Government approves around 5000 additional seats in Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas

The Union Minister of Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar has announced an increase of around 5,000 seats at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas across the country. This is the biggest-ever expansion and the number of seats has increased from 46,600 to 51,000 at the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNVs).

Why the increase?

The increase in the number of seats was part of the government efforts to increase the access to quality education for the student, especially from rural areas.
Over the time there has been an increase in the number of students applying for the exam to get enrolled in the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas. The number of applicants increased from 5.50 lakh aspirants in 2001 to 31.10 lakh aspirants in 2019.
The increase in the number of applicants reflects the growing aspirations of rural children for acquiring quality education. Hence the government has increased the number of seats to provide more opportunity for talented children from rural areas to get a quality education in the nearly free of cost residential schools.

Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas

Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas were set up under the provisions of National Policy on Education-1986. The Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas were set up to nurture and provide opportunities for children with special talent or aptitude to progress at a faster pace by making good quality education available to them irrespective of their capacity to pay for it.
It was a unique experiment in India where the students are selected for admission to Class 6 based on their performance at the entrance examination. These schools are fully residential and co-educational schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), New Delhi and provide education from class VI to XII standard.

Month: Current Affairs - January, 2019