Chandigarh: 90 entry-level seats reserved for EWS candidates allotted

Chandigarh school education director Harsuhinderpal Singh Brar said the education department will not hold further rounds of allotment

With 95 EWS seats still vacant in entry-level classes at private schools of the city, the UT education department conducted the second centralised allotment of seats on Friday, filling 90 of them.

At the pre-primary level-1, 89 seats had remained vacant, out of which 84 seats were allotted on Friday. At pre-primary level 2, six seats were vacant and all six were allotted. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

At the pre-primary level-1, 89 seats had remained vacant, out of which 84 seats were allotted on Friday. At pre-primary level 2, six seats were vacant and all six were allotted.

As per the UT education department, five seats are still vacant at Gyan Deep School in Sector 20.

Stating that there were no applicants for these seats, UT school education director Harsuhinderpal Singh Brar said the department will not hold further rounds of allotment. Any vacant seats can be claimed at the school level.

The first round of EWS seat allotment was held on February 28, when all 836 available seats were allotted against a total of 2,820 applications. The second round was necessitated after 95 students gave up their seats for various reasons.

As per officials, three separate draws were conducted for three levels of pre-primary classes. These classes have different nomenclatures in different schools but are usually called nursery, lower kindergarten and upper kindergarten classes, and are the three classes before Class 1 as per the National Education Policy (NEP).

The centralised draw of lots was conducted for all private non-minority schools in the city. There are 64 such schools. The 20 minority schools in the city were exempted from the centralised draw of lots and have conducted the EWS admissions at the school level.

This is also the first time that all non-minority private schools in the city have offered EWS seats.

This comes in the backdrop of last year’s controversies, when St Kabir Public School, Sector 26, and later Vivek High School, Sector 38, were de-recognised by the UT education department for not reserving seats for EWS students. The matter had then gone to court. This year, both schools participated in the centralised draw of lots held by the department.

While minority schools have reserved 15% of the total seats for EWS students, non-minority schools have set aside 25% seats.