Schools’ body suggests changes in nursery admission process

The National Progressive Schools Conference (NPSC), a leading association of senior secondary schools, has written to the Directorate of Education, offering suggestions and changes in the nursery admission guidelines.

The National Progressive Schools Conference (NPSC), a leading association of senior secondary schools, has written to the Directorate of Education, offering suggestions and changes in the nursery admission guidelines.

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The NPSC, in its letter, has requested the Directorate of Education to make the admission process more flexible to avoid litigation and confusion — the highlights of the admission session this year that was wrapped up in May, almost two months behind schedule.

The NPSC wants that along with distance, alumni, sibling and girl child categories, schools could also be allowed to consider points for children of government employees or armed forces personnel and national awardees or achievers.

The schools have also suggested that school management committees be given discretion of up to 20% in admissions.

Last year, the Lieutenant Governor had made massive changes in the nursery admission guidelines. Under the new guidelines, it became mandatory for all schools to follow the same set of points’ category to admit students. Before this, schools were free to set their own points system according to their priorities.

They were, however, not allowed to conduct interviews or discriminate on the basis of the parents’ educational qualifications, profession or income.

The L-G’s guidelines also put an end to the management quota in all schools. It instead brought in 5 points for the inter-state transfer category, which led to parents submitting false transfer documents. The matter ended up in court, becoming a cause of anxiety for parents as well as schools.

The main grouse of all schools was that they were not consulted before such sweeping changes were introduced, despite them having more extensive experience in the matter.

The schools’ body is trying to make sure that a re-run of May’s chaos does not happen again.

Some suggestions given by the NPSC, however, are controversial.

Allotting points for children of armed personnel, government employees of for awardees has got schools in trouble earlier as well since they are not supposed to discriminate against children based on their parents’ achievements or lack thereof.