Rights panel backs Plus One admission plea of child-care home residents

Students were denied admission for writing care home’s address in application form

The Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights has directed that residents of child-care institutions cannot be denied Plus One admission on the grounds that they had put the institution’s location, and not the place they hail from, in the application form. The institution’s location should be treated as the right address, the commission said.

Acting on a petition from Varghese Uthup, head of a child-care institution at Kavalangad in Ernakulam and five residents of the home who had applied for Plus One admission, commission member K. Nazeer directed the General Education Secretary and the Director of General Education (DGE) to provide admission to the eligible children.

The petitioner said that while one student had secured Plus One allotment and taken temporary admission, two others who had secured allotment were denied admission on the grounds that the local body’s name was incorrect. The school Principal claimed that the children had filled in the name of the grama panchayat where the children’s home was located instead of their home grama panchayat. Mr. Uthup contended that the grama panchayat’s name was entered as Kavalangad as the children were living there currently.