admitted but are over age.