Nursery admission is no child's play

Updated on: Monday, January 09, 2012

Though it was not expected to be a fight for forms this year, the reality seems different with harrowed parents trying their best to catch up with the deadlines of the closing of the sale of forms at different schools - some closing as early as 11.30 am.

Online offline

Shweta Malik, a banker and mother of a three-year old, says, "I have been saving my leaves for a month so that I could spare a week's leave for my daughter's admission . I didn't imagine that downloading forms online will be such a problem with most school websites being either very slow or hanging midway. As a result, I had to get forms manually, which took a lot of running around with some of the schools shutting windows even before the half-day mark."

Trouble timings

Another parent, who stood in queue outside St Michael's School, Pusa Road, had to go back without a form. The sale of registration forms in the school remains open from 10-11 am, leaving many parents stranded. While in schools like Salwan Public School, Ramjas School, Springdales School, Bal Bharati Public School, besides others, the sale of forms is on between 8.30 am and 11 am, most parents believe the duration should be longer in view of the rush.

Flip side

However, a teacher from St Michael's School, Pusa Road, on condition of anonymity, says, "We are receiving thousands of applications online on a daily basis for the 50 vacant seats in our school. Since there are options to download forms or register online, we have kept only an hour for manual sales of forms."

Besides, there are parents who claim that they cannot get benefit of most points including alumni, sibling , girl-child or the single parent criteria laid out by the Ashok Ganguly committee.

LV Sehgal, principal, Bal Bharati Public School, says, "With sales of forms having started on January 2 and continuing till January 16, parents have enough time to collect and submit the forms back to us. Parents must keep their choices clear and should wait for the second and third lists to appear."

The points system

The Ashok Ganguly Committee came out with a basic point system to bring about transparency and uniformity in the admission system across schools: 20 POINTS - to children residing in the neighbourhood (distance less than 3 km radius). As the distance increases, the points decrease and become nil for distance exceeding 10 km 5 POINTS - assigned to female children 5 POINTS - for disabled children 5 POINTS - for siblings studying in the same school 5 POINTS - for parents' qualification 5 POINTS - for children of the alumni, more weighting to children of single parent.

Times of India

Nursery admission is no child's play

More Education news