5L more expected to enrol in govt schools this year

CHENNAI: Accordingly, the School Education Department has devised a detailed plan to improve infrastructure of the state-run schools to accommodate the extra enrolments. The admissions in government and government-aided schools this year have started around June first week, which would continue till November.

A senior official from the School Education Department told DT Next that the admissions for Class 11 have also started. “As the response was very high, the authorities have planned to improve the infrastructure of the institutions, including immediately recruiting more than 13,000 temporary teachers,” he added.

He pointed out that the number of children enroled at a level (primary, upper primary, secondary, and higher secondary), irrespective of age, would be divided by the population of the age group that officially corresponds to the same level.

“This year the Net Enrolment Rate (NER) in Classes 1 to 12 in the age group of 6 to 17 years is expressed as a percentage of the children corresponding to that age group,” he said. He added that the NER percentage would be 99.90 per cent, 99.40 per cent, 78.40 per cent and 65.76 per cent for primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary levels respectively.

Claiming that so far about 2 lakh new admissions have been reported, he said considerable number of children With Special Needs (CWSN) have been enrolled.

On noon-meals already on, he said, “This will also ensure that the newly admitted students would be retained.”

He also said that more than 5,000 students from CBSE schools were expected to be admitted this year. “The next phase of works would be to improve infrastructure that includes constructing additional classrooms, recruiting teachers based on the requirement, setting up additional toilet facilities, and improving IT labs,” he added.