Edu dept sends teams to popular schools to verify transfer cases

NEW DELHI: The Directorate of Education (DOE) has deputed special teams to look into possible misuse of transfer points by parents in nursery admissions.

Teams of education officers from different zones on Thursday visited nearly 20 popular schools to collect data on transfer cases.

Padmini Single, director, DOE, a lot of applicants who sought points under the interstate transfer category did not have documents to support their claim.

“We sent teams to popular schools because reports in the media and parents’ applications showed us the situation is serious. According to our officers, the applicants don’t have documents to support their transfer claims in a lot of schools. They will automatically be disqualified.

The number of applicants from NCR is not very high,” she said.

According to nursery admission guidelines issued this year, children of parents transferred to Delhi from other states are eligible for five points under the inter-state transfer category.

Sources said in a number of schools, parents have provided documents of transfer from their workplace without showing any change in residential address.

“Around 70% to 80% of fraud PADMINI SINGLE, director, DOE

cases can be done away with if schools insist on proof of address for the place they were transferred from as well as the place they were transferred to,” said Khagesh Jha, member of an NGO working in the field of education.

The transfer points issue has got a lot of attention in the last few days as parents have repeatedly written to the DOE. An analysis by some parents shows that in some schools, 90% of all those selected in the lottery are in the transfer category. Verification of documents is awaited in most schools.

“A clearer picture will emerge after the first list is declared and document verification is complete. Parents apply in a number of schools. There are around 150,000 individual children who have applied and the number of seats in nursery is also roughly the same. The mad rush is only for the few popular schools,” Singla added.