Delhi govt nursery guidelines violative of RTE Act: DCPCR

Updated on: Monday, December 20, 2010

Delhi's child rights body DCPCR slammed the city government's nursery admission guidelines as "violative" of the RTE Act and issued a notice to it seeking immediate revision of the order.

The Government had on Wednesday announced broad guidelines for admission into nursery classes virtually giving almost total leeway to private schools to frame their own criteria for enrolment of children.

Taking cognisance of the guidelines, Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights told the Education Department to re-examine the order as "top priority" since prima-facie it is violative of the RTE Act.

The DCPCR said the freedom given to the private schools to formulate their own admission rules would result in Government not having any control over the admission policies of the respective schools.

With regard to guidelines issued by Union HRD Ministry on nursery admission, the Commission said Delhi Government has "given its own interpretations and made obvious changes that directly contravene the provisions of the Act which strictly prohibit any screening procedure."

The city government had sought clarification from the Union HRD Ministry on the provision of random selection of the students for the admission.

Delhi Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely, while announcing the nursery guidelines, had said his department had decided to allow private schools to frame their own guidelines as opined by Union HRD Ministry.

The DCPCR said while the guidelines issued by Education Department for selection of 25 per cent students from Economically Weaker Section through random selection is in conformity with RTE Act, the government order violates the provisions of legislation wherein it deals with remaining 75 per cent seats.

The Commission is of the view that the government order would create the "categorisations" of the applicants on the basis that can include siblings, transfer case, single parent and alumni, which is nothing but introduction of the
"so-called point systemâ€¦"

The Commission, having dealt with a large number of cases of denial of admissions to the children, has found last year's point system as "highly discriminatory", it said.

It said Lovely's statements published in the media made it "abundantly clear" that multiple criteria have been introduced for admission which would create preferences for certain types of categories of children over other category of children and which would be clear violation of provisions of RTE Act.

Delhi govt nursery guidelines violative of RTE Act: DCPCR

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