NEW DELHI: The directorate of education on Thursday kicked off the admission process for the pre-primary classes in private schools by uploading the registration forms on its official website (edudel.nic.in). Although no data could be gathered as to how many registrations were done on the first day, sources said that many parents have done the registration formality through school websites.
The process will go on till December 15, 2023, the last date to fill up the application forms for the desired schools. The parents are free to fill out any number of application forms in the schools they wish their child to get admission into by paying a standard fee of Rs 25 and attaching a family photograph to the form.
The director of education has already warned schools against the criteria being included by schools like parents’ education, profession, income, food habits or conduct interviews of students and parents, all abolished by the Delhi government in 2016.
As per the admission criteria released on Monday by as many as 366 out of 1731 schools on the directorate of education website, ‘neighbourhood’ has been kept as the main factor for admission, comprising maximum points.
This means the lesser the distance of the school from home, the more score a student will get. For the first time, the school websites are offering an option of Google Maps as a measure to know the distance between your house and the school and accordingly, points will be given.
According to the admission schedule, the first list will be out on January 12, 2024. Admission for 25% of the seats in all private schools under the economically weaker section (EWS) quota will be centralised and conducted online by the directorate.
Most schools have specifically stated on their websites that the pre-school (nursery) admission process is fully online. To avoid a rush in the school premises, the schools have mentioned, “The form has to be filled up online and submitted online too. Hard copies of the form are not being accepted at the school. Documents need not be submitted currently.”
The registration forms as uploaded by most schools are simple and generally ask for the child’s details, mother’s qualifications and job, father’s qualifications and job and if the job is transferrable or not besides a few other family details.
Also, this year, some schools have added another element to give points for admissions. The element ‘Linguistic inclusion’ accounts for 20 points out of 100 for the admission. This is defined as the mother tongue from the northeastern, western and southern states of India. For this point, the schools have provided a state map as well
Some schools do not have nursery classes but have opened their admissions for KG classes for children born between April 1, 2019 and March 31, 2020. This includes Don Bosco and St. Columbus.