Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Monday, January 18, 2021 ruled out scrapping of the nursery admission process this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

He told reporters, “As of now, there is no plan to scrap nursery admissions this year. We are late this year in issuing notification but it will happen.”

Usually, the process to enter children in the nursery in around 1,700 schools in Delhi begins in the last week of November. The Directorate of Education (DoE) releases guidelines and schools are asked to furnish required information, following which the application process is rolled out usually in December. However, there has been no development on it this year.

Earlier, Delhi government officials said that a proposal to scrap nursery admissions is being considered as the schools have been closed for nine months due to Covid-19 and will remain closed till a vaccine is available, a whole year of online learning for small children seems unviable.

“The government has decided that schools will not reopen in Delhi till a vaccine is available. Even if they reopen, pre-primary students will be the last ones to start going to school. So, its unviable to enrol them for a year of online learning,” an official said.

“However, no final decision has been taken in this regard and any move will be planned in consultation with schools only,” he added.

However, school principals were opposed to the idea.

Sisodia, who is also the Education Minister of Delhi, reiterated that schools will not reopen till a vaccine is available for the public. Sisodia’s comments come on a day schools reopened for class 10 and 12 students in view of preparation of board exams.

“We will wait for the vaccine to be made available to the public at large and then a decision on reopening of schools for remaining classes will be taken,” he said.

Schools have been closed since March last year in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

Source: PTI

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