Home > ASAR Objectives

Action for School Admission Reforms (ASAR)

For General Category Students:

• Common Admission Calendar: The admission process should be made on a common calendar so that all the school admissions begin at the same time, the first list and second list also come out at the same time and the process gets over within the same time period. The government must announce these dates in advance and allow no exceptions to any school.
• Transparency of Results: The schools must comply with the High Court Order No. 8990 (19 Dec 2008) and display the exact break-up points for each child when they release the admissions list on the notice board / school website / Directorate of Education website. This applies to the First List, Second List and any subsequent Lists that school decides to use for admissions.
• Transparency of Criteria: The break-up of points must be based on 'transparent and objective' criteria avoiding vague parameters like national level achievements of parents etc. These criteria must be submitted to the government for approval at least one month before the date of distributing application forms.  The approved criteria must be made available on the school notice board, website and the Directorate website.
• Fee Refund and Deduction: In case a child withdraws from admission to the school after paying the initial admission, tuition and other fees, the school must have a transparent policy about the amount of fees that will be refunded and any deduction that school would levy on the student. This policy should be mentioned on the application form, school prospectus, the school and DoE websites.
• Time-bound Fee Refund: Not only the amount for refund but also the time by which refund will be given should be clearly stated on the application form, school prospectus and school and DoE websites.
• Grievance Redressal: The Government should develop channels of landline and cellphone hotlines for help and web based complaint forms to provide timely Redressal of any and all grievances that parents have during the admission process.  The redressal should be immediate otherwise it would defeat the whole purpose.

The District Admission Monitoring Committee formed for supervising the admission process of 25% reservation seats in private schools could also be given the task of monitoring and complaint redressal for general category admissions.

Some of these steps are specified under the DoE Order ACT/2008/7890-7910 dated 27/10/2008 but they need to be implemented consistently and comprehensively.

For 25% Reservation Seats:

The DoE Order No 15 (172)/DE/ACT/2010/69 dated 7/1/2011 provides a very good process for fair, transparent and accountable process of admissions under the 25% reserved seats for economically and socially weaker sections in private schools. However some of the documents are difficult to find on the DoE website, like the Common Admission Form for 25% seats.

It would also be useful to allow local NGOs to observe the lottery process at schools and be able to follow up with applicants in terms of their experience and difficulties which would help the government remedy those issues and improve the working the 25% admission process better over time.  A focus group discussion with applicant-parents would bring out these challenges.  Civil Society involvement would be helpful in continuously monitoring and improving the process.