By TCN News,
New Delhi: A group of Muslim parents whose children were denied admission to pre-primary classes in a number of private schools owing primarily to the irrational and biased practices and admission criteria, have moved the Supreme Court of India seeking directions Delhi Government to rationalise and to have a uniform policy of admissions for private schools.
The parents living in highly Muslim-dominated Jamia Nagar area of the National Capital filed the intervention petition in the apex court on 5th May 2012. They have sought leave “to intervene in the instant Appeals filed by private schools to evade governmental oversight of their admission policies and to further continue irrational admission policies for pre-primary school admissions which have led to a bias against children living in certain areas of the city which happen to have a high concentration of Muslim residents.”
In March this year The Hindu and other newspapers had highlighted alarmingly low admission of Muslim children in pre-primary level in private schools. According to the media reports, originally based on data collected by Abdul Khalique, General Secretary of Lok Janshakti Party, statistics and lists published by 92 individual schools reveal that while approximately 12 percent of Delhi’s population is Muslim but the number of Muslim children being admitted to nursery classes in these schools as a percentage of the total number of admissions is a mere 0.5 percent.
“Approximately 12 percent of Delhi’s population is Muslim but on the basis of the statistics available online, the number of Muslim children being admitted to nursery schools as a percentage of the total number of admissions is 0.5 percent. This percentage is not better in areas adjacent to those with high Muslim populations. That is, while roughly one out of eight persons on the streets of Delhi is a Muslim, only one in two hundred of the children admitted to pre-primary schools is Muslim. This is unfair and is worrying, not only in the context of children’s education, but in the context of a larger worry, that is increasing ghettoization of Muslims,” reads the petition of the Muslim parents.
The parents have urged the Supreme Court to issue directions to Delhi Government to rationalise and to have a uniform policy of admissions for private schools that does not discriminate against any section of society and against any people living in any locality of Delhi; and to pass directions to ensure that schools put up their admission criteria as well as lists of successful candidates on their websites.