Parents scurry as forms sold for only 2-3 hours
January 05, 2011 10:07:07 AM

Sana Shakil | New Delhi

Parents of little champs across the Capital are having a stressful time running from one school to another school trying to obtain nursery admission forms. The situation is even worse for working parents.

In an effort to meet the deadline in office and those of acquiring forms for schools, the parents are frantically scheduling and rescheduling their official appointments as most schools are selling forms for just three hours and a few are selling for two hours only.

Due to late guidance from the Ministry of Human Resource Development, the process of nursery admissions has been delayed this year and Directorate of Education (DoE) in turn issued its final guidelines in the last week of December. Thus, this year the time period allotted to parents for nursery admissions by the authorities is a mere 15 days, just half the time allotted last year.

Parents are distressed by this short time frame, and adding to their woes is the fact that many schools will remain shut on Wednesday due to Guru Gobind Singh Jayanti. The Springdales School both at Pusa Road and Dhaula Kuan are selling forms between 8:30 am and 11 am. Whereas, the timings of St Michael School and Salwan Montessori School both on Pusa Road are 9 am to 11 am and 9 am to 12.30 pm respectively.

Vipin Bhardwaj, a parent from the Kishanganj area, said, “The timings of the schools are very impractical. There are long queues in every school. The moment we obtain a form from one school, the form selling window at another school closes down”.

Sumit Vohra of admissionsnursery.com said, “This year, the schools have been given the freedom to set their own categories which are varying widely from one school to the other. The Government should ask all the schools to extend their timings to 2 pm.”

Mother of a three-year-old said, “I and my husband both work as staff nurse in two different hospitals. We stay in the Gole Market area and are trying to apply to as many neighbouring schools as possible. Our whole day is spent just visiting one or two schools. We cannot take a leave from work so often.” Thus the parents are not only worrying about securing admission for their little ones, but are also having a tough time juggling office timings in the process.

Moreover, many schools are pressurising parents to purchase forms which are attached to the prospectus, whereas DoE guidelines have priced the admission forms at Rs 25, independently from prospectus. Moreover, according to a survey conducted by the Assocham Social Development Foundation (ASDF), the parents are compelled to shell out anywhere between Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 to buy prospectus for one child. “The cost of prospectus for nursery and KGs is costlier than the prospectus sold off by reputed colleges of management, engineering and chartered accountant institutions,” said DS Rawat secretary general, Assocham.

Many parents further alleged that certain schools are putting a mark next to the names of parents who buy prospectus clearly indicating schools’ prejudice towards parents willing to shell out thousands of rupees in cash. Although buying a prospectus is not mandatory, the survey concluded that schools insist on purchasing of the same.