Mumbai: Over 320 students and their parents are in a fix as the admission process for the first ever CBSE board BMC school at Poonam Nagar, Jogeshwari East has been stalled temporarily due to the lockdown amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
The academic year was scheduled to begin from April 1, 2020 but the process was shut down midway on March 21 due to the nationwide lockdown.
Over 2,154 applications were received for 320 seats in the first Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) school at Poonam Nagar. In mid-March, around 250 parents were undergoing counselling sessions and document verification at the school on a daily basis.
A teacher who manages admissions said: "We were talking to parents individually in order to understand children’s background, abilities, and capabilities of parents to support students in their studies.
Also, we were explaining the CBSE board curriculum to parents so that they are well aware in advance and do not face any difficulty later."
But due to the announcement of a nationwide lockdown by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the school was compelled to shut the ongoing admission process on March 21. Mahesh Palkar, BMC Education officer, said: "We immediately closed down all admission processes and stopped counselling sessions.
The entire nation is following a lockdown, so we have halted the process for now. We will resume the admission process once the lockdown is lifted so parents and students need not worry."
“The CBSE board curriculum is different than other boards so the academic year was set to begin in April”, said Nisar Khan, a BMC officer who manages admissions. Khan added: "We have the data of parents and students as the entire process was online. We were going to conduct a lottery round for allotment of seats from March 26 to 28.
But now, we will wait for the resumption. Similarly, around 343 applications have been received for 320 seats at the ICSE board Mumbai Public School (MPS) BMC school at Woollen Mill, Mahim. Both these schools are pilot projects of the BMC to venture and start CBSE and ICSE board curriculum in municipal schools for free for the first time.
