There is no clarity regarding the documents required for marginalised groups and if the process will be digital, manual, both
With only three days to go, the nursery admission guidelines for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) and Disadvantaged Group (DG) are yet to be issued, leading to confusion among parents. Parents seeking admission under the EWS category (annual income less than Rs 1 lakh) have been left wondering if the admission process will go digital or remain manual or both. Those who need to book seats under the DG category (SC/ST/OBC, non-creamy layer/physically challenged/orphan and transgender) have no idea about the documents required for the process.
"My husband and I don't know how to operate the Internet. We can't keep on checking the Directorate of Education (DoE) website to see if the notification for EWS admission is out or not. We don't even know which schools will have the digital admission process," said Sheela Rani, who works at a grocery shop in west Delhi's Karol Bagh area. Last year, she could not secure a seat for her four-year-old son and is worried that she might lose the chance this year as well.
"There was so much confusion regarding the mode of admission for the EWS category, digital or manual, that till the end, we could not figure out where and how to apply," she added.
Last year, the admission process for EWS/DG categories was bifurcated into two — admissions in schools recognised under the Delhi School Education Act- 1973 were conducted through computerised and centralised lottery system, while the process remained manual for rest of the schools.
Talking to DNA on the condition of anonymity, a parent from south Delhi's Vasant Kunj area said that for the last three months, she has been rushing from pillar to post to collect all the required documents for the admission of her four-year-old specially-abled son.
"Earlier in October, I went to talk to the principal of a school in my locality. I told her that my son is mildly autistic and asked for her help. I was told to get a disability certificate from a recognised government hospital, following which I went to AIIMS, where doctors told me that my son would be normal in a few years and advised that I should not label him as disabled," she said.
"The hospital provided me with a letter stating that my child fell under the special children category, but the principal refused to accept that," she said, adding that now she was clueless about what is to be done. "I can only wait for the DoE guidelines," she said.
Several others like her are also waiting for the DoE guidelines. "We are receiving a lot of queries from parents regarding the EWS/DG admission guidelines on our portal. Some schools, including Mount Caramel and Anand Niketan, have already mentioned in their guidelines that the admission forms for EWS category will be available at the school from January 2 onwards, even as the DoE guidelines are still awaited," said Sumit Vohra of admissionsnursery.com.
According to Vohra, every year, admissions for general and EWS/DG category begin together and results for both have to be uploaded on the same day, but this year, there is still no clarity regarding the process and parents are really concerned. "It will be so difficult for the parents who are not originally from Delhi to get their documents endorsed by the state government, if the guidelines come at the last moment," he said.
The nursery admissions for the upcoming session are set to begin from January 2, 2017.
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