Few points on nursery admission in Delhi with review of Sachdeva Global School, Dwarka

This is not new but happens every year at the time of nursery admission in the capital. New guidelines, new rules make some parents happy and other sad but points decide the fate of these tiny tots who are least bothered in the entire melodrama of admission. They keep looking at you with their innocent eyes all through the process.

Why rules were set?  Rules were set to make the admission uniform and as smooth as possible. Earlier the admission process was very messy, each school churning out its own rules. Admission was based on interview of parents and kids. But few years back, interviews have been abolished in Delhi and rules have taken their place. This year fresh guidelines have been issued by Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung for the nursery admission in Delhi which will start from 15 January, 2014.

New rules and guidelines

  • Distance from school will matter the most and can be regarded as a deciding factor as 70 out of 100 points are awarded to the neighborhood. So students living within 6 km radius of the school definitely have the advantage.
  • 5 points for the ward of alumni.
  • 20 points to the students whose siblings are studying in the school.
  • Major change has been brought in the management quota. Now onwards there won’t be any admission in the management quota as this quota has been scrapped. Other quotas are – 25% seats are kept for economically weaker sections disadvantaged groups (EWS/DG), 5% for staff children, and 5% for girls. 65% are the remaining seats for the general category.
  • Minorities schools that got land from the government agencies will have to keep 20% seats for the economically weak (EWS) and disadvantaged groups.
  • Schools meant for specific government services like armed forces, paramilitary forces, central services, all India services are eligible to reserve seats for their wards.

Most of the schools are not happy with the new rules especially with the abolition of management quota. Moreover parents are saying that in a city like Delhi 6 km distance means close to nothing. Parents want to send their kids to better school which are located at a distance more than 6 km.

Two years back I went through the same at the time of my son’s admission. I live close to Dwarka and luckily there are enough schools but again vicinity was the problem and this bothered us the most. We even tried to shift to Dwarka just for the admission. Also uncertainty forced us to fill more than 10 admission forms.

Number of quotas certainly reduces the chance of admission. Points at that time were– points if sibling is studying, proximity points, first child points, alumni points, girl child points. But what if there is no good school close to your home, your kid is a boy not a girl, you kid does not have elder brother or sister and you are not an alumni? The most bothering point among all was the proximity of home to school. Maximum points were awarded to this and this was the deciding factor. I feel either the distance should be increased (which should be more than 6 km) or new good schools should be added.

But we also felt certain good things about the admission in Delhi’s schools. It is really a time bound process that starts and ends on a particular day. So no worries to miss the deadlines. Some schools also upload the admission forms in their website which indeed is a great relief.

This sort of admission is much hyped and creates an unnecessary burden on parents. Point system somewhere is affecting the admission to a great extent and bit unfair. Also schools should sell simple admission forms free of cost as each admission form costs about 500-700 bucks and very few are free of cost. Many schools sell two versions of the same form – one with prospectus (expensive) and other without prospectus (reasonable). I suggest to buy the one without prospectus.

A Review of Global Sachdeva School, Dwarka

Initially we were bit reluctant to put our kid in this school – firstly because it was not in the list of top ten schools given by The Times of India. Secondly there were hardly any online reviews for this school. But we put him in Sachdeva Global School and today we are really happy and satisfied with the kind of studies, extracurricular activities and efforts by the teachers.

Teachers at Global Sachdeva School, Dwarka are really helpful and know how to tackle and teach such small children. Students at such a small age are given stage exposure through various activities like fancy dress, rhyme recitation, show and tell competition etc. They are taught music, computers and skating. They even watch cartoons and educational stories visit school library for story reading. Everything seems to be well organized and in place. Moreover there is no extra expenditure.