Simultala struggles to get class 11 entrants
PATNA: The first-ever lateral entry plan in Simultala Awasiya Vidyalaya (SAV), the residential school set up in 2010 on the lines of the prestigious Netarhat school in undivided Bihar that went to Jharkhand after the state’s bifurcation in 2000, has remained a non-starter.
The process for induction of new students on a large number of vacant seats in Class 11 is yet to be completed despite the session ending by FebruaryMarch, education department officials said.
SAV, located in a picturesque hamlet in Bihar’s Jamui district bordering Jharkhand, which had a promising start 12 years ago with around 32,000 students applying from across the state for admission, has failed to evoke the desired response for class 11 admissions and the deadline for inviting applications had to be extended, say officials.
The school has been consistently grappling with vacant seats at the higher secondary level due to big drop-out rate after class 10.
A few months ago, a go-ahead was given to an earlier plan recommended for lateral entry in Class 11 in the ongoing academic session, but the response has remained lukewarm.
PATNA: The first-ever lateral entry plan in Simultala Awasiya Vidyalaya (SAV), the residential school set up in 2010 on the lines of the prestigious Netarhat school in undivided Bihar that went to Jharkhand after the state’s bifurcation in 2000, has remained a non-starter.
The process for induction of new students on a large number of vacant seats in Class 11 is yet to be completed despite the session ending by February-March, education department officials said.
SAV, located in a picturesque hamlet in Bihar’s Jamui district bordering Jharkhand, which had a promising start 12 years ago with around 32,000 students applying from across the state for admission, has failed to evoke the desired response for class 11 admissions and the deadline for inviting applications had to be extended, say officials.
The school has been consistently
grappling with vacant seats at the higher secondary level due to big drop-out rate after class 10.
A few months ago, a go-ahead was given to an earlier plan recommended for lateral entry in Class 11 in the ongoing academic session, but the response has remained lukewarm.
Each year, 120 students pass class 10 from the school. But due to various reasons, the number abruptly falls in plus 2. The highest number of candidates that remained in the school against the sanctioned 120 seats was 68 across all the four streams in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the 2022-24 session, it dropped to just 26, prompting the department to go in for lateral entry for the first time on the remaining 94 seats to ensure the resources are well utilised for the deserving students and applications were invited on September 14.
In view of the weak response, the deadline was extended twice, but the admission process is yet to be completed, as the entrance exam could not be organised. By March next year, the students of Class 11 will have their exams and go to class 12. This means that the admission may remain stuck and bulk of the seats may remain vacant.
School principal Rajiv Kumar said confirmed fresh admissions have not been made. “We are not involved with the entrance exam process, which is conducted by Bihar School Examination Board. We will admit students when asked to. We have already completed more than half the syllabus for class 11 for the existing students. They will have their exams in March and the class 12 classes will get underway from April. The syllabus has to be completed by February,” he said.
Additional chief secretary Dipak Kumar Singh said that the process started late as it was the first time lateral entry had been started.
Last year, when the then education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary visited Simultala school, there was hope that the institution may witness some much-needed turnaround and its outstanding issues like lack of proper infrastructure, regularisation of teachers and employees and filling up vacancies may get resolved.
Since its inception in 2010, the boarding school, with an annual intake of 120 students (60 boys and 60 girls) through a statewide screening test, has been running from rented buildings having prefab structures, though the SAV project was to be initially completed by March 2012. Now, the fresh deadline for campus development is February 2023.
The construction work on the 22.27-acre campus at an estimated cost of Rs 75 crore was started in 2019 by Bihar State Educational Infrastructure Development Corporation with Astro Archineers, Lucknow, as consultant.