The Delhi government on Friday withdrew its proposed order to the city's private schools specifying that a child should be three years old by August 31 of the concerned academic year for nursery class admission and five years for class one.

Appearing for the Delhi government, counsel Avinash Ahlawat informed a Delhi High Court bench headed by Chief Justice M K Sharma that the government will come out with a final decision shortly and it wanted to withdraw its order directing private schools to strictly adhere to the common calendar.

In December last year, the Delhi government in an affidavit had submitted before the court that to avoid the confusion, a direction with regard to the optimum age of a child for nursery admissions had been circulated to all the private schools.

This affidavit was filed by the government in response to a court notice on a petition filed by advocate Ashok Aggarwal seeking direction to the government to frame a common rule for all schools as different schools have different age criteria for admission of a child in nursery class.

Aggarwal had alleged that due to confusion over the age of nursery student, the parents of children aged two and little above had started applying for the admission in nursery. He submitted that admission of a child in the nursery class before completion of three years would have adverse impact on the brain of a child.

He had said the proposed order was against the interest of the child as the child should attain three years by April one, the date from which the academic session starts. "Appropriate age for nursery needs to be debated by the educationists, psychologists and sociologists," he added.