People trying to get their children into certain schools by lying about their residential addresses better watch out. With several cases of forgery and document tampering coming up during the admission process,many educational institutions are planning to send teachers to applicants doorstep for verifying the authenticity of residential addresses mentioned in application forms. Once the form submission process for pre-school gets over,the teachers will turn detectives to check if the parents have submitted any false information. Take,for instance,the case of Delhi Public School (DPS),Mathura Road,which states in its 2011-12 pre-school application form that the school reserves the right to verify the residential address through home visits. School principal M I Hussain said,We will send teachers to check the address only for cases where we have any doubts or suspicions. Parents,at times,forge telephone bills and rental agreements to gain neighbourhood points. The school will make sure that no fake address proof is submitted. Teachers or the headmistress of the pre-school department will visit the residential address provided in the application, he added. Schools across the Capital have asked parents to provide voter ID cards,passports or driving licences as proof of residence. They give points to various criteria such as neighbourhood,sibling,alumni and girl child while selecting applicants for pre-school. A major chunk in the 100-point system is taken up by the neighbourhood criterion. Springdales School,Pusa Road,has decided to send affliated social workers to applicants homes for verification. We have social workers who will land up at the house. They will verify the authencity of the address without letting anybody know, said school principal Ameeta Wattal. As schools feel that telephone bills and rental agreements can be tampered with,they see the need for cross-checking the facts. Shri Ram Schools chairperson Manju Bharatram said,We have had cases where parents have forged documents just to get neighbourhood points for their kids. On another occasion,a couple told her that they were divorced just to get single-parent points. Using the case to explain the necessity of cross-verification by schools,Bharatram said,We dialled the number given on the form,and did not reveal that we were calling from the school. We realised then that the couple was still living together. They were not single parents after all. However,a few schools have decided against taking the extra effort for verifying addresses. Suman Nath,principal of Tagore International School,East of Kailash,said,At times,we found different addresses on the driving licence and the ration card making it hard to decide what was true and what was not. So we chose a candidate from the waiting list,instead. Meanwhile,all branches of Springdales School Dhaula Kuan,Pusa Road and Kirti Nagar have changed their schedules. It was earlier announced that the forms would be available till January 10 and submission would go on till January 15. However,it has now been decided that the forms would be available till January 15 and submission would go on till January 18.
