Indian schools in Oman rule out admission spot swaps

Muscat: Indian school students will not be allowed to exchange admission spots or seek internal transfers between schools, a senior official on the Indian School Board, said.
Speaking to Times of Oman, Wilson V. George, chairman, Board of Directors, Indian Schools, said: “Student cannot exchange schools among themselves and we are not entertaining any transfer requests also.”
His reaction comes after more than 1,600 school students were kept on a waiting list for admissions in six Indian schools in the capital area.
Out of the 3,485 children who have been admitted in the schools this month, very few got into “a school of their own choice.”
“Since we stay in Ruwi, we had applied for Indian School Muscat as the first choice and Indian School Ghubrah as the second choice and Indian School Seeb as the third choice. Sadly, my son got admission in Indian School Seeb. Now he has to travel at least 80 kilometres every day. Will someone exchange with me?” K Basu, a parent asked.
Ruling out exchanging and transfers, Wilson V. George said that their priority is now to secure admissions for one and all. “There is huge waiting list if anybody is not availing any admission. So, if anybody is opting out of any seats, the seat will go the waiting list candidate,” he said.
He also said: “To secure admissions for all children we have already got all the necessary approvals for opening up afternoon shifts in some of the schools and some of them are still awaited. So, hopefully we will be using those to accommodate everybody. Then there are plans to increase some sections of some classes to fill up. Parents will be given opportunity to re-mark their choices for the second draw and we will try our best to offer a seat to every child who applied, even though it may not be necessarily in the school or the shift they wanted,” he asserted.
He also said around 1600 students have been kept on wait-listed as the number of applicants has far exceeded the number of available seats in the six Indian schools in the capital area.
This year, the Board received around 5,100 eligible applications for admissions in various classes in Indian schools in the capital but only 3,485 children got admitted in the first draw as only 3,485 seats could be made available in the first round of admission process.
The second draw is slated to be in the end of the March.