Sisodia slams schools on nursery admission norms

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 16

Education Minister Manish Sisodia today criticised the city’s private schools running on DDA land for moving court against the new guidelines on nursery admissions stating the city government had brought the new rules in line with a Supreme Court ruling of 2004.

The Deputy Chief Minister also lashed out at the previous government for not formulating the guidelines for nursery admissions within three months of the apex court ruling then.

“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 three months. But it did not happen for whatever reason,” Sisodia 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.

The government had last month directed 298 private schools functioning on DDA land to hold the admission process till new guidelines are announced.

Thereafter after over a week the government announced set of new guidelines making the distance of the school from the applicant’s residence a major criterion while considering the concerned for admission.

This prompted private unaided schools to approach the court against the government’s decision. What is more the court pulled up the Delhi government for coming out with nursery admission norms at the “eleventh hour” causing “chaos, confusion and wastage of valuable judicial time” and told the parents to fill up the application forms of various schools as per the criteria set by schools and the government.