Schools to set criteria

Autonomy to frame rules as long as Right to Education is adhered to

Delhi government on Wednesday came out with sketchy guidelines for nursery admissions, virtually giving schools a free run to set their own criteria for enrolment of the children.


On queue: Parents and guardians lined up for nursery admission forms
at St. Michael's School in New Delhi.

"Schools are free to identify any category based on policy or principles that are fair, just and reasonable, within the ambit of the Right to Education Act," said Delhi Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely, quoting Union HRD Ministry guidelines. "Whichever category a school decides on, it would have to place it in public domain."
Categories also have to be submitted in the Department of Education. "We will make sure that there is no discrimination," Lovely said.

He, however, said this year's criteria is not similar to Ganguly Committee's 100 point system. "This time we are applying a mixture of the point and lottery system," the minister said.

As per government guidelines, 25 per cent of the total seats will have to be reserved for students belonging to Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) as per RTE Act and rest of the seats would be open to general category students.

While the present guidelines seem to favour public schools, leaving scope of manipulation, the minister refuted the charge that it has been framed under pressure. "We are not working under anybody's undue pressure. This system will be thoroughly monitored. We already have a network of officials who monitor schools on a regular basis."

Lovely specified that the schools are not allowed the use parents' income and their educational qualification as criteria for selection.

The guidelines, issued by the Directorate of Education (DoE), were released by the Minister. "We finalised the guidelines after receiving a word from the HRD Ministry (on Tuesday). They have clarified to us the meaning of the word 'random'," Lovely said.