As a result, the children now need to apply to the branches of these schools in Greater Noida or other schools for nursery seats.

While certain schools have told parents they won’t be admitting kids from those areas in their Noida branches, Cambridge School in Noida has clearly mentioned they won’t even be selling forms to parents residing certain areas keeping the distance factor in mind, parents said.

“Yes, we will not take in kids from those areas for nursery. For Class I, we are again open,” a school official said over the phone. “The distance is a factor. Those areas are more than 8 km away.”

Hapless parents have to now figure out a way given the limited options. Also, the Expressway, many say, is extremely dangerous for school buses as drivers tend to speed. One parent added that the Expressway has very few access points to service lanes, which lead to various sectors.

Catch-22
“Some schools are ready to provide transport, but it is not safe. Because of only a couple of exits, people drive in the wrong lanes and accidents happen,” one parent living in Sector 82 said. “The civic authorities won’t create any infrastructure, neither will the schools relent.”

The IT professional is applying to Amity School, Noida.

“They don’t have these parameters,” he said. “But our options are limited.”

At www.nurseryadmissions.com, a web portal where parents discuss their wards’ nursery admissions, Sheetal Chauhan, a parent, said some schools have formulated these rules to fill up seats at their branches in Greater Noida.

“I find this highly unfair to children and their parents. We have measured the distance to these schools by car. The closest one in Greater Noida is 24 km from Sector 82,” she wrote.

Rajan Arora, who runs the popular portal, said: “Most schools in the NCR region have vacant seats that they keep filling throughout the year,” he said. “No wonder such things come up.”

Although schools in the NCR region are not required to cater to the point system that Delhi schools follow, most schools adhere to certain parameters like the neighborhood criteria to streamline the process. The problems arise when schools award extra points to children living in the neighbourhood — within five to eight km.

Wait on at Delhi schools
In the NCR region, which includes Faridabad, Gurgaon, Noida and Ghaziabad, most schools opened the admissions process at least four months ahead of their counterparts in Delhi. Delhi-based schools are still waiting for the Directorate of Education to formulate guidelines. With the Right to Education Bill kicking certain sections — like 25 per cent reservation for educationally backward children — are still ambiguous and Delhi schools will begin to frame their parameters only after the government has sent them the guidelines.

S K Bhattacharya, president of the action committee representing 1,900 unaided private schools in the city, said not much will change this year with regard to nursery admissions, but they are keeping their fingers crossed until the government takes a stand.

In the NCR region as well, a few institutes like Chiranjiv Bharati School have put off their nursery admissions process till the set of guidelines reaches them.