Admissions Application In Gujarat Hits Decade's Lowest in 2 Years, Blaming Covid and New Rules

Applications for school admission for secondary and higher secondary private schools hit a decade’s lowest in the last 2 years in Gujarat because of the COVID pandemic and revised rules.

All over Gujarat, families are still struggling with their financial burdens after the pandemic, and the preference for government schools has risen.

The President of Self-Financed School Management Foundation, Bharat Gajipara, also put light on this situation and said, “The new school applications are few in the past two years as the condition of parents affected by the COVID-19 pandemic is still not stable. Hence, they prefer government schools over private ones—a trend more evident in the urban areas.”

“No scope for non-sustainable smaller private schools” He commented on Newly revised rules from 2019 for new schools.

According to A J Shah, chairman of the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSHSEB), “Children are now going to government and grant-in-aid schools more than private schools, which can be attributed to the drop in numbers.” It is now the survival of the fittest following the revised rules for new private school applications in 2019,”

As per the Education Department, they revised the rules in September 2019, saying exercised playgrounds for constructing new schools after an immense decline in approval for new schools. In the meantime, the minimum playground size also changed from 1,200 square meters to 800 sq. m. in urban areas, and for rural areas, it changed from 2,000 sq. m. to 1,500 sq. m.

Gajipara, who federation of 9,000 private schools all over Gujarat, commented on how these revised rules affected the people, in his statement, he said “Though these have not affected the bigger and reputed schools set up in the good areas which in any case are less in numbers, the smaller ones in the middle and low economic areas that were largely opening till the pandemic has now stopped.”

There are also other things mentioned about building new schools, such as not having any pending court cases on the land. They require a minimum of 2 lakh rupees in bank balance if the school is situated in rural areas, and for urban areas, this amount is 3 lakhs. School buildings shouldn’t be near any shopping centers or adjoining shopping centers, and schools are required to have CCTV cameras.

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