No school in Delhi can deny admission to a child on the ground of declaring the name of just one parent, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia announced on Monday. This assumes significance from the point of view of children who have lost one or both parents to COVID-19.
"No student in Delhi shall deny admission to a child on grounds that the child is declaring name of his or her single parent only," Sisodia tweeted.
An order to this effect has also been issued by the Directorate of Education.
Meanwhile, due to the pandemic that hit last year leading to a gap in the educational prospects of school students, the directorate of education (DoE) of the Delhi government has devised a three-stage plan for online teaching with specific activities for students nursery to class XII of the state-run and aided schools to compensate for ‘loss’ incurred.
The department will provide short notes and worksheets to students who can’t access online classes due to non-availability of digital devices. The arrangement will remain in place until the schools are not reopened in the national capital.
Starting next week, the schools will start seeking details of students and parents, update contact details, and make whatsapp groups to convey regular instructions to them. They will also prepare a list of students with smartphones, normal phone or no phone.
Manish Sisodia, who also holds the charge of the education department, on Saturday reiterated that schools would remain closed until the situation of the pandemic eases but the engagement between teachers and students would resume immediately, using online and semi-online approach.
The DoE has also issued a circular on the action plan for online classes, which says that the students who have difficulty in accessing digital devices will be provided short notes capturing the points of their online classes. These notes can be collected by the parents from the school weekly. The parents who do not have smart phones can collect the worksheets on a weekly basis from the school of their child.
However, the Supreme Court today refused to stay the Delhi High Court order allowing private unaided schools to collect annual and development charges from students for the period after the lockdown ended in the national capital last year.
A bench comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and Aniruddha Bose did not agree with the submission of the Directorate of Education (DoE) of Delhi government that it has the power to regulate the levy of fees by private unaided schools and the high court judgement permitting such a levy of annual and development charges be stayed.
