‘Selection list via lottery system or direct admission to be released soon’

Kolkata: The application process for the pre-primary section in state government schools is edging to an end and soon the selection list through lottery system or direct admission will be released prior to the beginning of the academic year from January 2024.

The Jodhpur Park Boys’ School conducted the lottery on Sunday to fill 100 pre-primary seats. According to the headmaster Amit Sen Majumder, like the past few years the demand for seats is high. “We have received around 300 applications till now. The reason for the high demand is also because we will next open admission in class XI. Since the school is a reputed one, many parents want their wards to get in during the early stage,” he told Millennium Post.

The selection list for the same will be displayed outside the school gate and the school website on November 4 at 2 pm. Similarly, the Jodhpur Park Girls High School which is a Bengali-medium school, is getting its fair share of applications for the 120 pre-primary seats.

According to the headmistress Aparna Mondal Sinha, many parents are opting for government schools rather than private ones due to financial strain, particularly caused after the pandemic. However, the school does not take part in the lottery and offers direct admission which is generally the case in schools where the applicants are usually not more than the number of seats available. They have received around 100 applications till now.

However, the Sakhawat Memorial Government Girls High School principal Papia Nag Sinha Mahapatra said that in the past five years the demand for Bengali-medium in pre-primary admission has gone down. However, the demand for Urdu-medium keeps increasing. The school offers English, Bengali and Urdu-mediums. For the pre-primary, they have only Bengali and Urdu with 40 seats each. The school, like Jodhpur Park Boys’ School, conducts a lottery. Reasoning the increase in applicants for Urdu-medium, she said that in the Lord Sinha Road area there are two to three schools offering Urdu and theirs being a reputed one, gets a lot of applicants each year.

A senior official said that the number of pre-primary applicants in government schools have gradually increased. The reason is not only the financial difficulties of parents to send their wards to a private school but it’s also because the pre-primary and primary syllabus of government schools are ‘very consolidated’.