‘Give more time to poor parents to re-apply to schools'
Bindu Shajan Perappadan

Coming to the aid of parents belonging to economically weaker sections (EWS) of society who want to get their children admitted to unaided private schools, NGO Social Jurist has written to the Delhi Government's Directorate of Education asking it to allow parents more time to re-apply to schools in view of the recent Delhi High Court judgment asking schools to take in children under EWS category under “proximity to the school criterion”.

“With Delhi High Court coming out with a verdict on January 31, a day before most popular schools in the Capital were to come out with the first list of selected candidates for the nursery class, several schools decided to cancel and rework the list. The case had also created confusion among the EWS parents as to which schools to apply in. Now with the verdict, most parents need more time to apply. Hence we have sent a letter to the Directorate asking for more time to be granted to parents to re-apply,” said Social Jurist president Kusum Sharma.

The Delhi High Court had on January 31 laid down the guidelines in terms of which the distance criteriom for admission of children belonging to disadvantage group and economically weaker section under 25 per cent reservation in unaided private schools should be followed. It noted that preference in admission should be given to children residing within one, three, six kms and then beyond six kms away from the school.

The High Court allowed two weeks' time to the schools to complete the admission process in terms of these guidelines.

“We should like to bring to your notice that a large number of parents did not apply due to confusion having been created by your department which has now been set right by the Delhi High Court judgement,” noted the letter.

The Social Jurist has therefore requested that keeping a larger interest in mind, “your department should immediately issue a directive allowing one more week's time to parents to apply to the schools where they could not apply earlier because of the confusion created by the schools, Directorate of Education and the new verdict of the High Court for reasons stated above,” said Ms. Sharma.

Meanwhile, founder of the parents' forum www.admissionnursery.com Sumit Vohra said the list brought out by Delhi's popular schools has a skewed girl-boy ratio in many schools. “Girls have been given points meant for both girl child and first born when the schools were supposed to consider only one option. It is important to address this issue as equal education is imperative. The point system will work well in remote areas rather than in metros, where girls are not discriminated against.”