Schools in fix over nursery admissions' lottery rule

A day after the Directorate of Education issued guidelines that would manoeuvre nursery admissions for the forthcoming academic year, the city schools have begun to worry about the impending lottery system under general category.

A day after the Directorate of Education issued guidelines that would manoeuvre nursery admissions for the forthcoming academic year, the city schools have begun to worry about the impending lottery system under general category.

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While the lottery system for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) sees lesser applicants every year, schools have begun to hit the panic button to streamline the method of allocating 15% of seats under the general category through it.

"Even though we have been following the system for the EWS category, doing it for the general category will be a lot more daunting," said Ameeta Wattal, principal, Springdales School (Pusa Road).

For schools, it is the execution process that is proving to be a challenge because of the sheer number of the applicants.

"If we get 3,000 forms under general category, it is not impossible to carry out a manual lottery. The applicants can also question us later. So, to make it more transparent, we will have to do it through a computerised system," added Wattal.

"For 3,000 applicants under general category, we will have 6,000-odd parents waiting for the lottery. It is logistically difficult to conduct a lottery in this case. We are new to this system and any new system is bound to have hiccups. We are now planning to get in touch with the education minister to get some clear direction on the lottery system for general category," said Jyoti Bose, principal, Springdales School (Dhaula Kuan).

Some schools, on the other hand, are not daunted by the proposition. "We were concerned about the change in the age limit for children. As that has been cleared, we are more comfortable. As far as the lottery system for the general category is concerned, we will do it manually," said Usha Ram, principal, Laxman Public School.