Relief to parents as court allows them to fill forms

Parents seeking admission for their wards in nursery classes can now fill forms according to the former criteria and point system set by schools with the Delhi High Court on Monday reserving its judgement on the plea against scrapping of management quota by Delhi government.

The High Court issued a notice to the government, asking reasons behind scrapping of the quota.

After the government’s decision, while some schools like Indraprastha International School, Sachdeva Global School, and P P International had changed their criteria and scrapped management quota, some others had stopped the process for few days.

However, with the court clarifying that parents can apply as per the old criteria, schools are bringing back the management quota, which they had, earlier, done away with.

For example, Indarprastha International, which was one of the schools which complied with the government’s directive, on its website, again notified 20 per cent management quota on Monday. Others are also planning to invite applications and review them on the basis of the former criteria.

Parents have got a relief from confusion over whether they should continue filling the forms or not.

“Some schools like Salwan Public in Mayur Vihar had stopped the process after the government’s decision, but now they are accepting forms,” said Ritu Walia, a parent.

“There have been arguments in the court and while an interim stay has not been given, the court appears to be inclined in favour of schools. Earlier, there was confusion whether parents should fill the forms or not, but, now at least that ambiguity is no more there. The process would be carried on in the same manner,” said Ameeta Wulla Muttal, Principal of Springdales School, Pusa Road.

S K Bhattacharya, President of Action Committee for Unaided Private Schools, which had filed the petition in the court, said that “the court has permitted schools to proceed as per criteria adopted and there is no question of removing the management quota”.

A final order in this connection is reserved for January 28. However, the experts warn that schools which were following discriminatory practices will get autonomy after the order.

“Some schools had given a staff quota, besides reserving points for staff children. This is discriminatory. I would like to appeal to the government and Honourable High Court that if schools are found reserving points and quota in the same category, there should be a stringent action against them,” said social activist Sumit Vohra, also the founder of admissionsnursery.com.

However, the school associations say that any discrimination would be checked and an advisory has already been issued to these institutions to do away with discriminatory points.