Notice to schools for flouting admission rules

The Delhi government on Wednesday decided to issue notices to a few public unaided schools in the capital for violation of the nursery admission guidelines. Acting on the complaints received by the Directorate of Education (DoE), the notices warn the schools against non-compliance with the admission guidelines, which could lead to the cancellation of the admission procedure in the schools.

Few schools in the city as part of their categories have kept profession of parents as one of the criteria. As per clause 13 (1) b of the Right to Education Act, no school or person shall, while admitting a child subject him/her to screening procedure.  Based on this the nursery admission guidelines issued by the Delhi Government this year, said while creating various categories for admission a parents income or educational qualification cannot be taken into account and the school cannot interview either the parent or the child. 

One of the schools Delhi Public School, Rohini has allocated up to 10 points for parents who are teachers or professors on permanent appointment in Government recognised institutions, medical colleges or engineering colleges and other institutes of higher studies approved by UGC. Besides this doctors, engineers, information technology, management, scientists, lawyers, international medal winners in sports, and defence personnel among others can also avail these points.

"The government guidelines mentions that a child cannot be screened based on a parents qualification and annual income, it doesn't mention that the parents profession cannot be taken into account. We do not think it is violation in any way," said Rita Sen, principal, DPS Rohini who said she had not received any notice till Wednesday evening.

Education Minister Arvinder Singh said, "We have taken note of the complaints received on discriminatory criteria and the concerned schools will be sent notices. No school can screen a child based on parents' profession. After all the profession is part of the parents' educational qualification." Singh also added that if the parents feel that a school has discriminatory criteria or is overcharging for forms they should complain to the DoE and immediate action will be taken against those found guilty.

Sale of forms extended

Acting on the Directorate of Education's circular on Tuesday which asked all unaided recognised schools in Delhi to sell forms for a reasonable period of at least for 15 days, some schools in the city have extended the days for sale of forms now.

Both the branches of  Springdales School, Dhaula Kuan and Pusa Road which started the sale of form from Janury3 were slated to sell forms only till January 10 but have now extended it till January 15. The submission dates, which were earlier supposed to be for only till January 15, have now been extended till January 18. Similarly, Tagore International School Vasant Vihar and East of Kailash have also extended sale  to January 15.HT