A study of the nursery admission policies of private schools in Delhi

Abstract

The project aims to study the admission policies laid down by the private schools in Delhi for admission to nursery and identify unfair and unreasonable – as defined by the Directorate of Education, Delhi (DoE) and upheld by the High Court of Delhi – admission criteria that are still in practice even after the release of a DoE circular explicitly asking the schools to remove them from the admission policies. These criteria may or may not be a part of the official policy but are practiced, nevertheless. The report also provides hints on how the schools manage to include such criteria in their selection processes. The report further examines the concerns of the parents regarding the admission policies regardless of their legality, the reasons behind their concerns, and the ways through which they navigate the process to secure admission for their children. As an extension, the project also analyses the fee structure of the schools in Delhi. As per the orders from the Directorate of Education, Delhi (DoE), there are certain (four) major heads under which the fees can be charged from students/parents. Despite the mandates, there have been multiple heads that can be identified which are in violation of the order from DoE. This becomes evidently clear especially in the COVID-19 context where the order specifies that only ‘tuition fee’ can be charged to students and schools should not create ‘additional fee heads’. The report studies the orders from 2009 to 2020 and tries to identify the pain points, violations, and implications for parents.