TED NewsDesk, New Delhi: The Education Department, on September 23, directed that the extended date for closing of admission processes of students allowed under EWS/DG quota in private schools, on the draw of lots basis, is October 15. The department gave its order after the allotment of seats to the candidates in the first round of cast lots held in February.
As per the functionaries, only 11000 out of almost 40000 of these seats were reserved when the lockdown was imposed across the country.
“We received a lot of complaints about parents who were unable to complete the admission process despite their wards having been allocated schools through a draw of lots long ago. Then, the lockdown came, and parents were unable to go through with the reporting process and didn’t know what to do after that,” outlined Ranjana Prasad, member of the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR).
She added that DCPCR is trying to assemble and link these complaints lodged by the parents. The body will then advance them to the Department of Education in the coming week for a solution. For now, the MLA offices, in many of the assembly constituencies, have coordinators to address these kinds of issues.
“We have circulated a helpline number and an e-mail address for parents to reach us through if they are having issues… We are observing three major issues. The first is parents saying that after the lockdown, they do not know when and how to approach the schools, as for this matter, schools have not allotted any hours or days. Secondly, many parents are not even aware that the date for reporting has been extended. Thirdly, many families are still not in Delhi. MLA representatives in some constituencies — such as Kondli, Burari, Seemapuri, Matiala and Hari Nagar — are actively trying to track down parents who have not yet reported to schools, and found parents responding to calls saying they are not in Delhi at all while the process needs to be completed in person,” said Vaibhav Srivastava, a member of the Education team of Delhi Government.
In the view of COVID-19, the EWS category of private schools witnessed very few admissions till the end of September. As a result, these schools are trying to admit maximum candidates who got seats based on the casting of the lots.
