NEW DELHI: Parents looking for a nursery seat for their child may relax for now. If the directorate of education (DoE) has its way, all city schools will have to start their nursery admission procedure only after December 15. Though quite a few schools have already announced an earlier schedule, DoE officials say that fresh guidelines will be issued in the next few days to make the schools toe the line.

Said education director P Krishnamurthy, "DoE had set the admission schedule from December 15-31 last year. It will be the same this time too. No school should start the admission procedure before December 15.'' He further said, "Though schools can make their own schedule, it does not mean that they will be allowed to start issuing the forms months before the original schedule. Even if they make their own schedule, it should be within the given dates.'' According to Krishnamurthy, DoE is still working on framing the guidelines for nursery admissions this year and the same will be issued to the schools in the next few days.

DoE had been more of a mute spectator till last year. In fact, most schools had started giving out forms by the second week of November while the schedule given by DoE was December 15-31 with January 7 as the last date for submission of forms. But with Krishnamurthy as the new director this time, DoE already seems to be cracking the whip. This explains why The Indian School at Josip Broz Tito Marg refused to give the admission forms to parents on Wednesday after initially announcing that the forms would be available from October 21 to 26. The principal could not be contacted despite repeated attempts but the school website mentioned, "Owing to last minute instructions given to us on 20th Oct 2009 by the DoE, we are unable to sell the forms for pre-school admissions.''

However, other schools like Bal Bharati Public School (BBPS) at Ganga Ram Hospital Marg, Bal Bharati Public School at Rohini will go ahead with the online nursery admission registrations from the last week of this month. Said L V Sehgal, principal, BBPS, Ganga Ram Hospital Marg, "According to the Supreme Court and the DoE guidelines last year, the DoE only has to be informed by the schools if they want to follow a different schedule. We will go as per our registration schedule of October 26-November 6 till new guidelines are issued.''

However, Sehgal admitted that parents will be at an advantage if all schools issue forms within a same timeframe. And parents agreed too. Radhika Singh, who wants to admit her son in nursery this year, said, "At least we will not fear missing any school's admission if schedule is uniform. But we will have to be on our toes for those fifteen days in December.'' Many parents were also planning to take sporadic leaves from work to fill up nursery admission forms. "We will now be done in a fortnight if DoE does what it is saying,'' Radhika said.

source: TOI