KATHMANDU, March 31: St. Xavier's School located in Jawalakhel of Lalitpur Metropolitan City has stopped admission of new students in grade 1. This has left the future of about 4000 students uncertain.
Lalitpur Metropolitan City Office instructed the school to immediately suspend the new admission process on March 20, stating that there is no consistency in the student enrollment quota provided by the school. The school stopped the admission process immediately after the instructions from the metropolis.
When admissions are stopped, around 4,000 boys and girls aged five and a half to six and a half years, and their parents are stressed and are waiting for the results after filling out the form and completing the interview for admission.
The school started the admission process on March 2 by determining the seat quota based on the decision of the management committee. After the Ministry of Education instructed the schools not to take the entrance exam for class 1 from now onwards, the schools started the admission of students by short-listing the applicants based on admission form and through interviews.
According to the school administration, they received 4,500 applications for 150 seats for the new academic session of St. Xavier's. Out of which 3,700 were shortlisted and 3,000 of them were interviewed.
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According to the parents, St. Xavier's School is their first preference as the school has been providing quality education for the last 70 years at an affordable fee.
A member of the school management committee said, "After completing the interaction with 700 students on March 21, there was preparation to do the lottery". The future of 4,000 students is in doubt. The member said, "We have determined the quota and opened the admissions based on the decision of the school management committee." But after the metropolis stopped the process in the middle and the admission has been obstructed, the students are under mental stress.”
Also, the school sources say that if the metropolis had set the goal of organizing the admission, then the criteria should have been made before the admission.
"In the past, there was a lot of pressure from political parties and high-ranking people during admission for class 1. Unable to bear the pressure, the school management has been selecting students through the lottery system for the past two years to make the admission process fair and orderly. School sources said, "Different people extorted money from the parents of the students in the name of the preparatory class, and the consultancy management extorted a large sum of money for admission to St. Xavier's."
There were many complaints.
"To prevent all immoral activities that bring the school into dispute, the fee was reduced after the school short-listed the students who filled out the form and started taking admission through the lottery," the source said, adding that the school enrollment became systematic but the metropolis has done injustice to the students by stopping the admission at the last stage.
According to the method and procedure of admission quota provided by the school, according to the decision made by the management committee on March 3, the group percentage has been fixed by excluding the sons and daughters of the employees. According to this, a five percent quota has been fixed for the Dalit community, 10 percent quota for marginalized and economically disadvantaged single women, 10 percent quota for differently abled, and 10 percent quota for the minority group.
Likewise, the admission process has been started by maintaining 10 percent of siblings of students studying in the school, 10 percent of children of former students (alumnus), 5 percent for permanent residents of Lalitpur Metropolitan Municipality, ward number-4, 10 percent for permanent residents of Lalitpur Metropolitan City and 40 percent for the open and general public. According to the school management, since 70 years of its establishment, the school has been taking admissions by determining the quota to maintain the tradition of Xavierian and to further encourage the teaching staff.
On the other hand, the chief of the education branch of Lalitpur Metropolitan City Mahendra Chhetri said that the metropolis is trying to maintain uniformity in the quota provided by the school without giving any hardship to the students or their parents.
The chief of the department, Chhetri, said that because there is no uniformity in the student enrollment quota currently being provided by the school, there have been complaints that ordinary students have been left out. Therefore, the Metropolitan City has instructed the school to maintain uniformity in the quota.
The problem will be resolved soon and admission will be opened, said Chhetri. According to him, there are 40 public and 237 private schools in the metropolis.”
