Nursery admission age to remain 3 years

New Delhi: While parents fret over whether the minimum age required for nursery admission this year is three plus or four years, government insists that the schools will go by the same age criterion as last year. Going by this, children aged more than three years as on March 31, 2011 are eligible for nursery (pre-school) while four years will be the minimum age required for KG (pre-primary). However, parents can relax only after the high court decides on the issue in a hearing scheduled for January 11.
“We have asked schools to keep the same age criterion as last year. The minimum age for pre-school is 3+ and it’s 4+ for pre-primary. It’s been like that for last so many years,” said state education minister Arvinder Singh. However, confusion over age started after a petition was filed in the Delhi high court last week by NGO Social Jurist stating that Delhi government had not changed the entry-level age in schools from three to four years despite submitting an affidavit in the court in 2007. The court had then asked for a list of schools admitting children below three years of age. “The government had accepted in the affidavit that there would be just one class before primary and the entry age would be four years. They still have two classes pre-school and pre-primary. The admission process will get stalled if the court decides otherwise,” said Ashok Aggarwal, founder, Social Jurist.
Surprisingly, government had not mentioned anything about the minimum age required in the admission guidelines issued on December 15. But speaking to Times City on Tuesday, Singh insisted that the government was already following the age criterion as mentioned in the affidavit. “We had submitted that the minimum age at entry level would be 4+ and that’s what it is for pre-primary where formal schooling starts,” Singh said. TNN