NEW DELHI: With just 10 days for the deadline to submit the registration forms for admission to nursery classes, the parents are a worried lot, fretful about whether their children's Aadhaar cards will be delivered in time for the process. While the Directorate of Education has said the Aadhaar cards of the parents are sufficient to prove identity, several schools are demanding the child's card too.
It was only after the admission process began that several parents learnt about the necessity of their wards' Aadhaar and hastened to have the identity card drawn up. In the meantime, while some schools are allowing parents to submit just the Aadhaar enrolment number during registration, others have put them in a quandary by making it mandatory to mention the actual Aadhaar number. The last date for submission of completed registration forms is January 17.

Seema, a parent, grumbled on admissionsnursery.com that most schools were refusing to accept applications without the Aadhaar details, but some others pointed out that schools had given them breathing space by allowing them to enter only the card enrolment number during the registration process. Abhishek, another parent, was happy that this would allow parents to go ahead with the registration for now and to submit the Aadhaar details before the admission procedure ended in February.
However, parents cannot comprehend why they need to furnish a child's Aadhaar details when the parents' KYC details should suffice. Seema pointed out how parents were going through a tough time trying to get the new identity papers made. Tania Joshi, principal of Indian School, explained that an Aadhaar card was necessary because updating of school details on the government website demanded it. "We cannot omit a single entry in the format. Because of this we need the child's Aadhaar details," she said.

On December 15, the Directorate of Education sent a circular to all schools in Delhi, complaining that student and school data in the Unified District Information System for Education database were "mismatched and inconsistent in all schools". The principals were given the task of ensuring that all Aadhaar data entries of their students were up to date. This mandatory exercise, said Joshi, was prompting schools to be stricter about Aadhaar entries.

It was also for this reason that school principals had been insisting on UID details from applicants since last year, though the DoE circular notifying admissions for this year was quiet on the necessity of an Aadhaar card of the student. Once the student has been admitted, Joshi said, the school would be responsible for his/her details, and in anticipation of that, the schools were making it mandatory for parents to submit details at the outset.