Ooty school’s fixed deposit for students to up enrolment

COIMBATORE: In a unique initiative to turn around the decreasing number of admissions, the teachers of a government school in the Nilgiris have started a fixed deposit (FD) scheme in the name of students.

Students from 1 to 6 of the Government High School in Kiloor Kokkalada village near Ooty will get fixed deposits of Rs 5,000, those in class 7 will get Rs 4,000. Students of classes 8, 9 and 10 will get deposits of Rs 3,000, Rs 2,000 and Rs 1,000, respectively.

The English medium school has a total of 45 students, including eight who have joined and benefited from the deposit scheme, this academic year.

“The cash deposited at the nearby post office will be handed over to respective students upon maturity of the FD term only if they pursue till class 10. This clause is aimed at preventing dropouts as many children of north Indian migrants tend to drop out after taking admission in the school,” said R Senthil Kumar, a physical training teacher at the school.

Last year, the school had 62 students. Before that, during the corona pandemic, it saw student numbers dropping to single digits, forcing it to close down for three years.

Aggrieved over the sorry state of affairs of their alma mater, over 800 former students of this British-era school’s alumni association decided to pool in money for the novel initiative to increase admissions. The eight teachers of the school, which recently celebrated its centenary year, have taken up the task of making door-to-door visits in the neighbouring villages to canvas for admissions.

"We are focussing on villages within a 10 km radius. Parents today see sending their wards to private schools as a status symbol. But we are hopeful that enrolments would increase in the coming days,” Senthil Kumar added.