Govt schools fear losing students as enrolment delayed

CHENNAI: Even as most of the private schools across Tamil Nadu have almost completed admission process, the government and government-aided schools are yet to commence new enrolment.

Usually, the admission process in Staterun schools begins during the first week of May. Even though a pandemic situation prevailed last year, the admissions in government schools had started in May, recording about four lakh new admissions.

There are around 45,000 government and government-aided schools across the State with a student strength of 66 lakh.

With private schools even commencing admissions under the Rights to Education (RTE) Act, government teachers fear that enrolment delay might impact new admissions in government schools.

A senior official from the School Education Department, seeking anonymity, told DT Next that since the academic year was extended a bit, the admissions were getting delayed. “In addition, board exams also got delayed,” he pointed out.

Claiming the authorities would soon issue a notification to begin the new admission process for Classes 1 to 10 and Class 12 in government schools, he said admissions for Class 11 would begin once the Class 10 mark sheets are issued.

The official, however, was also not clear when the notification would be issued to start admissions. However, Tamil Nadu School Teachers’ Association president PK Ilamaran said though the delay in government school admissions was brought to the notice of the authorities concerned, there was no proper explanation on the delay.

Urging the government to immediately begin the admission process, Ilamaran said “further delay would not attract new students like it happened last year”. He also questioned, “if the admissions were carried out in May despite the pandemic situation, why can’t it be done this year in time despite restoration of normalcy and availability of teachers and administration staff”.

KR Nandhakumar, general secretary of Tamil Nadu Private Nursery, Primary, Matriculation, Higher Secondary, and CBSE Schools’ Association also confirmed that the private schools are either mid-way or have completed the admission process for this year.