Fresh guidelines for KG admission; enrolment till August

CHENNAI: With kindergarten classes to begin in the State-run schools shortly, the Tamil Nadu government has decided to come out with comprehensive guidelines to conduct classes for both LKG and UKG.

After taking a “U-turn”, following demand from educationists and other stakeholders, the School Education Department said that the LKG and UKG classes would continue in government schools “also” from this academic year.

Accordingly, as per the directions of the Directorate of Elementary Education, the enrolment for kindergarten classes at Anganwadis in as many as 2,381 in government elementary and middle schools and panchayat union schools have started recently.

A senior official from the School Education Department told DT Next that the government would ensure that every school that has kindergarten classes will have a teacher.

“At present, the teachers, who were taking classes for both LKG and UKG have been shifted to take care of students studying from Class 1 to Class 5”, he said adding “the recruitment process for the kindergarten schools will be done shortly”.

The official said that according to the new guidelines to hold classes for the kindergarten classes, the district education authorities should ensure that adequate teachers (at least one) should be available for both LKG and UKG classes.

“Some government schools have reported that they need additional infrastructure to conduct classes for kindergarten classes”, he said adding “the authorities concerned would ensure that all facilities would be provided for that purpose”.

He also stated that all the kids, who got admitted to government schools for kindergarten classes, will get “special” uniforms this year. “Provided that all of them would be beneficiaries of nutritious meal scheme”, he added.

As the admissions had already started for enrolling students for kindergarten classes, the official said the response was very good and more than 60,000 kids are expected to be admitted this year. “We have urged all the schools concerned to admit the kids at any time”, he said adding “the enrolment will go on till August”.