Parents stand outside a school in Delhi with nursery admission forms
The application process for nursery admissions to some 1,500 private unaided recognised schools in Delhi started on December 27 and will go on till January 17. Geetika Verma, 28, and her husband Sumit, 32, are among thousands of parents across Delhi who are facing endless hurdles in the admission process as they seek a school for their three-year-old son.
Both take time off from work and head out early morning and reach the first school in Greater Kailash at 9 am to collect the form. "Online submission is still easy, but for offline process, taking leaves from the office is difficult. We need to first come to the school to collect the form and then return again to submit it. None of the schools have a streamlined process," Ms Geetika says.
As the Vermas reached the second school in Sadiq Nagar, the admission criteria dampened their spirits. Schools give higher weightage to factors like neighbourhood, girl child, alumni parents and sibling studying in the same school. For the Vermas, who only have a son, the chances of getting through remain bleak.
"I'll be getting points only for the neighbourhood clause. There are several parents like me who don't have any other criteria for gaining points. So we are only dependent on the lottery system. If the name does not appear in the lottery what will I do? My son's whole year will be wasted," Ms Geetika says.
Making matters worse, most schools run the admission process only in a narrow window of 2 hours: from 9 am to 11 am.
"It's 11 am right now. I have a meeting at 11:30 am. I've managed to cover only two schools today," Mr Sumit says.
Parents seeking admission under the economically weaker section or EWS category are also troubled as most of them are running around schools unaware of the fact that the EWS admissions will only be online and will begin in January second week.
The first list of selected candidates will be released in February and the entire process will wrap up by March 2018. Considering the way parents are already facing hassles the next few months may get tougher for them.