Poor kids selected in centralised draw

New Delhi: Over 26,000 children were selected for admission in the nursery and other entry level classes under the EWS category in a first of its kind centralised draw of lots conducted on Monday by the Delhi government. 

This is the first time the Directorate of Education (DoE) conducted an online draw for applications received under the 25 per cent seats allotted under the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category for nursery, kindergarten (KG), and class one. Transperancy

With an aim to bring transparency in the process of selecting students for the underprivileged section of society, the draw was conducted in the presence of education department, principals of various schools and the media. 

The process started after Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also holds the Education portfolio, pressed the ‘start’ option on the computer screen after which a list of registration numbers of applicants were displayed  against various private schools. 

A total of 15,138 students were selected for nursery classes out of 36,377 registrations received. Similarly, 3,432 and 8,034 students were selected for KG and class one out of 20,892 and 15,790 applications received respectively. 

“The total number of online applications received is more than the total number of seats. 

Hence, every applicant can’t be selected in draw of lots. The criteria in the present process were the distance and preference of applicants,” said Ashima Jain, Additional Director, DoE. 

There were 1,589 vacancies recorded after the completion of the admission process of the first round and a second round will be conducted soon.

Terming the process as one of the big achievements of the government Sisodia said that through this he wants to end “conventional politics”.

 “We want to end conventional politics. We are giving our power to technology. This has made the life of schools and parents easier,” he said.  

Education Director Padmini Singla said that the department was “off late” receiving certain malpractices at the school level or the “individual” end and the computerised process was devised to bring transparency and reduce the time and energy the schools and the ministry was spending in the process conducted manually earlier.  

The centralised system was devised within a period of two months by National Informatics Centre (NIC), with the help of NIC Jaipur. 

The applicants will be intimated by an SMS about the schools allotted to them and they can approach the respective schools by February 22.