The patience of parents from Delhi region, keen to get an admission for their kids into public schools is now running out. The Delhi government hit another roadblock in the process of admission by issuing a diktat that no schools should take parents’ educational qualification or profession into consideration while choosing from the admission aspirants, aged between three years to four years on an average. The majority of the schools planning to release their admission lists in the first week of February, have now been left with no choice but to defer the date of releasing the list by a few more days, though a couple of schools have already released their first list of successful candidates getting admission into nursery into 2010-11 session.

For nursery admissions, schools in the city follow a 100-point system wherein they award points for factors like siblings studying in the same school, neighborhood, alumni, girl child or first born.

However, a number of schools had additional criteria such as the parents' proven track record, group discussions, views on education, profession and educational qualifications. Some of these include Sanskriti, Vasant Valley, The Delhi government has recently said that awarding points for parent's profession and qualification is discriminatory and schools which are yet to bring out their lists will have to scrap these criteria. However, the education minister of Delhi government, Arvinder Singh Lovely, has already washed his hands off this issue by suggesting that the local government had already issued such a directive to schools much earlier than the date of release of list. Some schools have reacted at an early stage to prepare their list in accordance with the latest requirements issued by Delhi government.

Some parents, unhappy with the last minute changes, mention that they had carefully selected schools that were giving points for parents' profession and education besides other favorable factors, as these would give their wards a better chance of securing admission.

It may be highlighted that even earlier, Delhi government had asked all schools to follow a uniform date for sale of nursery forms, and submission of forms before they get screened for admission criteria. Some parents had even gone the distance of getting their children’s admission secured in Noida and Gurgaon to avoid the uncertainty prevailing in Delhi over the nursery admissions at that time itself.

Amit Jain