Mayank Singh By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Taking a step further to bring girls in Sainik Schools Ministry of Defence (MoD) has asked five Sainik Schools to admit girls from the next batch. This is after the pilot project of the Defence Ministry in Sainik School Chhingchhip, Mizoram succeeded when six girl cadets were admitted into class 6th in June 2018. It was government's move towards gender equality.

The Letter issued by the Sainik School Society, MoD mentions, "Raksha Mantri has approved the admission of girl children (limited to 10% of total authorized intake into class 6) with effect from academic session 2020-21."

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh approved five Sainik Schools for these admissions namely Sainik Schools Bijapur, Chandrapur, Ghorakhal, Kalikiri and Kodagu.

It was Uttar Pradesh Sainik School (UPSS), the first Sainik School of the country established in 1960 which admitted 15 girls cadets in April 2018 in class 9th. Students of Sainik Schools are called as cadets like the trainees of the pre-commission military academies. The UPSS is the only Sainik School functioning under the State Government with the rest being run by MoD.

MoD has issued clear instructions to the principals of the above-mentioned schools to take steps to carry out adequate publicity through newspapers, websites and other means. Monitoring the registration strength vis a vis the capacity of exam centres, Recruitment of exclusive staff, provision of infrastructure required for girl children and taking adequate steps are the other instruction to the Principals.

Registration process will be online wef 26 November to 6 December 2019 (only for girl children)

The Sainik Schools were developed as an alternative to public schools education aimed at nurturing boys from cross-section of society to join the Armed Forces officers' academies. There are total of 28 Sainik Schools with four more in the process of being raised.