The city may see a significant rise in nursery seats if Delhi government’s latest plan to start nursery classes in all Sarvodaya schools that have the space goes through.
Currently, 404 out of the 447 Sarvodaya schools in Delhi run KG (pre-primary) classes. The department of education proposes to start nursery classes in these and KG classes in the Sarvodayas that didn’t have any .
A December 23 circular from Saumay Gupta, director of DoE, has asked officials to “identify schools where nursery KG classes can be started“ and for places where they can’t be, give “clear-cut reasons“.
A regional director and State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT), Delhi, have been charged with listing “requirements for refurbishing the classrooms as per suitability for toddlers for starting nursery KG classes.“ They will then contact agencies that actually do the work -such as Public Works Department -for estimates.
“For the nursery and KG classes, a norm of two teachers and one aaya (attendant) exists in nearly all good private schools. Norms of teachers and other staff… and other good practices followed by private schools to be ascertained through SCERT,“ stated the circular.
SCERT is expected to prescribe norms within two weeks, following which posts of assistant teachers and attendants will be created.
“Duties and responsibilities of both the teachers of each nurseryKG class should be clearly prescribed to ensure proper utilization of the teaching staff,“ said the circular. Officials from every school branch have been instructed to ensure that the primary section has a dedicated “in-charge“ to monitor its functioning.
The department has instructed the planning branch to look into increasing the grant given for starting pre-primary (KG) classes from the present Rs 1 lakh “to a practical amount commensurate with actual requirements.“
The circular added, “Provision for allocating budget for recurring expenditure, such as crayonsart booksworkshe ets etc also need to be explored. The provision of giving some funds to the class teachers for purchase of prescribed materials may also be examined.“
The impact of having nursery classes in government schools on nursery admissions in private schools is uncertain.
The main rush is for older, established schools judged to be `good’ by parents and not even for the lesserknown private schools where seats often go vacant.
However, this decision may impact EWS admissions. As the year draws to a close, the department is still wrangling with private schools over EWSDG admission data for 2016-17.
The directorate of education on the same day issued another circular informing private schools to update the status of admissions (and seats) after the third draw-of-lots on October 26.
The 3,088 successful candidates were asked to approach the schools and claim their seats by November 15. But for more than half the candidates (1,568), the data is yet to be uploaded and the DoE has given schools time till 6pm on December 30 to upload it.
Source – Times of India – Delhi – 26th December 2016
