Many schools in the capital are fixing criteria for nursery admission in an arbitrary manner. With parents already worried over various schools flouting the DoE norms in declaring the criteria, the latest to add to their woes is substantial points given to ‘first come, first serve’ criterion.
The schools have to set the criteria for the nursery admission starting from January 1 based on a 100-point formula.While some have adopted a non-discriminatory approach by giving maximum weightage to neighbourhood and siblings points, others have set their criteria in an arbitrary manner.
At least six schools in the capital, which have declared their criteria recently, have given points to ‘first come, first serve’ criterion. In fact, one out of them has given full points to this single criterion.
According to its schedule and criteria submitted on the website of Directorate of Education (DoE), Bharti Model School in Nawada has reserved 100 points to ‘first come, first serve’ criterion alone and have junked all other basis of admission, like neighbourhood, siblings, alumni, etc.
Similarly, Vanasthali School in Mayur Vihar has reserved 30 points for the ‘first come first serve’ and all the other criteria have been given low weightage.
Others such as Nutan Vidya Mandir, Taksila Public School, Jeewan Jyoti Public School, and Jeewan Jyoti Bal Vidyalaya are giving 10 or 15 points to the criterion.
The DoE had asked all the unaided recognised schools to “develop and adopt criteria for admission which shall be clear, well defined, equitable, non-discriminatory, unambiguous and transparent”.
“What is the meaning of first come, first serve? This is not a New Year’s Party in a five-star hotel, or doctors attending patients. We are talking about school admissions,” said education activist Sumit Vohra, also the founder of admissionsnursery.com, an online portal representing parent community.
While the schools have declared such a criteria, there is no information on the mechanism on which the this will be monitored and the parents and the activists fear this might lead to back-door entry.
“Who will decide who came first to collect forms and who last? Is there a computerised way?. This can lead to corruption through back-door entry of forms,” Vohra added.
“We have to run to so many schools from January 1 for collecting forms. How can we reach a particular school on a particular time? What if I am not able to visit that school on the first day due to some emergency? This is such a bizarre criteria,” said Shalini Sachdeva, a parent.
Meanwhile, despite the Delhi government warning them of strict action, over 800 private schools out of 1,737 are yet to notify the criteria and schedule for admissions.
The schools were asked to upload the criteria adopted for admission to entry level classes (other than those for economically weaker sections and disadvantaged groups) for the academic session 2016-17 on the directorate's website latest by December 20.
However, after 1,376 out of 1,735 schools had failed to meet the deadline, DoE issued a notice warning the schools of strict action if the directive was not complied with by December 25.
But, according to the data available on the website, till 8 pm on Sunday, 864 schools were in the list of those whose admission criteria is still awaited.
According to data available with DoE, 918 schools are yet to notify their criteria.
“Despite the government issuing strict directives, there is no compliance. There needs to be action against them,” Vohra said.
Vohra added that one reason why the schools are “avoiding” submitting criteria is that if they post it earlier, they can’t “have their way with it”.
“Currently, some schools are giving points in a bizarre way and flouting DoE norms. They know that they will be issued a show-cause notice for this. But, if they put the criteria later, they will have one month’s time to reply to the notice and admission would be over by then,” Vohra said.
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