Delhi nursery admission to start from February 18, first list on March 20

NEW DELHI: The process for nursery admissions in over 1700 schools in Delhi will begin from February 18, the Directorate of Education (DoE) announced on Wednesday, bringing respite for anxious parents who have been waiting for the notification for over two months.

As per the notified schedule, the application process will begin from February 18 and the last date to apply is March 4. The first list of selected children will be displayed on March 20, followed by the second list on March 25 and subsequent list for admission, if any, on March 27. The entire admission process will conclude on March 31.

The DoE has also directed that since schools are closed in view of the COVID-19 pandemic and physical classroom learning is not going on for entry-level classes at present, no fee except prescribed registration fee, admission fee, caution fee (if the school already charges) and tuition fee, shall be charged at the time of admission by the schools and thereafter only tuition fee shall be charged from the students till further orders.

"Congratulations to all parents and children. We have to bring the excitement back in schools after defeating coronavirus. Our schools are waiting for their students," Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted, referring to the notification of nursery admission schedule. Usually, nursery admissions in around 1,700 schools in the national capital begin in the last week of November. The DoE releases guidelines and schools are asked to furnish required information, following which the application process is rolled out in December.

No deviation permitted

However, there has been no development on it in 2020. The Delhi government officials had in December said that a proposal to scrap nursery admissions is being considered as the schools have been closed for nine months due to COVID-19 and will remain closed till a vaccine is available. A whole year of online learning for small children seems unviable, they had said. But school principals had opposed this idea.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia last month had ruled out scrapping nursery admissions. Sharing the guidelines for admission, Udit Prakash Raj, Director, DOE, said, "No deviation from the above schedule shall be permitted. Each school shall display the admission schedule on its notice board and website. Further each school shall ensure that application forms for admission are made available to all applicants till the last date of submission of admission's application form".

"Only a non-refundable amount of Rs 25 can be charged from the parents as admission registration fee. The purchase of prospectus of the school by the parents shall be optional," he added. As per norms, all private unaided recognized schools admitting children in pre-school, pre-primary and Class-l level shall reserve 25 per cent seats for EWS or DG category students and children with disability.

"The number of seats at the entry levels shall not be less than the highest number of seats in the entry-level classes during the last three years 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21. The details of all entry-level classes along with the seats available for admission must be declared by all schools," the Director said.

District monitoring cells

The Directorate of Education has said that the private unaided recognised schools shall develop and adopt criteria for admission which shall be fair, reasonable, well defined, equitable, non-discriminatory, unambiguous and transparent. "No school shall adopt the criterion abolished by the department including charging capitation fees or donations. Pre-schools or Montessori schools run by registered societies or trusts as branches of recognised unaided schools will have to follow a single admission process for their pre-school and main school considering them as one institution," he added.

A monitoring cell will be constituted in each district under the chairmanship of the Deputy Director (District) concerned, who shall ensure that each private school uploads the criteria and their points on the online module and further ensure that the school shall not adopt those criteria which were abolished by the department and upheld by the Delhi High Court. "The monitoring cell will also redress the grievance of the parents, if any, against the school regarding adopting the unjustified criteria received in the district manually or online," he said.

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