Nellayappan B Bhandari, Wokha Even though this write-up may displease many of my school administrator friends, I prefer to air my views for enlightening the readers regarding few legal aspects of class 11 admissions mainly for the interest of the disadvantaged group of weaker students. We all know that influential and well to do people somehow manage to accomplish the admission demands of their children. But many deserving students from the economically lower sections of the society are forced to forgo their dreams simply because they are ignorant of their genuine rights and their parents could not fight with the imbalances and injustices being practiced by many school authorities. It is an established practice in our state that many schools deny class 11 admissions to students who have studied till class 10 in their own school and admit bright students coming out from other schools to improve results and standings. In this regard the High Court of Madras had given a landmark judgment in the year 2007. The High Court had ruled that there shall be no admission test or cut-off marks or "re-admission" system if Class X students seek admission to Class XI in the same school. The HC also made it clear that, higher secondary schools in the State should not treat admission of their own Class X students to Class XI as fresh admission. Students from other schools should be accommodated only if there were vacancies after admitting students from the same school, the court said. Recently, the Supreme Court of India also made a landmark ruling in this regard with a slight modification that gives liberty to the schools to decide on the stream of study to be admitted on the basis of merit and performance of the students. Let me reproduce a part of the landmark Supreme Court ruling. “Before parting with the order, it goes without saying that the students who study up to Class X in any school whether aided or non-aided, such students are entitled to get admission in Class XI in the same school unless he or she declines before the admission is closed. However, in which stream they are to be admitted, it depends upon their merits and performance that shall be decided by the school authority.” It should be remembered here that schools cannot misuse this liberty for weeding out their own students and admitting students from other schools. The eligibility criteria for different streams shall be fixed by the school authorities in conformity with the rules and regulations fixed by the concerned state authorities and students from other schools could be accommodated only if there are vacancies after admitting students from the same school. Let me remind one thing here; in case of Govt. Higher Secondary Schools, students coming from neighboring Govt. High Schools having classes up to class 10 or GHSS not having the desired stream needs to be treated as own students.
