Court approves 4 years as cut off age for nursery admissions

New Delhi, Sep 26 (UNI) The Delhi High Court today approved the Delhi Government's stand to fix 'four' years as the cut off age for admission to pre-primary class.

A bench comprising Chief Justice M K Sharma and Justice Sanjive Khanna today removed confusion regarding the age of admission of a child in Nursery class. It ruled that a child who has completed four years on or before March 31 of the year of admission be considered eligible for pre-primary class and a minimum of five years to be considered eligible for gaining admission to class one.

The court directed the Government to form necessary regulations and implement the orders which are a part of the Ganguly Committee's regulations.

The court's orders would be applicable in the next academic session beginning 2008-2009.

The Court allowed schools for early childhood education and held that schools having infrastructural facilities may be allowed to open Pre-School classes for children below the age of four. The pre-school classes would not be treated as part of the main school nor as feeder schools to pre-primary classes of the school. The children admitted should be from the immediate neighbourhood and there should be no school bags for carrying books in all such pre-school classes, the court ruled.

Lawyer Ashok Aggarwal from NGO 'Social Jurist', had informed the High Court that there was no uniformity in the age of students being admitted to private and government schools and asked for a criteria to be set to form some guidelines in this regard.

The High Court had formed a committee headed by Mr Ganguly to give its suggestions regarding admissions. The Committee suggested that there be uniformity in nomenclature and duration of pre-primary education across all private, local and Government bodies.

The Delhi Government had submitted an affidavit in the court that they would implement the Ganguly Committee's report and issue proper guidelines in this regard.

UNI