Schools win lottery fight 15 dec 2010

By Ritika Chopra in New Delhi

PRIVATE schools in the Capital can finally heave a sigh of relief. They are likely to retain their autonomy in deciding the nursery admission policy under the new guidelines to be announced by the Delhi government on Wednesday.

According to officials, schools will be free to “identify any criterion or criteria as long as it is fair and reasonable and does not amount to profiling of parents”.

There will be no compulsion to conduct admissions through a draw of lots. Whether or not to adopt the lottery system for admissions will be entirely a school’s prerogative.

In effect, the new guidelines are set to be a mix of the point system being followed by the schools for the last few years and random selection, as suggested by the Union human resource development ( HRD) ministry in the admission guidelines issued to all state governments under the Right to Education ( RTE) Act.

A senior education department official said: “ Schools will have to identify different categories or criteria and then reserve a fixed percentage of seats under each category. So, a school may reserve 20 per cent of its seats for, say, children of alumni, another 10 per cent for siblings and so on. Parents can apply to a school under the specific criterion they meet.

“ The question of lottery arises only when a child meets more than one criterion, such as sibling as well as alumni, or when there are more applicants than the number of seats under one category. In such cases, the schools can conduct an open lottery. But this discretion lies with the schools.” The government’s decision to make the open lottery optional came after a clarification issued by the ministry on Monday.

The letter states: “ The guideline does not specify any category nor does it lay down any cap on any category identified by a school. Schools are free to identify any category based on policy/ principles that are fair, just and reasonable within the ambit of the RTE Act and the guidelines referred to above and placed in public domain for implementing the admissions in schools.” The education department official said: “ Nowhere does the clarification suggest lottery as the method of admission.

Hence, our decision to let schools take a call on whether they need it or not.” Since the RTE Act, which came into effect earlier this year, prohibits the screening of a child for admission, schools had been at a loss about the nursery admission criteria.

They interpreted the ministry’s ‘ random selection’ suggestion as the lottery system. But HRD minister Kapil Sibal had clarified on December 11 that the interpretation was wrong.

“ Where have I said that admission should be done through a lottery system? What we have said is that selection should be on a random basis. And by random we mean that schools should not ‘ pick and choose’ children.

They should not interview them. All this is discriminatory,” he had told MAIL TODAY . According to the earlier directives of the education department, the admission process will begin on January 1 and end on March 31.

Schools have two weeks to notify their criteria for admission to the directorate of education before they put them in the public domain.

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