Nursery admissions across 1,700 schools to begin Feb 18

New Delhi: The process for nursery admissions in over 1,700 schools in Delhi will begin from February 18, the Directorate of Education (DoE) announced on Wednesday, bringing respite for anxious parents who have been waiting for the notification for over two months.

As per the notified schedule, the application process will begin from February 18 and the last date to apply is March 4. The first list of selected children will be displayed on March 20, followed by the second list on March 25 and subsequent list for admission, if any, on March 27. The entire admission process will conclude on March 31.

The DoE has also directed that since schools are closed in view of the COVID-19 pandemic and physical classroom learning is not going on for entry level classes at present, no fee except prescribed registration fee, admission fee, caution fee (if school already charges) and tuition fee, shall be charged at the time of admission by the schools and thereafter only tuition fee shall be charged from the students till further orders.

"Congratulations to all parents and children. We have to bring the excitement back in schools after defeating coronavirus. Our schools are waiting for their students," Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted, referring to the notification of nursery admission schedule.

Usually, nursery admissions in around 1,700 schools in the national capital begin in the last week of November. The DoE releases guidelines and schools are asked to furnish required information, following which the application process is rolled out in December. However, there has been no development on it in 2020.

Sharing the guidelines for admission, Udit Prakash Raj, Director, DOE, said the schedule must be adhered to strictly and "only a non-refundable amount of Rs 25 can be charged from the parents as admission registration fee. The purchase of prospectus of the school by the parents shall be

optional".

The Directorate of Education has said that the private unaided recognised schools shall develop and adopt criteria for admission which shall be fair, reasonable, well defined, equitable, non-discriminatory, unambiguous and transparent.

A monitoring cell will be constituted in each district under the chairmanship of the Deputy Director (District) concerned, who shall ensure that each private school uploads the criteria.

School principals in the city welcomed the move, especially given early speculations that nursery admissions might be scrapped.

The Delhi government officials had in December said that a proposal to scrap nursery admissions is being considered as the schools have been closed for nine months due to COVID-19 and will remain closed till a vaccine is available. A whole year of online learning for small children seems unviable, they had said. But school principals had opposed this idea.

However, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia last month had ruled out scrapping nursery admissions.

(With agency inputs)