KG admission: HC issues notices to govt, Ahmedabad schools

A bench of acting chief justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and justice JB Pardiwala of Gujarat high court issued notices to the state government and four city schools in connection with a PIL raising an issue of admission of children below 3 years of age in junior KG.

The PIL mentions that admission of children below the age of three years to schools is violative of the state government’s circular issued in 1996 that set the age of not less than 3 years for children’s admission to schools. The bench made four schools -  Delhi Public School (DPS), St Kabir, Udgam and Vedanta - as respondents.

The schools were joined as party respondents as the petitioner annexed admission notices issued by these schools in newspapers inviting admission to junior KG and pre-primary sections.

“We have filed the petition as the admission of children below age of 3 years is allowed in schools across the state. We also annexed admission notices of few schools for pre-primary and junior KG sections,” said Bhunesh Rupera, counsel for Kamal Pandya, general secretary of the All India Students’ Organisation.

The petition states that the state’s education department had framed policy for the pre-primary education vide circular of January 30, 1996. It provided guidelines pertaining to admission and other related matters to pre-primary education in the schools and set cut-off age of not less than three years for children’s admission to schools.

The petition further states that one of the schools had given admission notice in the newspapers wherein eligible age for children’s admission was shown only 2 years. The petitioner had made representation to district authorities and few schools about irregularity in the age of admission, but in vain.