Come admission time for children in nursery classes in Delhi’s public schools and its time for parents of toddlers to be at tenterhooks. Newspaper columns are filled by the child psychologists to discuss the adverse impact of the interviews on children and the humiliation that their hapless parents have to suffer. Committees are appointed and their recommendations are publicised with lots of ado only to be rejected finally.

The Delhi High Court appointed a committee headed by Ashok Ganguly, the chairman of the Central Board of Secondary Education to make its suggestions to change the prevailing methods of admission to nursery classes. Ganguly committee proposed certain admission parameters and point system that included considerations about neighborhood, the sibling factor, educational qualifications of the parents and alumni status.

The recommendations again evoked lots of hue and cry from the schools and the parents even after the Delhi government on Friday the 7th December, 2007 removed the cap on the number of points to be assigned to each parameter in nursery admissions. The schools insist upon getting more freedom in the final allocation of seats. Some private schools want the government to permit them to divide their nursery seats on the basis of occupational background of the parents of the children. The school representatives have proposed to meet the education minister Arvinder Singh Lovely to present their point of view.

In the meanwhile the government has permitted the schools to provide a field in the admission form requiring the parents to mention their profession and designation.” But that information cannot be used to weigh applicants. The occupation of the parents should not be a criteria for a child's admission," Singh told reporters on Friday.

"After processing applications, schools should have the freedom to broadly divide seats on pro-rata basis as per business class, private sector, government servants and self-employed," said S.K. Bhattacharya, chairman of Action Committee, a representation of top private, unaided schools.

The Delhi government has decided to set up grievances cells in each district headed by a district deputy director of education who would monitor and facilitate the admissions process from December 15 to March 25. The deputy directors would also hear the complaints of the parents on every working day from 9 am to 10 am. A website would be set up to provide all the relevant information.

The government proposes to start pre-primary (Kindergarten) classes in all schools in three years’ time. The government will form a committee to frame guidelines and curriculum for nursery or playschools. "We will encourage RWAs and others to avail licenses and start dedicated, government-approved playschools in every neighbourhood," Singh said.