New Delhi

Court nod for nursery admission guidelines

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday gave its go-ahead to the Delhi Government’s guidelines for admission to pre-primary classes in private schools across the Capital.

The guidelines provide for guided autonomy to schools to devise their own independent criteria for admission subject to their approval by the Delhi Government’s Directorate of Education.

A Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice M. K. Sharma and Justice Sanjiv Khanna approved the guidelines filed by the Government with certain clarifications as directed by the Bench last week. Since the schools will require time to frame the criteria, the Court extended the date for beginning the admission process from November 30 to December 15 for this academic year.

Meanwhile, the schools would finalise the criteria and submit them for approval to the Directorate of Education, which would dispose of them within four weeks. The Bench said this while disposing of appeals against a Single-Judge Bench order of the Court turning down petitions by the parents of three children opposing interviews of children or their parents for admission to pre-primary classes.

The Bench said the schools would be at liberty to approach the Delhi Government’s grievances cell if they have any complaint against the Directorate of Education, while the parents of the children would have the option of approaching monitoring cells, to be constituted in each district, if they have any complaint against a school.

The Bench once again reiterated its absolute “No” to interviews either of the children or their parents. It said the school managements would interact with the parents only to the extent of verifying the information given in the admission forms.

While framing the criteria, the school managements would accord preference to proximity to the institution, siblings, children of single parents and children of persons whose jobs are transferable; consider without discrimination applications of children of all socio-economic backgrounds; and make a conscious effort to admit children from vulnerable backgrounds.

The Court allowed the school managements to keep to themselves 20 per cent of the total seats for admissions at their discretion.

It said the school managements would be at liberty to devise additional parameters besides the ones mentioned in the approved guidelines subject to fixing points to each parameter. The Court also made it clear that the school managements would not make any amendment to the admission criteria in the middle of the admission process in an academic session. It said each school would constitute an admission committee under the chairmanship of the Principal to monitor the admission process.

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