New Delhi: Delhi`s child rights body DCPCR on Friday slammed the city government`s nursery admission
guidelines as "violative" of the Right to Education Act and
issued a notice to it seeking immediate revision of the order.
The Government had on Wednesday announced broad
guidelines for admission into nursery classes virtually giving
almost total leeway to private schools to frame their own
criteria for enrolment of children.
Taking cognisance of the guidelines, Delhi Commission for
Protection of Child Rights told the Education Department to
re-examine the order as "top priority" since prima-facie it is
violative of the RTE Act.
The DCPCR said the freedom given to the private schools
to formulate their own admission rules would result in
Government not having any control over the admission policies
of the respective schools.
With regard to guidelines issued by Union HRD Ministry
on nursery admission, the Commission said Delhi Government
has "given its own interpretations and made obvious changes
that directly contravene the provisions of the Act which
strictly prohibit any screening procedure."
The city government had sought clarification from the
Union HRD Ministry on the provision of random selection of the
students for the admission.
Delhi Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely, while
announcing the nursery guidelines, had said his department had
decided to allow private schools to frame their own guidelines
as opined by Union HRD Ministry.
The DCPCR said while the guidelines issued by Education
Department for selection of 25 per cent students from
Economically Weaker Section through random selection is in
conformity with RTE Act, the government order violates the
provisions of legislation wherein it deals with remaining 75
per cent seats.
The Commission is of the view that the government
order would create the "categorisations" of the applicants on
the basis that can include siblings, transfer case, single
parent and alumni, which is nothing but introduction of the
"so-called point system?"
The Commission, having dealt with a large number of
cases of denial of admissions to the children, has found last
year`s point system as "highly discriminatory", it said.
It said Lovely`s statements published in the media made
it "abundantly clear" that multiple criteria have been
introduced for admission which would create preferences for
certain types of categories of children over other category of
children and which would be clear violation of provisions of
RTE Act.
PTI
