Distance, siblings rules get priority in Delhi nursery admissions

The schools will have to fill 75% of the seats under this criterion, which means 20% management quota stands quashed.

Two hundred and ninety eight private schools built on government land will now have to admit students in nursery classes using the neighbourhood/distance criteria, under which sibling will be given priority.

Guidelines for admissions to these 298 schools were issued late on Saturday night after getting approval from Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal. (Saumya Khandelwal/Hindustan Times)

The schools will have to fill 75% of the seats under this criterion, which means 20% management quota stands quashed.

Guidelines for admissions to these 298 schools were issued late on Saturday night after getting approval from Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal.

Last year, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government had tried to quash the management quota, after which some schools had moved the Delhi High Court and obtained a judgment in their favour.

Of the 298 private schools, Sanskriti School, CRPF Public School, Dwarka, and minority schools have been given exemption under the government’s new rule. They can carry on with various reservations and can apply the distance/neighbourhood distance criteria only if they have general seats remaining after that.

As per the government’s new rule, schools will have to first admit students living with a 1km radius. Even among those living within the 1km distance criterion, preference will be given to children who have siblings studying in the same school.

In case the applications of sibling category, in the neighbourhood range of 0-1km, are in excess of the seats under general category, draw of lots will be conducted.

If there are vacancies after drawing lots, applicants residing within 1 to 3 km radius of a school shall be admitted, again those with siblings being given priority.

Read: Delhi L-G approves nursery admission guidelines for pvt schools on DDA land

In case of more vacancies, admissions will be offered to children residing within 3 to 6 km radius of the school. Those residing beyond 6km will be admitted only if the school has seats after meeting all above criterion.

As there has been almost a week delay in starting the nursery admissions, the government is likely to extend the last date to apply.

“We have held consultation and the application process will be extended,” said Saumya Gupta, director of education.

The admission process for remaining 1,400 private schools started on January 2 and will continue till January 23. For these schools, distance is one of the criterions among others such as siblings, alumni and first girl child.

“When these schools were being given land by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) they had put a condition that they have to admit children of the neighbourhood. So the government has defined neighbourhood for these schools,” said Education Minister Manish Sisodia in a tweet.

In 2004, the Supreme Court had said that the schools will have to implement the terms of the allotment letter. This was not implemented, so in 2016, Justice for All moved the Delhi High Court again demanding implementation of the terms of allotment letter.