Pune Parents have had a tough time this admission time.

I am flooded with a few questions that are justified too.

1. Schools have always had different admission dates and add to their misery and confusion was the RTE’s ruling that all admissions be cancelled and wait till December 2013 for the announcement as to when they can open their admissions.

2. Now that admissions have a wide range starting from November to May!

3. The new rule that schools have to have their application forms online has also caused a good amount of chaos. Very few schools have online school admission application only and must not distribute paper forms. This was a wonderful thought and if implemented, it can save not just trees but also a lot of time of the parents who had to stand in the queue to collect the forms. Yet, the schools were given very little time to implement the online form as a complete system.

So, the hapless parents have to not just fill the online form, but print it and submit it to the schools. So they have to not just print the confirmation and sometimes the form too and again stand in queues.

4. A lot of parents are also confused with the age criteria that the school expects. Most of the schools still follow the range 2 year 6 months to 3 years 6 months as the age bracket for the Nursery class admission, but a few have 3 years to 3 years and 11 months as their age criteria.

5. To add to the above confusion, many schools have cut off dates as 1st June, but a few have 30th June to0!

It’s high time the schools have a common time for admission, preferably in the month of Jan-Feb so that 

a) Parents are back from their holidays and do not miss on the admission dates. Till last year, winter vacation was clashing with the admission dates, but, now even the summer vacations will be clash.

b) Parents have time and a chance before March, to apply to the schools of the cities they are moving to after their change of jobs.

c) Also, it provides a low risk factor to the parents to take a new job offer or reject it, based on the admission in a new school.

d) Schools have to spend double in the admission process, ones for the general admissions and then for the EB admission. So obviously the staff has to forget their vacation.

e) A standard age criteria must be enforced for all boards and schools. Preferably, Nursery, 3 year, LKg at 4 year and so on.  Upper bar should not be strict to allow late bloomers also a chance. The lower age bar has to be strictly adhered to, so prevent underage children.

f) All schools must have only online admission forms and selection process. Only the shortlisted candidates should be further called to meet and submit their documents. This saves everyone time and energy. So the schools should build a good website with a great online admission system that can select children.