E-Paper
Schools can’t turn away own students: SC
Now private and government schools cannot deny admission to a student in Class XI if he or she fails to secure cut-off marks prescribed by the school in Class X exams.
Private and government schools cannot deny admission to a student in Class XI if he or she fails to secure cut-off marks prescribed by the school in Class X exams, the Supreme Court has ruled. Asking the schools to share the burden of a student’s poor performance in Class X boards, a bench headed by Justice RV Raveendran made it clear that all students who clear their exams should be promoted to the senior class, irrespective of the final marks.
Clearing admission for a Chennai-based boy who was denied admission by Kendriya Vidyalaya for not scoring prescribed per centage fixed by the school, the bench said: “After all the school must share at least some responsibility for the poor performance of its students and should help him in trying to do better in the next higher class.” The court, however, continued to empower schools to fix cut-off marks for allotting streams in Class XI.
“The school may of course give him the stream or course that may appear to be most suitable for him on the basis of the prescribed cut-off marks,” it added. The bench held that admission to Class XI was did not involve any fresh admission or readmission in the school.
It also doesn’t matter whether the examination of Class X was internal or a general examination by an external statutory agency. The bench said admission to Class XI was a case of promotion to the higher class. The bench refused to give liberty to Kendriya Vidyalaya to issue its own admission guidelines to Class XI on the ground that the chain of schools was being run by a Sangathan.
It said there can be no distinction between private or government schools and both are obliged to accommodate in Class XI all its students passing the Class X CBSE exams.
