Counseling begins for admission in meritorious schools
Punjab: Senior Secondary Residential Schools for meritorious students or only meritorious schools started their counseling for the session 2024-25. Admissions for Class XI for the upcoming session will be with centralized counselling, which will last for two days. Overall, there are nine meritorious schools across the state with 4,600 seats. In the first round of counselling, 2,400 were evaluated based on the entrance exams held earlier this year and their ranks. Of the total seats in these schools, 60 percent are for boys and 40 percent are for girls. Most of the students seeking admission in these schools fall in the categories of BPL (Below Poverty Line) card holders and underprivileged families.
Government Senior Secondary Residential School for Meritful Students, Amritsar, one of the nine meritorious schools in the state, currently has 500 students for classes XI and XII. Last year the cut-off for admission was 95 per cent and the school has more girls than boys.
Number of students is high, yet there is shortage of teachers
Meritorious Schools were opened in 2014 by the Government of Punjab with the aim of providing free education to needy and deserving students. A pilot project under the then SAD-BJP government, these schools are struggling to find teachers and revamped infrastructure even after a decade. While most of these schools have qualified teachers, Meritorious School, Amritsar has only 40 teachers despite 55 designated teaching posts. Moreover, teachers are struggling to get regularity, they have no right to allowances or incentives.
Most of the DPE (Department of Physical Education) faculty of the school are also performing additional duties as hostel wardens. The teaching and non-teaching staff of schools for meritorious students are demanding regularization of jobs under the State Education Department and have expressed willingness to accept the regularization offer given to SSA/RMSA teachers. In 2018, the then Education Minister OP Soni had announced that teachers would be regularized. But till date no concrete steps have been taken in this regard.
Another challenge for meritorious schools is the development of excellent schools. The four Schools of Eminence in the district offer similar criteria for admission from Class 9 to Class 12, diluting the scope of these exclusive residential schools for meritorious students.
Despite the constraints, these schools provide well-equipped laboratories, libraries and qualified faculty and facilitate preparation for competitive exams like NEET and JEE, which are some of the factors that have managed to attract students to these schools. Are.
