If school authorities screen students for admission to nursery classes, they will face an imprisonment of up to 10 years, according to the proposed Delhi School Education (Amendment) Bill 2015.
The Aam Aadmi Party is set to introduce a bill in the Assembly that aims to make the nursery admission process more transparent and check arbitrariness of private schools.
According to the draft bill, children below six years should not be interviewed for admission to entry-level classes – pre-school and pre-primary. Even parents of the children should not be interviewed, added the bill.
“Any person or school violating the admission rules should be punished with an imprisonment of five years which may be extended up to 10 years,” the draft bill says.
But in some cases the punishment may be less than five years. “The punishment may vary provided that a court may, for any adequate and special reason to be recorded in writing, impose a sentence of imprisonment for a term, which may be less than five years,” the bill adds.
Experts have been arguing for the regulation of fee by private schools in the city. A previous draft bill has asked the government to constitute a committee for the determination of fee in private schools.
The bill proposes that the committee should comprise a retired High Court judge as its chairperson and director of education with a chartered accountant as its members. The chairperson will be nominated for a period of three years.
“The sole responsibility of the committee will be to determine the fee to be charged by a private school. And the orders passed by the committee should be final,” it adds.
The rules for the levying of the fee by private schools will be binding on the private schools for a period of three years, the bill says.
“If any school charges more than the prescribed amount, it will have to refund the excess amount with nine per cent interest within one month,” it adds. In all, there are some 1,100 government schools and 1,500 private schools in the city.