The Union government on Wednesday told Delhi High Court that the Right to Education (RTE) law did not apply to nursery admissions but a state government may have its own policies for this class.
Appearing for the central government, additional solicitor general Rajeev Mehra told the court that as per section 13 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, children between the age of 6 and 14 were covered by the provisions for free and compulsory elementary education. He added that children below the age of six were not covered under the act but the “state government may make necessary arrangement for providing free pre-school education to such children”.
A division bench of Chief Justice D Murugesan and Justice V K Jain said it will pass the order next week after going through the central government's reply.
On February 12, the bench had asked the government to clarify whether the RTE law applied to nursery admissions and if it did, what procedure was to be followed for it.
Mehra explained that the under the legislation, only those between the age of 6 and 14 would be treated as children and hence, nursery admissions would not come under its purview.
In the government’s reply, director of human resource development (HRD) ministry Vikram Sahay said, “Schools can admit in class 1, upto 25 per cent of the strength of the class, children belonging to weaker sections and disadvantaged groups in the neighbourhood and provide free and compulsory elementary education till its completion. The state government may have its own policies governing admissions in pre-primary class.”
The petition was filed by NGO Social Jurist against the two notifications of the HRD ministry and the Delhi government's directorate of education which had allowed unaided private schools to formulate their own criteria for nursery admission.
The PIL alleged that the two notifications had given a free hand to all unaided recognised private schools.
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