New Delhi: The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has issued guidelines for admission to minority institutes. The guidelines are a reply to several representations that ministry has received from various aided and unaided institutes who are seeking clarification on the procedure to be followed for admission.
As per sources, the HRD Ministry held a meeting with various stakeholders on August 14, 2010. The agenda of the meeting was to bring out their views for preparing guidelines for admission, which would be constant with the spirit of the RTE Act, specifically with section 13(1) read with section 2(o) of the Act. Considering the objectives of RTE Act section 13(1) and section 2(a), the HRD Ministry has issued the following guidelines under section 25(1) of the RTE Act, 2009:
- With regard to admissions in class 1 (or pre-primary class as the case may be) under section 12(1)(c) of the RTE Act in unaided and 'specified category' schools, schools shall follow a system of random selection out of the applications received from children belonging to disadvantaged groups and weaker sections for filling the pre-determined number of seats in that class, which should not be not less than 25 per cent of the strength of the class.
- For admission to the remaining 75 per cent of the seats (or a lesser percentage depending upon the number of seats fixed by the school for admission under section 12(1)(c), in respect of unaided schools and specified category schools, and for all the seats in the aided schools, each school should formulate a policy under which admissions are to take place.
- This policy should include criteria for categorization of applicants in terms of the objectives of the school on a rational reasonable and just basis. There shall be no profiling of the child based on parental educational qualifications. The policy should be placed by the school in the public domain, given wide publicity and explicitly seated in the school prospectus.
- There shall be no testing and interviews for any child/parent falling within or outside the categories, and selection would be on a random basis. Admission should be made strictly on the basis.
