The age criteria for admission into nursery

As parents queued up outside schools to get children admitted into nursery (pre-school) classes, the Delhi High Court on Friday made clear that the age criteria of 3+ for admission into nursery classes was valid and could not, therefore, be challenged.

The court said the only contentious issue was whether private schools in the city could be permitted to treat nursery as the feeder class for admitting children in pre-primary (KG).

This, the court said, was an issue since there could be some parents who did not want to send children to nursery but were compelled to do so because of the existing practice of schools promoting children from nursery and not allowing horizontal admission into KG.

While hearing a petition that challenged the Delhi government order allowing unaided private schools to go ahead with admission of 3+ children in nursery classes, a division bench of Acting Chief Justice A K Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw sought to put to rest the controversy over the age criteria.

The court also accepted that the schools had to conduct nursery classes not as formal schooling, and preferably from a building not attached to the main school.



“We accept that there should be different infrastructure for nursery classes but where is the controversy regarding the 3+ age criteria? There can be no bar to admission of the 3+ children as long as they are segregated from formal schooling. Modalities of how and in what manner can these nursery classes be held can be discussed separately but there cannot be an issue regarding the age,” the bench told advocate Ashok Agarwal, appearing for petitioner NGO Social Jurist.

Agarwal said the age criteria became an issue when children in nursery were promoted to KG and so on. Such promotion, he said, could not be allowed as it coerced parents to admit children into nursery.

During the hearing, the Directorate of Education and the association of private schools said legally they could hold nursery classes to prepare children for elementary education.

The court decided to go through all relevant documents, previous court orders as well as legal provisions and said it would hear arguments again on Monday.