New Delhi: Private schools running on Delhi Development Authority (DDA) land have decided to move court against newly announced guidelines for nursery admissions, even as parents’ struggle to get their children enrolled continues.
After keeping their admissions process on hold for a week, the Delhi government on Saturday announced a fresh set of guidelines for 298 private schools running on DDA land. The guidelines makes the distance of the school from the applicant’s residence a major criterion while considering them for admission. Those from the neighbourhood of the school are to be given priority, according to the new guidelines.
However, no schedule for admissions in these schools has been announced as yet and the parents who visited there were sent back. “We have decided to move court against the guidelines announced by the government. Our issue is not just with the neighbourhood distance criteria but with lot of other pointers in the guidelines including that for siblings as well as no preference to girl child,” said S.K. Bhattacharya, president of Action Committee for Unaided Private Schools which has over 1,000 schools registered with it. “The way government is handling us how will we be different than the government-run schools. These are an attempt to curtail our autonomy,” he added.
Meanwhile, parents said though the guidelines have been announced there is no clarity yet. “I went to three schools that fall in our neighbourhood and they said they had no intimation yet from the government about when to begin admissions. This is too harassing for working parents who have to plan day-offs without any fruitful results,” said Tulika Das, an IT professional.
The guidelines state the schools “shall not refuse admission to the residents of the locality”. Defining what neighbourhood would mean, the guidelines state that students who are residing within 1 km of the school will be preferred and if seats are not filled, preference will be given to students residing within 1-3 km of the school.
The application process will end on 23 January. The remaining 1,400 schools are free to decide the criteria and their points for admission but they will have to steer clear off a list of 51 conditions, which the government had abolished last year. The abolished criteria include, parent’s education, parent’s profession, age, oral test and interview. The first list of selected candidates, including the wait list, along with marks allotted under the point system, will be announced by schools on 15 February.
