The Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TSWREIS) has decided to open a school exclusively for students from the marginalised sections to prepare them for careers in the Armed forces.
The existing school at Rukmapur in Karimnagar district is being converted on the lines of the Defence Ministry’s own Korukonda Sainik School in Vizianagaram. It is scheduled to become operational from the forthcoming academic year 2018-19. In the beginning, only boys would be admitted—80 of them in class V and another 80 in Intermediate first year. TSWREIS Secretary R.S. Praveen Kumar said recruitment of retired officers from the Indian Army, Air Force and Navy is currently under way and they would be given a free hand to decide the academic curricula and other activities necessary in preparing the youngsters to join the Armed forces through National Defence Academy (NDA) at Khadakwasla, Pune.
“People from the marginalised sections have very low representation in the Armed forces. A few are soldiers, but their number in the officers’ category is dismal. Our effort is to prepare them to enter the NDA so that they can become officers and serve the nation,” he explained.
The initiative was conceived when several attempts to get through the NDA entrance examination by the social welfare wards failed.
While the social welfare students have been making giant strides by getting admissions in reputed public and private universities such as Azim Premji and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) on merit, cracking the NDA entrance has come as a challenge for them.
Administrators and teachers from TSWREIS have visited the Sainik School to know of the facilities being provided to students there. They have also interacted with the faculty to get an insight into what goes into preparing students to gain entry into the Armed forces.
“We will also have another school for girls soon. We have been encouraging our boys and girls to do well in courses other than engineering and medicine,” said Mr. Kumar.
