With the Delhi Government’s announcement to begin nursery admissions at private schools constructed on government land, parents and activists collectively speculated about whether the number of schools on the new list will increase. In the earlier notification, 298 schools were listed under the “private unaided schools built on government land” category, which are bound by the government’s condition not to deny admission to residents from their locality. An increase in the number of schools in the new list can be bad news for a lot of parents.
Dr Rakesh Kumar, a resident of South Extension, said, “Parents have already started to apply in schools that did not come under this category. So now if one of those schools is listed in the ‘private unaided schools built on government land’ category, then their child might have to lose admission in that school if it is not in the same neighbourhood where they live.”There are 1,400 private unaided schools in the Capital, out of which around 450 are speculated to be built on government land. Sumit Vohra, founder, nurseryadmissions.com, a platform to guide parents through the admission process in Delhi school, said, “Around 350 schools out of these could be on Delhi Development Authority land, but the earlier notifications issued by DoE listed only 298 schools and used the word ‘tentative’ hinting at a possible increase in the number of schools that could come under the category.”
Rashi Shukla, a resident of Dwarka, said, “The ideal way would have been to finalise the list of schools that are private unaided and built on government land and then release it so that parents could be sure that they can apply in these schools only if they are in their own neighbourhood because these schools cannot deny admission to local residents.” Though the other schools started their nursery admission process on 2 January, these institutions had to wait for the L-G’s nod. The city government wanted these schools to admit students solely on the neighbourhood or distance criteria. Other schools admit students through the neighbourhood/distance, alumni, sibling categories. The details of the guidelines and schedule were not released from the Directorate of Education till this story went to press.