In New Delhi, government took a new turn by ending
discrimination done by private schools in providing admissions to nursery
schools. It ordered such schools to remove the management quota and also struck
down 62 debatable criteria under which schools were awarding seats to the
students.
Despite being a good move, this might delay the admission
procedure of nursery classes as this order will suffer legally.
Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal confirmed that now only 25%
quota will be provided for economically weaker sections (EWS) which will be
mandatory as per the Right to Education Act rather than the 75% reservation
provided by private schools under various categories.
While due to this issue, parents are happy as the seats will
be increased, however the picture is not yet clear that government can issue
such directions or not. This is because private schools had been granted
autonomy by the Delhi high court in 2014.
The government has
also threatened to derecognize or take over the various private schools if they
do not comply with this order. Fearing, that this matter will be further
stretched to court, CM Arvind Kejriwal said that he will personally appear in
the court to defend this move in the court.
The private schools had other things to say. According to
the Kejriwal government is punishing them for not providing buses during the
odd-even trial. The government denied to this and said they are reacting to the
quota system adopted by schools.
Kejriwal said that high court asked government not to
interfere with the admissions procedure of nursery classes and that schools can
adopt their own criteria for admissions. However, after looking into the
discriminatory criteria's adopted by the schools, government had to interfere
and issued directions to cancel these criteria.
It's not the first time that the decision is challenged. In
2013, LG Najeeb Jung had attempted to define criteria for nursery admission and
to fight against the management quota. However, it was contested in court
delaying the admissions of nursery. After this, high court gave autonomous
status to schools deciding their own criteria against this; state government
approached a division bench. The matter has since been sub-judice i.e. pending
in court and the next date of hearing is on January 22.
According to S K Bhattacharya, who heads the Action
Committee for Unaided Recognized Public Schools, an umbrella organization of
the city's private school associations, state government is trying to go
against the high court as it already granted private schools to decide the
quota and criteria. Schools will challenge this order on January 22 in its
hearing.
Schools has adopted many criteria's such as status of child,
non-smoker parent, proficiency by applicant in music and sports, social and
noble cause, vegetarianism, joint family etc. which the government has raised
objections to.
According to a report, parents are happy about eliminating
the management quota. A parent said that government has initiated a good move
if it is implemented properly. It might be late on the part of government as
schools have their monopoly but at least government took a step against them.
Tags: Management Quota
Private Schools
Economically Weaker Section
Right To Education Act
