Nursery admission guidelines in line with RTE law: Centre tells HC

The Centre has informed the Delhi High Court that the new nursery admission guidelines, issued by the Lieutenant-Governor, was “in consistency” with the Right To Education as they accorded primacy to neighbourhood schooling and provided 25 per cent quota for poor children.

The HRD ministry had, however, on November 23, 2010, taken a stand that unaided recognised private schools were free to devise their own admission criteria under the RTE.

In a fresh affidavit filed before Justice Manmohan, the ministry said “the education being a sub-

THE HRD MINISTRY HAD SAID THAT UNAIDED RECOGNISED PRIVATE SCHOOLS WERE FREE TO DEVISE THEIR OWN ADMISSION CRITERIA UNDER THE RTE

ject on the concurrent list, the state government is within its rights to notify such policies/ guidelines as may be necessitated.”

The Centre has sought dismissal of separate pleas filed by Action Committee of.Unaided Recognized Private Schools and Forum for Promotion of Quality Education for All, which represent most of the private schools here. They have challenged the new nursery admission guidelines issued by the L-G on December 18 by which various decisions, including scrapping of 20 per cent management quota, were taken.

Meanwhile, a plea was filed on Monday before high court against the city government’s decision to do away with the system of allocating points to inter-state transfer cases. Delhi government had on February 27 issued the notification scrapping the inter-state transfer category under which it used to give five points to children whose parents have been transferred to the national capital from another state.