Education Minister Sudhir Joshi and Minister of State for Education Anil Deshmukh will meet tomorrow to decide if pre-schools should be asked to suspend admissions till March, when the government plans to table the Act before both houses of the legislature with some amendments.

Deshmukh told Express Newsline: ``On December 29, both houses have passed the Act in its original format. The state government has also been given the freedom to issue a notification regarding implementation of the Act as we deem fit.''

The Act was suspended during last year's monsoon session due to opposition of linguistic and religious minority communities running educational institutions to some of its provisions. The Act called for the following measures: compulsory registration of schools,priority admission for neighbourhood children, admission by lots in case of excess applications, no interview or oral or written test of the child or parents for admission. It also prohibited schools from prescribing any book or booklets for informal education.

Deshmukh maintained that since the government had received several suggestions from different quarters, including parents, trustees governing educational institutions, principals and industrialists owning schools, it would table the Act in March with certain amendments.

Suggestions offered to the government include incorporation of minority rights, sibling rights, rights of children of teachers, old students and employees (of a company that runs schools for its staff), children of residents having contractual obligations with schools, etc.

Most schools have already started the admission process, and while they're not too sure about the status of the Act, many of them have opted for a process loosely based on the Pre-Primary Act.

Utpal ShanghviSchool at Vile Parle has already issued admission forms identifying certain pincodes as its neighbourhood areas, said its management committee member B P Sheth, who is also vice-president of Unaided School Forum. Savithri Narayanan, headmistress of St John's Shishu Vihar, Goregaon, said the school has been always admitting students as per the measures of the Pre-School Act minus the neighbourhood policy. Asked if they would hold fresh admissions in March should the government order so, Narayanan said: ``It is a tough proposition. I have to think it over. We have to take parents into confidence as well.''

One of the architects of the Ram Joshi Committee report, on the basis of which the Pre-School Act has been fashioned, Nalini Chhugani, was as furious as she was distraught.

``If there are resentments over neighbourhood policy, let the Act be diluted. The strong points of the Act are: no interviews in the admission process and no text books in class. Our main aim was to make education fun,'' said Chhugani.She feels amendments to the Act are necessary to ensure clarity and accommodation of some of the suggestions made by different groups.