Doors of Sainik schools to open for girls also: PM Narendra Modi

All Sainik schools in the country will admit girl students as well, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday in his address to the nation on the 75^th Independence Day. Here’s the video – 

The Defence Ministry also recently announced setting up 100 new co-educational Sainik Schools.

“I used to get messages from lakhs of daughters that they also want to study in Sainik School, the doors of Sainik Schools should be opened for them too.Two-and-a-half years ago, as an experiment, we admitted daughters for the first time to Sainik School in Mizoram.Now the government has decided that all the Sainik Schools in the country will also be opened for the daughters,” Mr Modi said.

For long, girls across the country had expressed their desire to break the glass ceiling. In 2019, the central government decided that girls too should be provided admission to Sainik Schools, conceived in 1961 by former defence minister VK Krishna Menon.

Students are granted admission in Class VI and IX on the basis of performances in the nationwide entrance exam. The Centre has stated that 67 per cent seats are reserved for students from the respective home state and the rest for students from other states. 

Here’s all you need to know about Sainik Schools:

1. These schools are the brainchild of VK Krishna Menon, who was the Union defence minister from April 1957 to October 1962. Menon conceived this idea in 1961.
2.  An All India Sainik School Entrance Examination (AISSEE) is conducted for admission to Sainik Schools, which follow the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) curriculum. For classes 6 and 9, students are granted admission on the basis of their performance in the entrance exam. For class 11, the basis of admission is marks scored in class 10 board exams.
3. However, it is to be noted that 67% seats are reserved for students who are from the home state of a Sainik School. The remaining 33% students are admitted from outside the home state. There is reservation also on the basis of Scheduled Castes (15%), Scheduled Tribes (7.5%), Other Backward Classes (27%) and for wards of current and former servicemen (25%).
4. At present, there are 33 such schools in the country. Uttar Pradesh has three Sainik Schools, while Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha and Rajasthan have two schools each.
5. These schools are run by the Sainik Schools Society under the Union ministry of defence (MoD). As the name suggests, Sainik Schools prepare students for a career in the armed forces. Hence students here are called “cadets” and have to follow strict rules, which are on the lines of those in military academies.
6. As a pilot project, Sainik School in Mizoram’s Chhingchhip began admitting girls from October 2019. PM Modi mentioned the school while making the announcement.