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Four minority schools devise new admission mechanism

Staff Reporter

Their plan includes "interacting with parents and observing behaviour of children'' They clarified that admissions would not be granted on basis of knowledge or performance of children

NEW DELHI : Four private minority schools of the Capital have jointly informed the Delhi High Court that they have devised an alternate mechanism of "`interacting with parents and observing the behaviour of children'' in place of interviews for admissions to nursery and pre-nursery classes in the city's private unaided schools.

The High Court had on August 23 directed the Action Committee of Recognised Unaided Schools here to put in place within a week an alternate mechanism in place of interviews for admissions to nursery and pre-nursery classes.

The schools -- St. Columba's, Carmel Convent, Mater Dei and St. Xavier's -- said in their joint reply to the Court direction filed in the Registry that they would, among other things, interact with ``the parents of children seeking admissions to the two classes and observe the behaviour of the toddlers''.

The children would be required to be present along with their parents in the interaction sessions but the former would not be interviewed; they would simply be allowed to be ``on their own or with other children and would be observed'', they said.

However, the reply clarified that admissions would not be granted on the basis of knowledge or performance of the children. The schools would have the right to determine whether a child was of normal health or ill or mentally or physically challenged requiring special attention, the schools said.

The Court has already said ``No'' to the practice of subjecting children and their parents to interviews for admissions to these classes in the Capital's private unaided schools.

The Bench last year had warned the Action Committee, an association of private unaided schools of the Capital, that if it failed to agree on an alternate mechanism, it would pass appropriate orders. The Bench has been hearing appeals by parents of three nursery children against a single-Judge order of the Court whereby Justice S.K. Kaul had in January 2003 rejected their petitions seeking a direction to debar schools in the Capital from subjecting parents as well as their wards to interviews for admissions to these classes.

Ashok Aggarwal, counsel for the three appellants, has already suggested a draw of lots for these admissions saying that Delhi Government-run schools here select poor students for admissions under the free-ship scheme by that method.

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