Maharashtra: Confusion prevails over pre-primary, primary admissions

After school education minister Vinod Tawde’s tweet on Friday, postponing the enforcement of minimum age limit by one academic year, some Mumbai schools have decided to stick to the age limit, while others will follow their own criteria.

Pre-school and primary admissions are back to being chaotic. After school education minister Vinod Tawde’s tweet on Friday, postponing the enforcement of minimum age limit by one academic year, some Mumbai schools have decided to stick to the age limit, while others will follow their own criteria.

Some Catholic schools under the Archdiocesan Board of Education (ABE) will admit children aged three and above to nursery and six and above to Class 1. Others will admit children between two to two-and-half years to nursery and five to five-and-half years to Class 1.

St Mary’s (SSC), Mazgaon, is one such school that has decided to stick to the age limit even though it’s not mandatory this year. “After the GR was issued, the ABE had given us instructions on how to follow the age limit, so we will do our admissions accordingly,” said Father Baptist Pinto, principal of the school.

However, others such as St Xavier’s, Fort, and St Stanislaus, Bandra, have decided to continue with the age criteria that they were following in the past. “As the government has given an extension, we will admit children as per last year’s criteria,” said Father Francis Swamy, manager of St Xavier’s School.

Parents, meanwhile, are confused. “My daughter is three years old some schools are willing to accept her in nursery and others in junior kindergarten,” said Rajeshwari Shinde, a parent from Goregaon. “A uniform age-limit would have been better.”

The confusion has even spilled over to the online admissions to Right to Education (RTE) seats. “Since the minister has decided to postpone the implementation of GR by one year, we cannot impose a common age-limit this year for RTE admissions either,” said Mahaveer Mane, director of primary education.