Pune/Aurangabad: Manaswi Aglave is a Std V student at the zilla parishad school in Kapsi, Wardha district, which is across the river from her home in Yavatmal. The school in her village is only up to Std IV.
For the past four months, she has been working hard for Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya exam for admission to Std VI, but the new admission rule make her ineligible to apply in both Yavatmal and Wardha.
The rule makes it mandatory for the parent and the student to be residents of the same district to be able to apply for the entrance examination to the district’s JNV. Till now, students could apply from any district as long as they had completed Std V from that district.
Maharashtra State Primary Teachers’ Committee has written to B Venkateswaran, Navodaya Samiti’s deputy commissioner in Pune regional office requesting him to revoke the new admission rule.
In Maharashtra, many villages have primary schools only up to Std IV and students move to the nearest secondary school for higher education.
In border villages, the nearest secondary school may be in the adjoining district. For example, students in some border villages complete Std IV in the village school and then go to the adjoining district for Std V and onwards.
Yashwant Borikar, headmaster of Kapsi Zilla Parishad school, said ten of the 29 students in Std V in his school are from Yavatmal.
“Their Aadhaar cards will show the permanent address in one district but their Std V certificate will show that they completed it in another district. So these students will neither be able to apply for the JNV admission test from their home district, nor from the district where they are studying,” he said.
Similar is the case with many students whose parents have divorced and moved to a different district or those whose parents passed away and they are living with relatives in a different district, or children of seasonal migrants or even long-term migrants.
“This rule has led to an entire group of children who are poor and had to move to a different district for genuine reasons left out of the opportunity to apply for the JNV entrance test and hope for a better future,” Vijay Kombe, general secretary of Maharashtra State Primary Teachers’ Committee, said.
As per Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti’s website, in the academic year 2020-21, over 25 lakh students registered for the entrance examination to Std VI in JNVs across the country and 45k students were selected.
The competition is high as the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas are residential schools that follow the CBSE curriculum and are completely free from Stds VI to XII.
Parent Dipak Bhoyar said that two of his children are in Std V and were supposed to appear for the JNV class VI entrance exam but will be left out of the process.
“The authorities must think about some way to incorporate us. JNV is a good school and hence we all want our children to study there so that they can have better lives than us,” he added.
A questionnaire to the registered email addresses of Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti officials went unanswered.
A senior official from NVS, on the condition of anonymity, said, “We introduced this new rule because we found that there were coaching classes that would enrol students in districts with a relatively lower merit and then make their students apply for the entrance exam for the JNV in that district and these students get through. JNV aims to give an opportunity to deserving children especially from rural areas free and quality education. With coaching classes in the muddle, the underprivileged children from that district, who could not afford coaching classes were being left out.”
Discovered on: 2023-01-25 03:09:00
Source: New Navodaya Admission Rule To Hit Many Aspirants | Pune News
