The minimum age for nursery admission in the Capital was retained at three-years plus, as the Delhi High court  on Tuesday, threw out a challenge to the admission procedures being followed by city’s private schools. The court has refused to intervene in the process, on the Delhi Government’s assurance that they were complying with its orders regarding setting separate minimum ages for admission to nursery and pre-primary classes.

The Delhi Government on 11^th Jan, reiterated its stand before the Delhi High Court stating that it will not consider nursery as part of the formal schooling of a child and the entry age for formal schooling, which starts from KG, is 4+.The guidelines earlier issued by Directorate of Education(DoE), had stated 3 years as the minimum age for admission in class nursery. This minimum age for admission in class nursery remains unchanged.

A contempt petition, which alleged that the authorities had failed to comply with its earlier order fixing four-plus as the entry age of the child in the pre-primary classes. Justice GS Sistani accepted the Government’s stand that the child’s admission in pre-school (nursery classes will not automatically grant him/her the eligibility to continue in the pre-primary classes, for which the age has been fixed by the court at four years on or before 31^st march of the year in which the admission is being sought. The child will have to separately meet all criteria for admission to the pre-primary classes even if he/ she has studied in the nursery classes of the same school, the Government clarified.

The Government stated in its affidavit that in all Delhi schools, the pre-primary education would be of uniform 1-year duration. It would be the class immediately prior to class 1 and would be known as pre-primary, the affidavit added.

The department also assured the court that it will introduce one year pre-primary in all government schools within three years, which will require additional classrooms and recruitment of teachers. Right now, only 160 of the 375 Sarvodaya Schools have a pre-primary class. In 2007, High Court had directed the government to make the duration of pre-primary education one year instead of two years.

The petition filed through counsel Ashok Aggarwal, Social Jurists, said the government has failed to comply with the court’s earlier directions, including Ashok Ganguly committee recommendations, to prohibit schools from taking children below four years or admission in pre-primary class.

The government had assured the court that it will implement the direction from the academic year 2008-2009 but till date it has failed to implement the same, the lawyer said. It was alleged that schools in the city have been admitting children who had turned three and some schools were even taking children who completed two years by violating the norms which fixed completion of four years as the entry age for admission to pre-primary class. The petitioner organization said as per the Education Act, a child needs to complete five years by March 31 of the academic year for admission to Class I. It was also stated that the schools give admission to children for two years before they get admitted to Class I, which is against the existing statute.

Source- Times of India, dated 12th Jan 2011

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