Are bureaucrats willing to send their wards to govt schools: Delhi HC on poor quality of education

New Delhi: Terming as poor the quality of education and infrastructure in government schools here, the Delhi High Court today questioned the AAP government whether its bureaucrats are willing to send their wards to such institutions.

Justice Manmohan said instead of taking over the private schools, public schools should be improved so that the parents in future only opt for these.

"Your (Delhi government) schools are below the line. In United States of America people prefer to admit their children in public schools as the infrastructure and teachers are good.

"In our public schools, the teachers do not even turn up for classes. It's not worth talking about the infrastructure," the court said, noting that "choice of freedom for everyone, especially with regard to education, cannot be merely taken away by an order" with regard to nursery admission on the basis of the neighbourhood criterion.

It also asked the counsel for the Delhi government whether their bureaucrats are willing to send their children to public schools, which have to travel a long way to match with the private ones.

"Your standards have fallen so steeply that it will take time to come up to the mark," the judge remarked and said, "Can you and me decide where the child of a parent should go to study."

The court's observations came during hearing of pleas challenging the AAP government's recent order to private unaided schools to admit students in nursery using the neighbourhood norm.

Defending the government's decision, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain, appearing for the Directorate of Education (DoE), said they are taking initiatives to improve their schools and even the condition imposed on the private unaided schools are part of it, so they be allowed to go ahead with it (neighbourhood norm).

"DoE has power to regulate rules with regard to schools here and the institutes should abide by these," the ASG said and also informed the court that they have extended till February 14, the last date for submissions of forms for nursery admission.

To this, the court said it is allowing them to work, but they should do it without stepping into anyone's domain.

It said by imposing a neighbourhood criteria, the Delhi government will promote corruption as the parents will furnish false documents at the time of admission.

ASG Jain submitted that a perusal of the allotment letter "clearly and explicitly shows that lessee school had willingly accepted the terms of allotment and on the same very terms of allotment, the lessee has been enjoying the property since the time of its allotment".

He said that the "lessee cannot be allowed to allege that as the word neighbourhood is not defined in the allotment letter, the meaning of the word neighbourhood as is now being defined by the DoE will not be applicable on the lessee".

The ASG, who was not able to conclude his submissions on the issue, will now resume on January 30.

The parents, whose kids are to be admitted in nursery this year, had submitted before the court that the AAP government's order is bad in law and has curtailed their fundamental rights.

The parents, the Action Committee of Unaided Recognised Private Schools and the Forum for Promotion of Quality Education, have moved the court against the Delhi government's recent order on the ground that the neighbourhood restriction was "not reasonable".

The two circulars of December 19, 2016 and January 7, 2017 have enforced the allotment clause and have thereby restricted admission in schools on DDA land in their locality.

The court, however, by way of an interim order had allowed the parents to fill up the application forms for the various schools based on the criteria set by them as well as the Delhi government.

Later, it had also stayed the government's notification asking private minority unaided schools to accept nursery admission forms using neighbourhood criteria.

The parents and the associations had concluded their arguments yesterday.

298 private unaided schools on DDA land were affected by the nursery admission guidelines which state that such institutes "shall not refuse admission to the residents of the locality".

Defining what neighbourhood would mean, the guidelines say that students residing within one km of the school will be preferred and if seats are not filled, preference will be given to students residing within 1-3 kms of the school.

"Students residing beyond 6 kms shall be admitted only in case vacancies remain unfilled even after considering all the students within 6 km area," as per the guidelines.