INDIA. Mumbai: The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in its meeting approved the proposal to affiliate 100 government, private, and NGO schools, with the Sainik Schools Society of Ministry of Defence from 2022-23 academic year.
Approximately 5,000 students are expected to receive admission in class VI in such 100 affiliated Sainik Schools from the academic year 2022-23. At present, the existing 33 Sainik Schools have an admission capacity of approximately 3,000 students in class VI.
Sainik Schools Society (SSS) is an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Defence, which runs English medium residential schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education(CBSE).
According to a statement by the government, 100 new Sainik schools are being introduced for the following benefits: Provide cost-effective ways in reaching out to larger populations across all regions in the country. To meet the growing demand for Sainik Schools and provide effective physical, psycho-social, spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and cognitive development. Savings in training duration, deployment of trainers, maintenance and operations budgets, while substantially improving the quality of youth entering the various walks of life.
To leverage the experience of administering existing 33 Sainik Schools, it has been decided to set up 100 new affiliated Sainik Schools by inviting proposals from Government/ private schools /NGOs to apply for affiliation of existing or new schools to the Sainik Schools Society. The interested parties can submit their proposals online at URL https://sainikschool.ncog.gov. where salient features and qualifying criteria of the scheme; responsibilities of stakeholders, i.e. Ministry of Defence and School Management are listed.
The decision is a paradigm shift to the existing pattern of Sainik Schools, in tune with National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, to provide increased focus on value-based education enabling children to develop pride in the rich culture and heritage of the nation, effective leadership with character, discipline, sense of national duty and patriotism. These Schools will function as an exclusive vertical and will be distinct and different from the existing Sainik Schools.
It is believed that integration of the Sainik Schools education system with regular board plus curriculum is expected to create academically strong, physically fit, culturally aware, intellectually adept, skilful youth and well-rounded citizens. The students from these Schools are envisioned to be equipped with necessary life skills which will make them shine in their chosen fields.
The Sainik school’s society wrote on its official website: “The aim is to set up schools on the pattern of existing Sainik Schools to develop the ethos of national spirit, indomitable courage, an unfailing commitment to values of respect for country and society, imbibe the importance of physical fitness and embody the national pride in students’ souls while providing “CBSE Plus” type of educational environment by involving the Government/ private schools to partner in establishing/ aligning their system in line with Sainik Schools”.
In March this year, the government informed the Parliament that it was working on a new scheme to set up more Sainik Schools in the country in partnership with NGOs, private schools, and state governments. Before that, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in this year’s budget speech had announced that India will set up 100 new Sainik schools in partnership with NGOs, private schools, and states.
The statistics have proved that the Sainik Schools serve as feeder institutions for the armed forces. In 2018, the National Defence Academy, known as the cradle of military leadership inducted a total of 662 cadets of whom 147 (22.2%) were from Sainik Schools. In 2017, of the 644 cadets who joined NDA, 179 (27.8%) were from Sainik Schools.
