What's cooking in Spyder Labs?

The parents’ outcry on admission issue is valid and understood but the biggest question is that what is the real solution to this problem? Can it be designed-revised-implemented in a day? A month? An year? Couple of years? Not sure!

Three problems/issues we have been thinking for last couple of days:

• Problems that parents been facing so far?
• Problems that delhi schools faced?
• Problems that DOE/ Education Ministry faced?
  

Now here we are not only talking about problems/issues that surfaced this year but the ones that Delhi parents, schools, and DOE have been going thru for last several years. The problems that Mr. Ashok Agarwal and Ms. Shobhana Takiyar raised in their petition. The problems, issues that were discussed, investigated and analyzed by Mr. Ashok Gaguly and other members.

We have gone through that 9 page petition and a good 35 page Ganguly Committee report (aka recommendations) and also touched briskly another two most important documents1) Delhi Education Act 1973, 2) Delhi School Education Rules 1973. It really doesn’t make sense to bang heads in suggesting changes in past/current nursery admission rules, point system and so on without really understanding all this. Mr. Ashok Agarwal and his fellow really understood the problem when he decided the file that petition, Ganguly committee also did what they were asked to do and the document really a must read for all of us.

So what now? I invite suggestions from all parents but for now we shall be focusing on planned suggestions (based on facts from past not just this year alone) rather than random suggestions as I fear this will not work until we understand the problem, issues. Rest assured that there is a system approved by DOE but unfortunately the execution was wrong and some drawbacks added to the problem, and on top of that schools have flaunted it by all means.
Parents who have good understanding of (one or more of following): Delhi Edu Act (at least section 16), Delhi School Edu Rules (at least admissions specific), Mr Ashok Agarwal's petition and decision on it, Recommendations and report prepared by Ganguly committee and not to mention this year's DOE orders, please come forward and let's meet sometime this month on weekend and brainstorm on the issues so far (history so far, this year, and future), areas of improvement, and our plan for future (feasibility, and execution)

We all have had faced it ourselves for our kids, and parents have been going thru this pain for last several years. I am sure we have professionals from all backgrounds among us.

We think the real need is to do it all differently; platform is set we are ready to give our best efforts, what you say about this whole idea? Any suggestions, questions, ideas you may have - please do share as every comment counts and it will really help everyone.

(can't think of more at 1am night but little suggestion: for now/time being, please don’t send suggestions on fixing the system, because it is important to know your opinion on this thought to begin with – a well begun is half done so let’s take a very focused approach– right is n’t it?)

Vivek Summit, Patel Nagar - asking for guarantee?

School's motto on paper: "Purity, patience and perseverance are the three essentials to success"

School's motto in reality: "Guarantee, money and business-mind are the three essentials to success"

This school has defined it all wrongly, this school is playing with “Purity” they claim, “Patience” is their last priority; “Perseverance” is left to Parents to work on.

Some of the humiliated parents have reported that this school is asking for original birth certificate issued by MCD, until the child passes XII standard from Manav Sthali School.

What a torture!!! I am asking parents to come forward and let’s report this matter to DOE and concerned person. If anyone has such type of concrete cases, with data and are willing to come forward please let me know I am ready to accompany you, help you and walk that distance that you feel you can’t do it alone. I feel ashamed of this and feel disgusted.

Thanks for reporting the matter, let’s get such people behind bars and teach such business minded people a good lesson of life.

If school authorities, management are reading this, and they think they cave a single valid reason for asking such guarantee, please share with all of us.

Spyder wishes every parent all the best for 1st Feb

The nursery admission process in Delhi is one of the most difficult and emotionally traumatic for everyone. It is simply heart breaking to watch amazing parents as they navigate this almost impossible process. We have seen almost every type of emotional reaction since November 2007 the date when DOE first came out with first order for nursery admissions guidelines.

I just want to wish every parent all the very best! I wish that every kid gets to at least one list tomorrow.

We plan to work closely with other parents and media starting next month and take it to next level where parents community will provide suggestions, solution to problems so that at least next year we see happy faces at school gates from start of the admissions till the last kid gets admission and even beyond. I will certainly need your help, so please keep sending your suggestions to me (at spyderindia@gmail.com) and I will try my level best and give my 1000% to this mission - no looking back from here. Thanks again to everyone and best wishes.

...and stay connected for more real stuff on Nursery Admissions in Delhi.

PLEASE NOTE: SELECTION LISTS/LINKS/URLs WILL BE UPDATED ON NAD SITE!

Cheers
Spyder

Letter to Apeejay schools and their reposnse on selection criteria

Note: Entire conversation has been added now, last updated on January 28th, 2008

There was some confusion and doubt in parents mind related to selection list of Apeejay schools. As we could not get much details on issues reported by parents so we send a mail to school principals (Saket, Sheikh Sarai and Pitam Pura) and in response to our e-mail (Dated: January 25, 2008) that we had sent on behalf of all parents, we have received response from Mr. Aditya Berlia (head of ASERF - Apeejay Education Research Foundation) clarifying the doubts that were raised by parents through this blog.

Here is the abstract of this e-conversation:

We asked them to give clarification regarding nursery shortlisting which took place on 24th Jan 2008 across Apeejay schools in Delhi. The issues we highlighted included:
1) Since from the lists it was not clear as to what was the basis of shortlisting. So we asked them to help us understand the exact criteria that schools have followed.
2) As we all had observed that there are kids who scored higher points (for example 50, 54, 58 etc.) and they have not made it to the list but kids with less points (for example 40, 45, 50) have been selected. We asked them to give explanation of the same.

In his response (Dated: January 26, 2008) Mr Aditya mentioned that Apeejay Education Research Foundation has designed “representative affirmative action” system for the nursery admission and details can be found at research foundation website http://admissions.apeejay.edu/
Mr Aditya also mentioned that “system is new and some of the factors are hard to explain; we certainly could do a better job in this regard. I am sure however you will appreciate the manner in which we have conducted the admissions this year; we are certainly quite proud of it.”

Giving due respect to Mr. Aditya’s explanation we spent good time understanding the system process from website, and it was clear that the school had prepared 11 lists (by segments) and selected top scoring kids from each of these lists. So it is also clear that every list will have its own cutoff and hence a kid with 50 points (from “engineering segment”) might have failed but a kid with 35 points (from “media segment”) has made it to the selection list.

We don’t see any rule violation here, except that the school has not made the complete list available to public, so we have sent another mail (Dated: January 26th 2008) to Mr. Aditya asking school to publish the complete list so that we can check if this “system” has really been followed.

Updates received on January 28, 2008:
We have received response from Mr. Aditya today and in his response he mentioned that “With regards to publishing the names and numbers we had decided not to do it online to protect the privacy of the parents. Since the marks given be broken up to reveal confidential information about the parents' qualification and work background, as well as allow anyone to find out the status of someone else's admission, we wish to err on the side of caution in this regard. In this day and age when the privacy of individuals both online and offline are been regularly compromised we felt ethically obliged not to reveal this information online.”

He also added that “Next year we plan to implement a more stringent security system with a username / password aspect; along with a more secure server (better programming as pointed out by you is also needed). The lists were put on the notice board of the school for local consumption. Certainly we have learned a lot from the process this year (we received around 6700 applications for 300 seats), and try for more disclosure next year, perhaps putting in a place a system where marks are given immediately at the point of application.”

We thank Mr. Aditya for timely clarification he has provided to all of us. This has certainly helped everyone