DELHI Public School, Mathura Road, recently published an advertisement specifying the upper age limit for children seeking admissions in nursery, in violation of a government order that says the child should be three plus by March 31 in the year admission is sought for the pre-school class.

Some parents, however, feel such specific advertisements at least create less confusion. The DoE guidelines set no upper age limit. Three plus years on a particular date can mean anything, a parent said.

Education Secretary Rina Ray said on Monday that fixing an upper age limit would mean discrimination on the basis of age which violates the basic principles of the Right to Education Bill, recently cleared by the Cabinet. “We don’t have to wait for the bill to come into effect,” she said. “We can follow it in good spirit. You can’t deny a child admission on the basis of age.” For parents, the DOE guidelines are ambiguous and they would rather have schools fix an upper age limit as part of their admission criteria rather than waste energy and resources on applying to schools where their child couldbe rejected on thebasis of age. In case of DPS Mathura Road, the child born between April 1, 2005 to March 31, 2006 shall be eligible for admissions. “Schools must define upper and lower age limits,” Sanjay Singh, a parent based in Vasant Vihar, said. “We want them to make it very clear. Only then can parents channelize their efforts and apply to the schools for which their children are eligible. The Supreme Court has given the schools autonomy.

Whether or not they follow the DoE guidelines is up to them.” However, the big question is:

where do children born in January, February or in March in 2005 go? aparent, who did not wish to be named, asked. “There should be a uniform pattern that all schools should follow with regard to age,”

he said. Two other schools, DPS International and Mount Carmel, set September 30, 2008, as their cut-off

date for the child to be three plus years as opposed to March 31, 2009. But these are exceptions. One being a minority school and the other being an international one, do not come within the purview of the DoE.

Satish Mohindra, who runs a play school in Nehru Enclave, said such confusion is unwarranted and given the competition for nursery admission, parents might just change the birthdate of the child on the birth certificates to ensure they arc eligible for admissions. “In case the child is four plus, parents will be forced to change dates or else apply to KG class,” he said.

After the Delhi government decided to open admissions to three-year- old children last year to catch up with other states that have children between the age group of 5-6 years attending Class I, schools have had to deal with varied age groups in nursery classes, Amol Arora, managing director of Shemrock Schools, said. “Schools are having problems handling three-year- olds,” he said. “But very few schools are taking in 4-year-olds too. There’s no transparency in admissions.

Schools ideally would not like to take a varied age group.”

Some parents said they feared their children would get rejected if they were too young or too old, in which case the principal might want them to attend pre-primary class. But for a child to directly attend KG classes without attending formal school is not a good idea, they said.

Article courtesy: The Indian Express, 11th Nov ’08

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