JOIN USDelay in nursery guidelines confuses teachers, parents
Parents as well as teachers are confused over the delay in the nursery guidelines for the academic session 2014-15.
They fear that the stalemate over the guidelines will hinder the admission process like last year.
On Wednesday, the High Court had asked the city government “not to issue” new guidelines while reserving its order on petitions challenging the last year’s nursery admission guidelines.
“We were assured that this time the nursery admission process will start early as the authorities don’t want to repeat last year’s crisis. But the delay in coming up with fresh guidelines tells a different story,” said Paromita Banerjee, who is seeking admission of her four-year-old daughter.
“My only fear is that the admission process should not be prolonged like last year,” said Vikas Maurya, a parent.
Private schools in the city also want the stalemate over the new nursery guidelines to end soon.
“The biggest bone of contention is the neighbourhood criteria. Some of the parents were happy that they got a chance to get their kid admitted to a good school with neighbourhood criteria extending to eight km,” said Anju Puri, Principal of DAV Public School, Vasant Kunj.
“While others had to apply to over 10 schools because they were not sure whether their kid would get admission to the nearby school,” she said.
“We feel that the authorities should put a cap on the kilometre limit of the neighbourhood criterion like zero to three kilometres, three to five kilometres so on and so forth. Children residing closest to schools must be given more points,” Puri added.
Some schools are hopeful of a positive nursery guidelines this year.
“The authorities should come up with more organised guidelines than last year which will streamline the nursery
admission process,” said Amita Mohan, Principal of Amity
International School, Pushp
Vihar. The Delhi High Court had asked the city government “not to issue” fresh guidelines till it passes final order in December.
Last year’s guidelines
On December 18, 2013, Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung had issued nursery admission guidelines which got rid of the management quota and sought that schools should give preference to children living within a radius of eight km from the school.
This neighbourhood criterion gave the maximum weightage of 70 points out of 100 in open category seats. These guidelines were challenged in court.