Dejected parents slam minister
as schools announce nursery list

By Sana Aijaz in New Delhi

HUNDREDS OF parents returned from the gates of city schools cursing Arvinder Singh Lovely on Monday.

As they did not find the names of their little ones on selection lists put up by schools for nursery admissions, they directed their anger on the state education minister.

Parents feel their wards did not make the cut because of last- minute changes to admission parameters announced by Lovely. Last week, the minister asked schools to do away with the parameters of education and profession of parents.

Ritesh Agarwal, whose sons name was not on the list put up by Indian School on Josip Tito Marg, was dismayed. “ I had 67.5 points as per the earlier system.

My son lost his seat because of Lovelys announcement,” he said.

Several schools that had allotted points to the educational qualification and profession of parents revised the selection list in line with Lovelys directive, causing a lot of anxiety.

However, Amita Mullah, principal of Springdales Public School, said: “ We never allotted points to parents qualifications or profession. Our list will come out as scheduled.” Sumit Vohra, who runs an online portal where parents whose children are about to start their school journey share their views, said: “ This is so unfair to parents. The posts on my website are testimony to their angst. Parents had shortlisted those schools where their children had a good chance of securing admission. But now they realise they should have applied to different schools.” And this is what Arshad Majeed, a resident of East Delhi, has to say: “ Gyan Bharti increased the points allotted to the neighbourhood criterion from 1 to 40 but many parents who live within a distance of 1 kilometre from the school, their kids have not got admission.

God knows what parameters they are following.” Smita Dhall, who applied to eight schools but found luck with none, said, “ I have a problem with this point system in general. The point system, even before the latest changes in parameters, was flawed. It does not provide equal opportunity to all the applicants.” The majority of the Capitals schools came out with their nursery admission lists on Monday, which has parents whose children did not make it to the lists all the more worried.