Delhi government asks schools to verify ‘missing’ class 6 students

Only 160,186 have reported for admissions so far — leaving 50,000 unaccounted for. The government doesn’t know whether they have joined private or public schools.

The government doesn’t know the status of a fourth of the 210,000 finished class 5 from municipal corporation schools, a month after the academic session began.

While officials said the students were missing from their database, the government has now asked schools to physically verify the status of these students.

Municipal corporation (MCD) schools have classes only up to class 5 after which students have the option of joining a private or public school. However, some do dropout as well.

Only 160,186 have reported for admissions so far — leaving 50,000 unaccounted for. The government doesn’t know whether they have joined private or public schools.

“The admissions have happened but due to election duty and other reasons, the data wasn’t uploaded. It is not admissions but a data- related issue and we have asked concerned authorities to look into the matter,” said a senior directorate of education (DOE) official.

The DOE has directed heads of schools (HOS), school management committee members and teachers among others to “contact these 50,000 students and find out their actual status”.

They have also been asked to motivate the parents of those students who have not taken admission yet to complete the formalities.

“We take measures to ensure that the admissions take place smoothly, but some students go to village and if the student is not physically present, their final registration process gets hampered,” said Awadhesh Jha, head of school in Sarvodaya Vidyalaya Sector-8 Rohini.

While students coming from MCD to Delhi government schools come under “planned” admissions, those from other private schools come under “non-planned admissions” category. In case admissions are not updated and schools show more vacancies, more non-planned admissions will be forwarded to them, the directorate said.

The directorate also said that they have information about two schools -- Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya (SKV) West Vinod Nagar where no students have been admitted in class 6 so far and Government Girls Senior Secondary Schools (GGSSS)Khajoori Khas which has uploaded the details of only one student.

While HOS of SKV West Vinod Nagar did not respond for a comment, Shashi Prabha, principal of GGSSS Khajoori Khas said so far her school had already admitted six students in class 6 but it wasn’t visible on the admission module due to technical issues. “A staff member who looks after non-plan admissions module was on leave. Once she’s back, the data will be updated,” she said.