After a gruelling year of ups and downs on the nursery admission front, private schools in the national Capital are back to square one. With the High Court doing a complete ctrl+alt+del to the year-long fiasco created, things are now expected to go back to how they were since 2007 until last year. Whether the judgement of going back to the 2007 guidelines was a good one or not, school managements are grinning from ear to ear. Principals are elated with the fact that private schools have got back their fundamental right.
According to principal of Springdales School Ameeta Mulla Wattal, this is a landmark judgement which has upheld the autonomy of private schools. “last year when the guidelines were made, no opinion was taken from the management of any school. We were kept at arm’s distance and when the guidelines came out there was so much conflict. It showed that not one person was happy with it. Finally, the court has now given a balanced judgement,” she said.
With Jung’s guidelines last year, private schools were restricted to only a certain kind of students coming in breaking the whole essence of what the Ganguly Committee recommendations had said about keeping the criteria “in line with the school’s own philosophy”. Now the schools will once again be able to set the criteria as per their requirements.
Principal of Tagore International School Madhulika Sen said, “This is a validation of what we have been saying for the past one year. We, as principals, give equal opportunity to everyone. This was not happening with all the terms and conditions placed on us by the Government. With the limitation of admitting students only from the neighbourhood, I was losing out on a lot of other students who would’ve contributed to the more balanced environment we try and build at our school.”
Sen added that the way schools used to set their criteria was based on the needs of the parents and on creating a balanced group of students. “I rather have a student who has come in from sibling points than that from neighbourhood or alumni because for parents it is most important to have both their kids studying in the same school. I think it is a must that parents reserve the right to which school they should send their child to,” she said.
Most schools are now planning on bringing back the same guidelines they had year before last which were under the Ganguly Committee recommendations. However, schools will mostly be holding meetings on Monday to finalise on the guidelines. “We are now going to sit on Monday with the school management and come out with the best criteria for children. We want to give everyone an equal opportunity,” said a principal of a South Delhi school.