The Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan has upheld in the High Court its decision to increase the minimum age for admission to Class I in Kendriya Vidyalayas from five to six years. The KVS, while filing an affidavit in the court, said that the decision to raise the minimum age for admission to Class I to 6 years has been taken in accordance with the provisions of the National Policy on Education (NEP) 2020 and the Right to Education Act (RTE).
In the affidavit filed before Justice Rekha Palli, KVS has said that ‘Under the Right to Education Act, a provision has been made to provide compulsory and free education to the children of 6 to 14 years of age. It has also been said that the Central Government has notified the NEP 2020 after a thorough deliberation on this issue, in which a new scheme of educational and curricular restructuring has been proposed. Apart from this, the letter written by the Central Government to all the states in March 2021 has been cited, in which it has been asked to prepare a road map for implementing NEP in the next two to three years. Along with this, the letter written by the government to KVS has also been cited. KVS has given this affidavit in the court in response to a petition filed against raising the minimum age for admission in class I from five to six years. KVS has demanded dismissal of the petition filed against the order of increasing the age limit on behalf of the girl child.
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Advocates Ashok Aggarwal and Kumar Utkarsh, appearing for Arin, a girl child awaiting admission in Class I in Kendriya Vidyalaya, have challenged the KVS raising the minimum age limit for admission in Class I from five years to six years. He has demanded the cancellation of this decision of KVS taken suddenly in the petition as arbitrary, illogical and unfair. It has been said in the petition that the age of the petitioner is 5 years 9 months 28 days and she is currently studying in UKG and is waiting to take admission in first class this year.
Advocate Ashok Aggarwal, appearing for the petitioner, said that KVS cannot increase the age of admission merely on the basis of the letter sent by the government. He has said that KVS should not increase the age till the age of admission is fixed by the central or state government in law. Aggarwal said that KVS is saying in its affidavit that the age of admission under the RTE Act is six years, whereas till now children of the age of 5 years or more have got admission under this law. The next hearing of the case will be on April 5.