Now five more Sainik Schools to admit girls 

Ministry of Defence (MoD) recently asked as many as five Sainik Schools to admit girls from the next batch. This step comes after the success of the Defence Ministry's pilot project in Sainik School Chhingchhip, Mizoram where, six girl cadets were admitted into class VI in June 2018. This is the government's move towards gender equality.

"Raksha Mantri has approved the admission of girl children (limited to 10% of total authorised intake into class 6) with effect from academic session 2020-21." — stated the letter issued by the Sainik School Society, MoD. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had approved five Sainik Schools for these admissions, namely, Sainik Schools Bijapur, Chandrapur, Ghorakhal, Kalikiri and Kodagu. It was Uttar Pradesh Sainik School (UPSS), the first Sainik School of the country established in 1960, which admitted 15 girls cadets in class IX in April 2018. 

Students are addressed as cadets like the trainees of the pre-commission military academies. While the UPSS is the only Sainik School functioning under the State Government, the rest are run by MoD. 

MoD has issued clear instructions to the principals of the above-mentioned schools to take steps to carry out adequate publicity through newspapers, websites and other means. Monitoring the registration strength vis a vis the capacity of exam centres, recruitment of exclusive staff, provision of infrastructure required for girl children and taking adequate steps are the other instruction given to the principals. The registration process will be online from November 26 to December 6, 2019 (only for girl children). 

The Sainik Schools were developed as an alternative to public schools education aimed at nurturing boys from a cross-section of society to join the Armed Forces officers' academies. There are a total of 28 Sainik Schools with four more in the process of being raised.