The agony of securing nursery admission is compounded for parents of disabled kids.
The Delhi High Court on Friday issued a notice to Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung on a Public Interest Litigation or PIL challenging the latest nursery admission guidelines which club the economically weaker sections with the category of children with disabilities.
The petition will come up for hearing on Tuesday. For parents of disabled kids, however, the move is yet another battle in the war for equal access.
While thousands of children apply under the economically weaker sections categories, the number of disabled kids applying is not more than 15 or 20 per school. Moreover, there are not enough schools for the disadvantaged groups with some of them charge anything between Rs 25,000 to Rs 9 lakh per annum.
For example, the number of disabled children that applied to Springdales School, Pusa Road was not more than 15 or 20 this year. Principal Ameeta Wattal asks, "What chance do they have of getting into any school by lottery?" Ms Wattal is also the chairperson of the National Progressive Schools and has been following the matter with the Directorate of Education and the government.
Manjir Gupta's son Aranya is 14 years old and suffers from autism. For years, she tried to get him into a mainstream school. An exasperated Ms Gupta opened her own school, Parivartan, which now has 18 kids with autism, Down's syndrome, learning disabilities, cerebral palsy among others.
"It's extremely unfortunate what has happened this year. It means that our children don't count and they are going to be lost in the huge numbers of EWS," she says.
Almost 75 per cent schools have already conducted their lottery process for admissions to EWS quota. They would have to conduct the lottery all over again if the guideline is reversed.
Under the Disabilities Act 1996, not less than three per cent seats in a school should go to disabled kids. The Delhi High Court in 2012 had ruled that reservations within reservations as illegal.
But the response of the Ministry of Human Resources has been lackadaisical, worrying the parents. "The apprehensions were unfounded and children could easily get in," it said in response to the concerns of the parents. Even the bill securing the rights of disabled children could not be passed in Parliament.