Nursery admission test: Points system to stay this year

It was a dream for Sankalp Chaudhary and his wife to send their first-born to a prominent school in Delhi. They did it all, they saved up a good amount of money and kept themselves updated about nursery admissions procedures, but their dream still came crashing down last year when despite applying to 20 schools their son couldn’t get an admission.

Their story is not unique, the nursery admission process has become a nightmare for parents in Delhi, thanks to confusing rules, endless criteria and the numerous documents required.

Even with 1,187 private unaided schools, parents still struggle to find a nursery seat for their child.

And the nightmare will continue this year too, as the new nursery admission rules framed under the amended Education Act, which ends the points system, will not be applicable until the Centre approves it.

The points system is a process where the schools allot points to a child out of 100, on the basis of criteria including distance of residence from school, sibling studying in the school, if a parent is an alumni, if the child is a girl. There are some school-specific criteria too, which the schools are allowed to decide, after a High Court order earlier this year.

Under the amended Education Act-1973, there will be no points system or screening interview for nursery admissions. The only criteria that will stay is the neighbourhood criteria, under the Right to Education Act, which lets the child go to a school closest to his/her house.

While the Delhi government is yet to announce nursery admission guidelines for this year, sources say that the rules are not going to change as the amended Education Act is yet to be passed by the Centre.

The government is however trying to make things easier by bringing in more transparency. The schools have been asked to put up all the information online.

“We have been holding meetings with the schools and have decided that the admission procedure should begin by the first week of January. Since the Education Act is yet to be passed by the Centre, the guidelines will remain unchanged. This means that the schools still get to decide the criteria as per the High Court order,” a Delhi government official said.

“We are however trying to bring in more transparency in the system. We have asked the schools to put all the information online, including the names of the people who have applied for admission and the criteria that they have decided for admission. They should also reveal the points that they have allotted to each child and on what basis, so that there is no chance of a backdoor admission,” she added.

Putting up information online is likely to ease the trouble for a number of parents, who have complained that the schools do not clarify the criteria at time of admission.

“I have to get my son admitted to a nursery this year, which is why I have been following the updates. What I find most confusing is the fact that the schools do not clarify the criteria of admission on their website. I cannot go to each school individually to find this out,” said Samarth Vohra, a parent.

The controversy-prone nursery admission process in Delhi, which normally starts in December, has undergone several changes in the past as the authorities have been trying to make things easier.

: The Economically Weaker Section (EWS) quota for nursery admissions, 25 percent reservation in seats of all private schools, has always been prone to misuse.

Recently, the Delhi Police busted a racket that facilitated admissions for children from general category under the EWS category by getting fake income certificates made in connivance with the SDMs. Many schools have also been found filling up the EWS seats with general category students when the parents give big donations.

However, these practices are likely to stop from this session as the Delhi government has decided to shift the process of EWS admissions online. From filling up of the forms to selection of students, everything will be done online through a centralised system.

Education advisor to Manish Sisodia, Atishi Marlena said: “The government had to shift the entire procedure online because we saw a lot of misuse of the system. Many schools were giving backdoor entries to children under the EWS category by taking huge donation from the parents and later converted their admission to the general category by saying that the family’s income has increased.”

A Delhi government official said: “We are introducing a centralised lottery system, whereby admissions will happen online. All schools will have to accept EWS forms online, even the ones that have the provision for offline forms will have to resort to online forms for the EWS category.”

“We have all the schools mapped online, once all the forms are submitted, the names of the children will be decided by a computerised lottery system and will be allotted to the respective schools. This way, no school will have any say in which child gets admission in their school. It will be completely dependent on the lottery system,” the official added.

The Delhi government will take the help of NGOs in spreading awareness about the online admission procedure in slum areas and places where there are more children belonging to the EWS category.

“Once the admission process starts, we will also depute volunteers from NGOs to help people in filling up the forms,” said the official.