Delhi HC stays neighbourhood rule for admission
The Delhi High Court has stayed the Aam Aadmi Party government's neighbourhood criteria for nursery admissions. Declaring an interim stay, the High Court said that the criteria was "restrictive and unreasonable." According to the court, if the neighbourhood proximity is the sole criteria for children's admissions, then the rights of parents and children to apply to schools of their choice become "empty formalities."
The general guidelines are that schools can take only "Rs. 25 for a form and not press parents to buy the prospectus." The child should be 3 years-old by 31 March. Entry-level seats cannot be less in number than what they've been in the preceding 3 years. The schools have to "publicize their admission criteria" on their website ahead of the start of admission-process.
Recognizing the fundamental rights of private unaided schools for managing nursery admissions, the Delhi HC said that the schools had the autonomy to define their own admission criteria. The HC further said that Delhi School Education Act did not give authority to the Directorate of Education (DoE) to control private unaided schools. The DoE was there only to prevent malpractice, the court said.
The Delhi Police busted a racket that highlighted the anomalies within nursery admissions. Admissions for the general category were given under the EWS (economically-weaker-section) category by procuring fake income certificates by bribing SDM-level officers. The schools too were filling EWS seats with general-category students in exchange for hefty donations. Delhi government, therefore, decided to change the process of EWS admissions and take it online.
Atishi Marlena said, "the government had to shift the entire procedure online because we saw a lot of misuse of the system. Many schools were giving backdoor entries to children under the EWS category by taking huge donation... later converted their admission to the general category."
The Delhi government has declared admission guidelines for the 2016-17 academic session. To make the nursery admissions process clearer, it has directed private schools to upload their admission guidelines and specifications about the applicants online. Schools have also been asked to publicize the admission criteria and the total number of seats open at their entrances. The admission process will begin from 1 January.
In a move that will benefit a large number of people, the Delhi government has scrapped management quota for nursery school admissions. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has also ordered the scrapping of any other 'discriminatory' quotas in the admission process except those for Economically Weaker Sections. He stated that the move will likely open up over 10,000 seats in nursery schools across the capital.
The Delhi HC stayed AAP's decision to eliminate the management quota in nursery admissions in Delhi's private unaided schools. Justice Manmohan ruled that AAP government's 6 January decision was 'issued without any authority under law' and it infringed on the private unaided schools' autonomy. HC accepted the 11 criteria proposed by the private schools' association replacing the 62 criteria under the 6 January order.
