Delhi: Covid hits EWS admissions in private schools

This came after the first round of draw of lots and allocation of these seats to children had already been completed in February.

By the time the lockdown was imposed, only around 11,000 out of over 40,000 of these seats had been filled, as per officials.

“We received a lot of complaints about parents who were unable to complete the admission process despite their wards having been allocated schools through 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,” said Ranjana Prasad, member of the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR).

She stated that the child rights body is in the process of bringing together all such complaints they have received, and will forward them to the education department next week to get them resolved.

Meanwhile, in various assembly constituencies, coordinators have been placed in MLA offices to deal with such
grievances.

“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 Delhi government’s education team.