School admission procedure should be rational, transparent

Updated on: Saturday, November 27, 2010

The HRD ministry said the admission procedure under the right to education (RTE) act should be "non-discriminatory, rational and transparent".

According to a release by the ministry, the objective of the provisions of section 13(1) read with section 2(a) is to ensure that schools adopt an admission procedure which is non-discriminatory, rational and transparent and that schools do not subject children and their parents to admission tests and interview in order to decide whether they will admit a child or not.

"With regard to admissions in class 1 (or pre-primary class as the case may be) under section 12(1) of the RTE Act in unaided and 'specified category' schools, schools shall follow a system of random selection out of the applications received from children belonging to disadvantaged groups and weaker sections for filling the pre-determined number of seats in that class, which should not be not less than 25 percent of the strength of the class," said a statement by the ministry.

Admission to remaining 75 percent of the seats in respect of unaided schools and specified category schools, and for all the seats in the aided schools, each school should formulate a policy under which admissions are to take place.

"This policy should include criteria for categorization of applicants in terms of the objectives of the school on a rational, reasonable and just basis. There shall be no profiling of the child based on parental educational qualifications. The policy should be placed by the school in the public domain, given wide publicity and explicitly seated in the school prospectus," the release said.

The ministry said there should be no testing and interviews for any child/parent falling within or outside the categories, and selection would be on a random basis.

School admission procedure should be rational, transparent

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