Admissions in Tamil Nadu govt schools cross 71 lakh this year

At present, there are about 45,800 government and aided schools functioning across the State. A senior official from the School Education Department told DT Next on Tuesday that last year the total number of students studying in the State-run schools was around 66 lakh.

"This year the strength of the students from Class 1 to Class 12 has increased to 71.2 lakh," he added.

Stating that the admission process in government schools commenced from June 15 this year and continued till November, the official said that there were about 2,000 dropouts this year. He added that new admissions will continue once the schools were reopened after the rains.

"After getting the instructions from the high-level authorities, teachers have also ensured about 80% of the dropout students were back to the schools," he said adding that students, who turned labourers to provide financial support for the families during the lockdown, were given counselling.

The official also pointed out that the admission process was made easy this year by admitting the students to government schools even without a Transfer Certificate (TC), which was mandatory till last year. Accordingly, parents have admitted their children to State-run schools using only Aadhar cards.

With the noon-meal scheme having started on day one of the reopenings of the schools, he said "This will also ensure that the newly admitted students would be retained".

Pointing out that the government also ensured that all the welfare schemes, including distributing uniforms, shoes, classroom items, and bicycles, were done to the students even during the lockdown period, he said, "All the government higher secondary schools have already prepared the indents for the distribution of free laptops to the students".

The official also disclosed that more than 3,000 students from CBSE schools were admitted to government institutions. "The next task, which was already started, 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.