No rule’s the rule in this city school

By Ritika Chopra in New Delhi

IN LESS than two weeks, Modern School will announce its first list of candidates selected for admission to nursery.

With that, both branches – Humayun Road and Vasant Vihar — of this sought- after institution would have yet again managed to openly flout rules on admission.

In what amounts to complete disregard for the latest Delhi government order and also the Right to Education Act, the two schools — for the third nursery season in a row — have not bothered to declare their admission criteria.

Though a fresh order issued by the education department on December 15 last year clearly states that the admission methodology “ should be placed by the school in the public domain, given wide publicity and explicitly stated in the school prospectus”, the schools have only disclosed the break- up of their total seats and not how the admission will be conducted.

According to the notice on the school campus, seats have been distributed under five categories ( see box) namely alumni, sibling, freeship, school management quota and general category. But it does not elaborate on how children will be admitted – through points system, lottery, etc — under these categories.

These two schools pulled off similar violations in the last two admission seasons without having to face any strict action from the Delhi government.

For admission to academic years 2009- 10 and 2010- 11, they did not inform parents about the points system being followed, which was mandatory as per the government directives. Under the points system — compulsorily followed by all schools till last year — schools were expected to disclose their admission criteria and distribute 100 points among them.

Last year, the Humayun Road branch was berated by the directorate of education for following a “ subjective, ambiguous and discriminatory criteria” for nursery admissions. But that doesn’t seem to have inspired any change in the school authorities this year.

State education minister Arvinder Singh was unavailable to comment on why these violations have been allowed to go unpunished.

Though the lack of transparency has angered parents time and again, the school authorities have not once tried to explain their stand to the parent community. Like the past two years, this time, too, Goldy Malhotra, principal, Modern School, Vasant Vihar, refused to comment on the issue. “ Sorry, I do not entertain such queries,” said Malhotra when MAIL TODAY contacted her on Wednesday.

Manju Rajput, headmistress of Raghubir Singh Junior Modern School, Humayun Road, was unreachable for a comment.

Parents, however, are not keeping quiet on this. “ Every year, parents are kept in the dark about how admission will be conducted in these schools and nothing is done by the government about it. I really have no idea why such an exception is made for Modern ( schools) when other schools have informed us about their criteria,” said Kavita Sharma ( name changed), mother of a three- year- old girl.(Admissionsnursery.Com)