Will you go veg for your child's admission?

Non-vegetarians and smokers stand to lose valuable points as per the criteria set by this private school in North Delhi

Non-vegetarians andu00a0 smokers stand to lose valuable points as per the criteria set by this private school in North Delhi

What you eat can determine the fate of your child. We aren't talking about genetics here; this concerns the issue of the ongoing nursery admissions process in the Capital.

Point taken: Mahavir Model Schoolu00a0is a Jain minority institute located
on GT Karnal Road in Delhi. Pic/Subhash barolia

With schools getting a free-hand from the government, virtually, to decide criteria for selection of students, guardians are having to deal with some bizarre problems. For instance, as a parent you can lose valuable points at the Mahavir Model School in north Delhi if you are a non-vegetarian, smoker or even a moderate drinker.

All branches of the school have made it a criterion for parents to be austerely vegetarian and also keep away from cigarettes and alcohol. According to the school's point system, there is a clear distribution of 100 points into various categories. 20-25 points are allocated to people from the Jain community, another 25 for those living in the neighbourhood, followed by 10 each to a girl child and those from the alumni. The rest is for people who follow a vegetarian staple diet, don't consume tobacco in any form and do not touch alcohol.

'Nothing personal'
"It is a Jain minority school. We run the institution on a particular philosophy and vegetarianism is a basic tenet of Jainism. We respect all religions and all religious tenets are similar, except for the one of vegetarianism in Jainism. It is a fair criterion," said SL Jain, Principal, Mahavir Model School.

When asked how parents being vegetarian would make a difference to the child's education, he said: "Education is an all-encompassing pursuit. We want to promote this basic tenet of vegetarianism, which is now being preached worldwide. Countries in the West have been stressing on taking the route of a complete vegetarian diet."

While the school may have its own views, many parents are aggrieved. "We can lie about being vegetarians at anytime. How will the school run a check on that? This was not expected of a reasonably progressive institution," said Jatin Verma, a government engineer and father of a three-year-old.u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0

"I don't understand what parents' being vegetarian, beer-wine drinkers or hookah smokers has got to do with their child's admission to a school, even if it is essentially a minority school. This is just baseless and totally unacceptable," said an anxious Sachin Satija, who runs an independent business and had come to collect the form at the school for her four-year-old daughter.

No child's play
The school has devised this unusual criterion and maintains that it is to inculcate the same tenets of Jain philosophy which have been laid in the texts and have always been fundamental to an individual's growth as a better human being.

"I was just speechless when I read the form's requirements. This is not a democratic way of functioning for an educational institution. We have taken a couple of forms of different schools for our son. But as Mahavir School is nearest to my place, I feel uneasy reading these absurd requisites for admission," said Dinesh Mishra, parent of a four-year-old.

Points to be noted

Sanskriti School is allotting five points for alumni category. One wonders how alumni points are justified, the school being barely 12 years old, when the first batch passed out just a few years ago. Experts say these criteria, besides being an invasion of privacy, are also against the RTE, which strictly disallows profiling of parents. Nursery admission guidelines recently released by the DOE instructed schools to formulate criteria that are 'just, rational and reasonable', and according to the philosophy of the schools.
Salwan Montessori School, Pusa Road has a special category for parents who are IIT or IIM graduates - straight 15 points for that. The school has allotted maximum points to neighbourhood including bus facility as per the distance in kilometres. Besides, 10 points for siblings and first child, 5 points for single parent with the death certificate of the spouse as a mandatory document to be attached along with the form.
NC Jindal Public School, Punjabi Bagh, apart from the common points on neighbourhood, alumni and siblings has allotted 10 points for cousins, on the basis of same residential address. So two kids, who maybe cousins sharing the same residential space, can bag points at the school.
St Michael's School, Pusa Road, is a Christian Minority institution run by Delhi Catholic Archdiocese. It has in all 50 seats for general category, with a maximum of 40 points for Christian minority applicants. Also, unlike others, the school will hold no interviews of applicants.

Are you single?

Lack of clarity on the points distribution system for nursery admissions has created confusion among many parents in Delhi, especially single mothers.
"Single parent only means 'widow/widower' to the schools. There is no mention of divorced women or those who have adopted a child,' said a baffled Ritika Maheshwari (name changed), a single mother who had come to fill the admission form for her son at Delhi Public School in RK Puram in south Delhi.u00a0 Most of the schools in the capital have mentioned 'widow/widower' in brackets for single parent, not specifying provisions for single or divorced mothers.
"Even if a woman is divorced or has adopted a child, she can get an affidavit from the court. We are accepting that," said Vandana Puri, principal of Salwan Public Schol in central Delhi's Rajinder Nagar.
After a nod by the directorate of education (DOE) to go ahead with the point-based admission system, the schools are playing by their own rules, parents say. Under the points system, students will be selected on the basis of points scored by them and their parents. They would be awarded points for various parameters decided by the school, including proximity of their home to the school and siblings studying in the institution.u00a0 The sale of admission forms started Jan 1 and will be on till Jan 15. The final admission list is expected to be out by Feb 1 for most schools.