Madurai: The Madurai Division of the High Court has issued an interim stay preventing kindergartens from being regulated under the Private Schools Regulation Act.

The stay follows a petition by Kalwari Thiagarajan, General Secretary of the Tamil Nadu Kindergarten Owners Association.

Thiagarajan argued that kindergartens, which serve around 1.8 lakh children aged between one and a half and five and a half years, should be governed by the Social Welfare Department in accordance with the National Education Policy.

The petition highlights that 90% of the 6,000 kindergartens in Tamil Nadu are operated by women entrepreneurs.

The new regulation could force many of these schools to close, disrupting the livelihoods of these women and preventing individuals or proprietors from running these institutions.

In response, the bench, consisting of Justices R. Subramanian and L. Victoria Gowrie, has imposed an interim injunction.

A notice has been dispatched to the Principal Secretary of the Tamil Nadu School Education Department, with the next hearing scheduled for October 4.