Parents watch eagerly the drawing of lottery at Barlow Girls’ High School in Malda on Tuesday. Picture by Surajit Roy

Malda, Dec. 27: None of the children from outside Malda town could make it to Class V of Barlow Girls’ High School as the institution drew lots today to decide on the admissions.

The lottery had originally been scheduled for December 20. It was postponed after parents had protested against the state education department’s directive to allow only candidates within a 1km radius of the school to take part in the draw.

The government later clarified that it would not impose the distance bar. In fact, the Right to Education Act does not say children from outside the neighbourhood could not study in a school.

Today, 1,123 students took part in the lottery for the 156 seats in Class V. “All the candidates who were selected after the lottery are from the town. No untoward incident was reported,” said headmistress Pranati Dasgupta.

Sources in the school administration said 412 candidates who had taken part in the lottery were from outside the town and they did not have their names drawn.

Twenty-six seats were reserved for candidates belonging to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and nine for other backward classes, the sources said.

Five lots were drawn by each parent who was summoned to the stage of the school at random. The names written on pieces of paper were immediately announced by the school staff as they came out of the boxes.

At the end of the day, many unlucky parents, both from far and near, were left wondering about the future of their daughters.

Shyam Mondal from Raniganj in Gajole was almost in tears. “I had toiled hard and engaged three private tutors for my daughter and wanted her to get proper education at Barlow’s. But the lottery has dashed all my hopes. I am certain that she would have passed had she written an entrance test. She would have stayed with relatives in the town and studied till Class XII. Now we have no other option but to try and get her admitted to a school in Gajole,” said Mondal, a farmer.

Gajole is about 40km from Malda.

Bandana Adhikary, a Malda resident, also stood with worry written all over her face. “My daughter studied in a well-known primary school in town and her name has not been drawn in any of the four schools we had tried. I do not know what to do now,” she said.

Among the lucky ones was the headmaster of Akrurmani High School, Chanchal Jha.

“I am relieved that my daughter’s name was drawn. I am worried about whether the lottery system will hold good for our children in the future. In my school, there are at least 25 students who barely know how to write. The state government has done away with the pass and fail system till Class VIII. I feel that the will to study among the students is bound to diminish. However, we will have to go by the government policies,” the headmaster said.

The district inspector of schools (secondary), Bimal Pandey, said the unlucky ones had no cause for worry. “We will ensure that all students are admitted to schools, preferably to ones close to where they reside,” Pandey said.