Nursery admissions: Sisodia orders action against over 50 pvt schools

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia today ordered action against over 50 private schools in the national capital which have been found adopting "arbitrary" and "unreasonable" criteria for nursery admissions.
Sisodia, who is also the Education Minister slammed private schools running on DDA land for moving court against the new guidelines on nursery admissions saying the government had formed the new rules in accordance with a Supreme Court ruling of 2004.
The AAP government had last year issued a list of 51 abolished criteria including parents' education, their profession, age, oral test and interview warning schools of strict action.
"On basis of complaints received, over 50 schools have been identified as adopting arbitrary criteria which were abolished by the government last year. Action will be initiated against these schools and they will be guided to remove those criterion," a senior government official said.

While 1400 private schools in the national capital are free to set their own criteria excluding the abolished ones, the government has issued fresh set of guidelines for 298 schools running on DDA land.
Sisodia also hit out at the previous government for not formulating the guidelines for these schools within three months of the apex court ruling in 2004.

"Ideally following Supreme Court's ruling in 2004 the guidelines for nursery admissions in 298 schools running on DDA land should have been formulated within 3 months. But it did not happen for whatever reason," he said in his blog.
"Now that our government has followed the court ruling and formulated the guidelines, these schools should follow them but they have decided to challenge a Supreme Court judgement before the High Court," he added.

Delhi Government had last month directed 298 private schools running on DDA land to hold the admission process till new guidelines are announced.
After keeping the admissions process on hold for over a week, the Delhi government announced a fresh set of norms making the distance of the school from the applicant's residence a major criterion while considering them for admission.
Two groups representing private unaided schools decided to move court challenging a condition in the letter allotting DDA land to them under which admissions have been restricted to the institutions' locality.
While the Court pulled up the AAP government for coming out with nursery admission norms at the "eleventh hour" leading to "chaos, confusion and wastage of valuable judicial time", it directed the parents to fill up the application forms of various schools based on the criteria set by them as well as the government.