The government has freed up more seats in Kendriya Vidyalaya’s, India’s largest chain of schools, by scrapping all discretionary quotas. Earlier, a sizeable number of seats in Kendriya Vidyalayas were with members of Parliament, employees of the Union education ministry, district magistrates, besides the school management. While these authorities are supposed to give away these to meritorious students, allegations are rampant that such quota seats were often sold to the highest bidder.
The government has, with a stroke of pen, put an end to the decades-old malpractice. With the quota system gone, more needy students will be able to get admission in those seats.
However, some priority admission criteria has been retained. For example, children who lost their parents to the pandemic (Covid orphans) will be given admission to KVs under the PM Cares for Children Scheme. Such admissions will be made over and above the class strength in KVs, which means not a single applicant will be rejected for lack of seats.
“The admission will be done on the basis of list given by District Magistrate of the concerned District subject to 10 children per KV and maximum 2 children per class. These children will be exempted from payment of fees (tuition fee, computer fund, and VVN — Vidyalaya Vikas Nidhi, fees collected from students for the development of the school and student community) from Classes I to XII,” the revised guidelines said.
Besides, special provisions have been retained to ensure admissions for children of recipients of Param Vir Chakra, Maha Vir Chakra, Vir Chakra, Ashok Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra. Recipients of national bravery award, children of employees of India’s foreign intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), wards of central government staff who died in harness and students who have special talent in fine arts will also find no difficult in getting admission in KVs.
The current dispensation has been pushing the policy to scale down discretionary quotas for some time. Last year, the government gave a clear signal by scrapping the Union education minister’s discretionary quota for admissions. Besides powers given to Union ministers to make recommendations for admission to KVs were also done away with. However, the MPs may continue to make recommendations on admissions, though their discretionary quota has been taken away.
Besides scrapping quotas, the revised guidelines for admission to KVs say a child must be between 6-8 years old as of March 31 of that academic year to be eligible for admission to class 1. Those born on April 1 will also be considered.
Students seeking admission to Class 10 should be between 14-16 years. However, there are no age restrictions for admission to Class 11, as long as the student seeks admission in the same year of passing Class 10 exam. The same rule applies to Class 12 admissions, too. “There will be no upper and lower age limit for admission to Class 12, provided there has been no break in the continuous study of the student after passing Class 11,” an official communication read.
For differently abled children, school principals have been given the power to offer a relaxation of up to two years on the maximum age limit.
Kendriya Vidyalayas were set up primarily for the benefit of government employees with transferable jobs to ensure seamless education to their children. However, over the years, students from other sections were also given admission as the popularity of these schools grew. Admissions coming from the ‘quota seats’ are usually for students whose parents work in the private sector. With the quota system scrapped, it needs to be seen if private participation in KVs will come down.
There are over 1,000 KVs across India. These schools are run by the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, an autonomous body under the Ministry of Human Resource Development.