Nursery admissions in Delhi to begin from February 18

The DoE has directed that since schools are closed in view of the pandemic and physical classroom learning is not going on for entry-level classes, no fee except prescribed registration fee, admission fee, caution fee (if any), and tuition fee, shall be charged at the time of admission by the schools.

Only tuition fee shall be charged from the students till further orders.

Usually, nursery admissions in around 1,700 schools in the national capital begin in the last week of November.

The DoE releases guidelines and schools are asked to furnish required information, following which the application process is rolled out in December.

However, there was no development on it in 2020.

Delhi Government had in December considered a proposal to scrap nursery admissions as the schools have been closed for nine months and will remain closed till a vaccine is available.

A whole year of online learning for small children seemed unviable to them. But school principals had opposed this idea.

However, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia last month ruled out scrapping nursery admissions.

Udit Prakash Raj, Director, DoE shared the guidelines for the admissions.

He said, "No deviation from the above schedule shall be permitted. Each school shall display the admission schedule on its notice board and website."

"Further, each school shall ensure that application forms for admission are made available to all applicants till the last date of submission of the application form," Raj added.

Only a non-refundable amount of Rs. 25 can be charged from the parents as an admission registration fee. The purchase of the prospectus shall be optional.

As per norms, all private unaided recognized schools admitting children in pre-school, pre-primary, and Class-l level shall reserve 25 percent seats for Economically Weaker Section or Disadvantaged Group category students and children with disability.

To ensure a fair and transparent admission process, the DoE instructed that no school should adopt the criterion abolished by the department including charging capitation fees or donations.

Pre-schools or Montessori schools run by registered societies or trusts as branches of recognized unaided schools will have to follow a single admission process for their pre-school and main school considering them as one institution.

A monitoring cell will be constituted in each district under the chairmanship of the Deputy Director (District) concerned, who shall ensure that a private school uploads the criteria and their points on the online module and ensure that the school doesn't adopt those criteria which were abolished by the department and upheld by the High Court.

It will also redress parents' grievances if any.