Delhi High Court verdict on nursery admissions today

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court will deliver its verdict on whether nursery classes run by private unaided schools can be a valid point of entry into kindergarten. The court had said that making nursery the ‘feeder class’ for kindergarten became problematic because there could be parents who did not want to send their children to nursery, the Indian Express  reported. However, it said that parents could be compelled to do so because of the existing practice of schools promoting children from nursery classes to kindergarten and not allowing horizontal admission. The verdict today will be in response to a PIL (public interest litigation) filed by civil rights group Social Jurist seeking to stop unaided private schools in Delhi from admitting children below four years into nursery for the academic year 2012-2013. [caption id=“attachment_195235” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The Delhi government, however, has argued that nursery should be treated as the entry level into kindergarten. Reuters”]  [/caption] While the High Court had on 6 January said that it was not ‘unreasonable or violative of any statutory provisions’ to admit children of 3+ age into nursery school, it had reserved its verdict on whether nursery class could be considered ‘feeder class’ for kindergarten. Advocate Ashok Agarwal, who filed the PIL on behalf Social Jurist, had argued that in the interest of child, four years should be the admission age of children into pre-school classes as recommended by the Ashok Ganguly committee. In a press statement Agrawal said, “Even the Delhi School Education Act prescribed the same age criteria but under the garb of Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009, the government has allowed private schools to give admission to children in the school at the age of three. The government, which was directed by the Court to frame guidelines on the issue for the academic year 2008- 2009, has failed to do so till the date,” Aggarwal had said during the arguments. The Delhi government, however, has argued that nursery should be treated as the entry level into kindergarten.