The Central government has decided to scrap the Union Education Minister’s ‘discretionary quota’ for Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV) admissions starting from 2021-2022 academic session. Recommendations made by the Union ministers for admissions into KVs have also been done away with, according to reports. However, the Members of Parliament of both the houses will continue to recommend admissions into the KVs in each academic session.

Kendriya Vidyalayas provide education to children of Central government employees from class 1 to 12. According to rules which continued till the academic year 2020-21, students, whose parents are not in government jobs, get admissions based on recommendations of the Union Education Minister and the MPs. Many of the recommendations made by MPs and the Minister were for children belonging to the poor and economically weaker sections.

Now, the Central government has decided to scrap all quotas except the MP quota for admission into KVs. Now, the Union Education Minister will only be allowed to make a recommendation for admission as a Member of Parliament. Every Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MP can recommend upto 10 admissions in an academic year.

Under the discretionary quota the Union Education Minister was allowed to recommend the admission of 450 students. However, the number of admissions based on the Minister’s recommendation exceeded 450 on previous occasions. For instance, in the academic year 2018-19, over 8,000 admissions were done in KVs across the country on the Minister’s recommendation.

The quota for MPs and Union Education Minister was re-introduced by the NDA government in 1998 when Murli Manohar Joshi was the Union Human Resource Development Minister. During the UPA-1 government HRD Minister Kapil Sibal tried to scrap the quota system but this could not materialize due to the opposition by MPs in the Parliament.

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