High court pulls up Delhi government on its vicinity norm

NEW DELHI: How can the government decide which school parents want to send their wards to, the Delhi high court wondered on Tuesday as it grilled the AAP government on its neighbourhood criteria.
“Will your bureaucrats be willing to send their children to government schools? Over time the standard of your schools has fallen so steeply, it will take time to come up,” Justice Manmohan observed when Delhi government insisted that elite schools have a responsibility to admit students from all categories.He pointed out that instead of taking over the private schools, public schools should be improved so that parents in future only opt for these.
“Government schools must be elite schools. You pay your teachers much more than others yet this is the state of affairs. In United States of America people prefer to admit their children in public schools as the infrastructure and teachers are good. In our public schools, the teachers do not even turn up for classes,” the court said, stressing that “choice of freedom for everyone, especially with regard to education, cannot be merely taken away by an order.”
The court’s observations came during hearing of pleas challenging the AAP government’s recent order to private unaided schools to admit students in nursery using the neighbourhood norm.
Defending Delhi government’s notification, additional solicitor general (ASG) Sanjay Jain said initiatives have been taken to improve their schools and even the condition imposed on the private unaided schools are part of it, so they be allowed to go ahead with it (neighbourhood norm).
“The Directorate of Education (DoE) has the power to regulate rules with regard to schools. Neighbourhood step is a very important move and has been taken within the ambit of RTE Act, the government has not been adventurous,” the ASG submitted, even as he informed the court that the DoE has extended the last date for submission of forms for nursery admission till February 14.
However, the HC asked whether the government can be allowed to step into anyone’s domain in the name of regulation and noted that by imposing the neighbourhood criteria, the government will promote corruption as parents will furnish false documents to ensure their children get admitted to elite private unaided schools.