No interviews of child or parents in school admissions: Minister

New Delhi, Dec 7 (UNI) There will be no interviews or interactions for either the parents or the children this year in schools admissions in Delhi this year, Education Minister Arvinder Singh said today.

No weightage will be given in school admissions to the educational qualifications and financial status of parents or the guardians of children, the Minister told reporters here.

''There will be no interview or interaction this time for the parents or child for the purpose of admission and the parents can only be called to the school for the limited purpose of verification of documents - that too after the admission list has been duly declared by the school,''Mr Singh added.

Among other guidelines prescribed by the state government to the schools, the children admitted to nursery class last year will be promoted to pre-primary class this year without undergoing the grind of re-admission.

The Minister said the guidelines prescribed by the Government will apply to all recognised private schools, including minority schools whether in the domain of Directorate of Education or MCD or the NDMC.

''The school managements have been given liberty to formulate their own criteria for admission for the pre-primary and pre-school class which has to be clear, unambiguous and non-discriminatory and the criteria has to be approved by the Directorate of Education and then made open in public domain for the desirous parents,''Mr Singh said.

Henceforth, there would be new nomenclatures for Nursery and KG classes, which will now be known as 'pre-school' and 'pre-primary'.

The child should be minimum three years old for pre-school and four years old for pre-primary as on March 31, 2007.

Stating that the admission criteria for pre-school and pre-primary classes are identical for the new admissions, the Minister said the schools not following the guidelines of the Directorate of Education may invite derecognition from the Department.

Mr Singh said the Directorate of Education will monitor the admission process of each school strictly and for this purpose a team, headed by the District Deputy Director of Education, have been constituted for each district.

Under the common schedule for admission, the distribution of registration forms starts from December 15 to 31 and acceptance of the same till January 7, 2008. The first list for admission will come out on February 1. The submission of fee for the first list starts from February 15, 2008 and the fourth list will come out on March 15 with submission of fees till March 25, 2008.

UNI