Delhi HC gives green signal to new nursery rules

The nursery admissions process in the city is all set to kick off on January 15 under radical new rules with the Delhi high court on Friday deciding not to interfere with these.

The nursery admissions process in the city is all set to kick off on January 15 under radical new rules with the Delhi high court on Friday deciding not to interfere with these.

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Giving no relief to unaided private schools that had demanded the quashing of a December 18 notification by lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung announcing the new admission norms, the court said, “Let’s see how this notification works out this academic session.”

Under the new norms, schools can no longer reserve 20% seats under a management quota, whereby admission is granted on the discretion of school authorities, usually on payment of a “donation” or on some sort of recommendation. This means parents can expect more seats under the general category.

“This management quota was misused by schools and was a major source of corruption in admissions,” advocate and rights activist Ashok Aggarwal said.

The other big change is in the points system, where the ‘neighbourhood’ category has been given more weightage (70 points out of 100). This will help children residing within an 8-km radius of the school get priority during admission.

During the hearing, the Action Committee of Unaided Private Schools pleaded that the court allow schools to continue with the previous guidelines for at least the 2014-15 academic session, contending that changing the rules on such short notice would be “disastrous”. It argued that the L-G did not have the jurisdiction to issue such a direction and that he had also not consulted them.

Furthermore, it said the new norms went against the central government’s stand of giving schools autonomy in framing admission rules as long as there was transparency and objectivity.