E Arun & Tarun Kartick
Port Blair, Mar 14: A private school in Port Blair Vivekananda Kendra Vidyalaya recently conducted lottery to decide the list of students who will get admissions to the school in KG-I (Junior Kindergarten). This move has not only deprived deserving students from quality education but also upset parents.
VKV, Port Blair is one of the best institutions providing Senior Secondary level Education in these Islands and many parents wanted to get their wards admitted in the school in Junior Kindergarten so that they get a solid base for future studies.
According to the parents the school authorities conducted lotteries for giving admissions in the Junior Kindergarten of the School rather than conducting screening tests and many of the parents had to return back with sad faces as they could not get their wards admitted into the institute even after preparing them well for the Admission.
“My Son did not get selected for admission, I had prepared him well and I was 100 percent sure that he will get through in the interview and get selected. But this time the admissions were taken according to the lottery,” a disheartened father told Andaman Sheekha.
When Andaman Sheekha contacted Mr. S.Vijay Kumar, Principal, VKV, he said that this year there were excess numbers of applications against the sixty seats that the school offered for Junior Kindergarten.
Mr. Vijay also informed that out of the sixty seats more than twenty seats were given to the kids who already have an elder brother or sister studying in the school to reduce the difficulties of the parents to move from one school to another.
He further added that the left out seats were then distributed among the left out applicants according to the lottery.
When Mr. Vijay was questioned on why the school authorities did not conduct any screening test for taking admissions he said that according to the Right to Education Act it is illegal to conduct any entrance or screening tests before class eight and the school authorities did not have any other choice rather than to do the lottery for taking admissions. However, he could not provide any document to support his statement.
When Mr. Vijay was questioned whether the lottery for admissions is legal, he said that in many metros and big cities, admissions through lottery is common and CBSE also does it. But the million dollar question is whether this excuse will be any use for those students, who have been disqualified, even though they were really deserving ones for the admission.
