Most parents in the city are satisfied with the new nursery admission guidelines approved by Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung this past week. And, a quarter of the parents only grouse is that the “neighbourhood” criteria be changed from six km to about 10 km, according to a survey conducted by nurseryadmissions.com.
According to the guidelines, admissions will now have to be done on a 100-point basis in which 70 points will go to children who live within a six km radius of the school. Sibling studying in school gets 20 points; parent alumni of school has only five points and inter-State transfer cases has the remaining five points. Any seats remaining vacant will have to be allotted by the draw of lots.
During the survey that covered 1,650 parents, around 40.8 per cent respondents said that they are happy with the guidelines and that they have a better chance of getting their children admitted. However, around 28 per cent said that the neighbourhood should have been expanded to include a radius of 10 km. Around 10.4 per cent of the parents did not like the guidelines as they did not have any schools in the neighbourhood. And, around 3.8 per cent did not like the guidelines because they had an older child who was in a school that the younger child could not get into because of the increased points for neighbourhood and the lower points for sibling.
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Around 13.4 per cent felt that it would have been better if the points for “neighbourhood” could be awarded in a spread out fashion where you are given 70 points for your home falling within six km but you are also entitled to get some lesser points if your house is a little farther away; the number of points being in direct ratio to the distance of your home.
About 3.6 per cent said they had other reasons for not liking the new guidelines. While being surveyed, some parents said that the guidelines were unfair to those who lived in Central or South Delhi where schools were scarce. Some said that they would be forced to move their homes to be nearer to a school while some parents said that it was unfair that “parent alumni,” got only five points when parents naturally wanted their child to study in the same school as themselves. There were also parents who said that points for “first child,” being taken away was unfair especially when “siblings,” got points. The five points for girl child was also cited as unfair by those parents with a boy.