Schools could get more say in nursery admission rules The government is reluctant to change the guidelines fixed by LG last year. Schools could have greater say in the formulation of guidelines for nursery admissions this year. The points awarded under the "alumni" category could be capped or completely scrapped, sources say. The Delhi government has asked various stakeholders including schools and parents associations for suggestions to form the guidelines for the 2015-16 academic session. However, the government is reluctant to change the guidelines fixed by the Lieutenant Governor last year, despite a pressing demand for change, due to delays in the admission process in the last session, sources said. Springdales School (Pusa Road) principal and National Progressive Schools Conference chairperson, Ameeta Mullah Wattal in her letter (this newspaper has a copy of said letter) to the Director of Education earlier this year said, "We are all aware of the challenges faced by the government, schools and the parent community regarding admissions in the 2014-15 session. To avoid litigation and unnecessary confusion, we request that the criteria for admission should be made more flexible." The suggestions made by the NPSC includes that distance points, apart from fixed kilometres, also be given to parents who use their own transportation. Besides, the NPSC has also recommended a cap on points awarded under alumni and sibling categories; establishing a quota of seats for children with special needs; and management committees having discretion in admissions for up to 20%. Schools are in favour of capping alumni points but most parents want this category to be scrapped. However, there has been no response from the DoE so far on the issue. "The guidelines for 2015-16 session may come by October-end. The directorate is in a process of consultations with the various stakeholders," a DoE official said. Neena Bhatt, a parent seeking admission for her first-born daughter this year, said, "Alumni points must be totally scrapped. Most of the parents have no benefit of these points. There are points for siblings already, in which case, parents of first-born children are at the losing end. The admission criteria must be fair." Sumit Vohra of admissionsnursery.com, said, "A large number of parents have given their suggestions through the forum to streamline the admission process. In some cases last year, schools using online mapping devices accepted the 0-8 km distance from school to home but not from home to school. This was a strange situation where parents due to construction work on roads/flyovers etc missed the criteria by 0.5-1 km."