TOI
General Seats Barely 30% In Some Schools
Neha Pushkarna TNN

New Delhi: If you are not an alumnus of a city school, don’t have an elder child studying somewhere and have no connections in the right places, your kid’s chances of getting a nursery seat in a reputed school are very slim. In some schools this year, the number of seats in the general category is as low as 30% of the total.
With 25% quota for poor students kicking in this year and schools reserving seats
under various heads, including a discretionary quota for the management, open category seats have shrunk .
For instance, out of 368 seats at Bal Bharati Public School, Ganga Ram Hospital Marg, only 110 seats (30%) arein the general category. Of the rest, 25% seats are reserved for economically weaker sections, 20% seats each for school’s discretionary quota and siblings, and 5% seats for alumni.
If the number of applications received is more than the number of seats in a category, the school will conduct a draw of lots.
In schools following a 100-point system, alumni and sibling are part of the general category. At Springdales School, Pusa Road, there are only 47 seats open to the general category out of a total of 102. Alumni and sibling categories take away a large chunk of these general seats due to high points awarded to them. The school allots 30 points to siblings and 25 to wards of alumni followed by 20 points to children in the neighbourhood.
Similarly, DPS Mathura Road has 240 nursery seats. Only 120 are in the open category, including alumni and sibling. The school gives 30 points each to neighbourhood and sibling and 20 points to alumni. NURSERY ADMISSIONS Alumni, sibling categories eat up major share of open seats
New Delhi: With 25% quota for the EWS and most schools setting aside seats under various heads such as management quota, the general category seatshavebeen reducedconsiderably.
“My husbandisfrom Haryana and I studied in Lucknow. And we have only one daughter. I had made a list of the best schools in the citywhere I wanted to apply for her admission. But I am so disappointed to see that her chances of getting through aresoslim,”saidRidhi Saxena,wholivesin Safdarjung Enclave.
“Schoolsfollowing the point system seem to prefer alumni andsibling.Andthose going for a draw of lots have separate categories for them, leaving little room for people like us. The only saviour can bethe neighbourhood criteria but then I do not have many good schools close by,” Ridhi said, adding that the points awarded to a girl child or a first-born child are too less to brighten her child’schances.
Seats started shrinking when the EWS quota in city schools was increased from
15% to 25% under RTE. Delhi government also allowed schools to reserve up to 20% under the management quota to acknowledge their autonomy. Further, schools were also allowed to reserve seats for different categories based on their philosophy and objectives. So, insteadof being clubbed as general, alumni and sibling becamespecialcategories.
“How can private schools be questioned on having special pointsfor alumni andsibling or creating a management quota? We are autonomous institutions. Shouldn’t we have a right to decide the composition of children we want in the school?” said a principal from a centralDelhischool.
DKBedi, principal,Apeejay School at Pitampura that follows the category system, said, “We are allfor educating thedisadvantaged.Butitisbeing done at the cost of general category children. Neither is the government setting up new schools nor have private schools been allotted land in last few years. This is a serious problem as we have a fixed number of seats.”

Indian Express
One seat, 53 general category candidates’

The first three days of nursery admissions saw as many as 53 candidates battling for each general category seat in leading city schools. The sale of application forms will go on till mid-January, and the figures are only likely to increase.

A survey conducted by an online admission portal, admissionsnursery.com, showed that while 47.8 per cent of parents are likely to apply in less than 10 schools, around 44 per cent will apply in more than 10 and 7.8 per cent in over 20 schools

The survey was conducted on a group of 2,259 parents.

According to figures provided by Springdales, Pusa Road, there were 4,200 applicants in the first three days of online submission of forms in the general category, and about 650 forms had been given out to people belonging to the economically weaker section (EWS). “Last year, there were approximately 49 applicants per seat,” said Ameeta Mulla Watal, principal of Springdales.

Vasant Valley School has about 26 applicants for every general category seat in the first three days, compared to 33 during last year’s admission season.

In Ahlcon International School, the competition for EWS seats was more intense than that for the general category seats. With almost an equal number of forms being sold in both categories, there are 16 candidates for each EWS seat and five for every seat in the general category.

Sumit Vohra, founder of admissionsnursery.com, said , “People are applying in more schools this year because many children did not get admission in any school last year.”

The Hindu

Schools flouting nursery admission norms warned of tough action
Bindu Shajan Perappadan
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Minister tells them not to ask parents' education or income

Coming down heavily on schools that are not adhering to the selection criteria specified by the Delhi Government for admissions to nursery class, State Education Minister Arvind Singh Lovely has said that admissions would be cancelled in defaulting schools. “In case schools don't go strictly by selection criteria that we have prescribed, we will take action against them and cancel the admissions to that particular school. Schools are not allowed to sell prospectus or ask parents to buy anything besides the registration form. They are not allowed to make new selection criteria for students besides the one prescribed by the Government and under no circumstances should the income or educational qualification of the parents be asked. There also should be no interview of parents or children,” the Minister said.

Meanwhile the situation remained tense for parents of children due for nursery admissions. Sumit Vohra, who runs a website to help such parents, said: “The pressure on the parents is very high and going by the trend that we have been seeing in the past few years, most parents are applying in several schools across the city as there are very few seats available under the general category.”

“We have also carried out a survey among parents applying for their children's admissions this year. It revealed that 28.1 per cent parents have applied in a maximum of five schools, 19 per cent in 5-10 schools, 25 per cent in 10-15 schools, 18 per cent in 15-20 schools and 7.8 per cent in over 20 schools. This dip stick survey is to highlight the fact that the Delhi Government is not doing anything to help ease the pressure on parents. Unless the child falls into a particular category of economically weaker section, alumni, sibling, management/staff quota, there is little hope for him to get admission into one of the popular schools in the general quota,” said Mr. Vohra.