PUNE, Oct 19: In order to tap the vast employment potential in marine services, the State education department will establish country's first full-fledged naval sainik school at Alibag.The department has prepared a blue print of the entire project and a committee under the chairmanship of education director R G Patil and having former chief of naval staff Admiral L Ramdas as its member, is finalising the naval course curriculum for the school.The school, besides following the conventional military training pattern as in the other sainik schools, will exclusively cater to the sophisticated naval education.The naval school in Alibag will also be the first co-education sainik school in the country. ``Girls are at par with the boys and time has come to bring in equality in terms of imparting military training to the students,'' said Patil.The State is also seeking assistance from the Ministry of Defence for deputing a serving lieutenant colonel or officer holding similar post in other two services totake over as the commandant of the school.The project of the fully residential naval school has been cleared by the State Government under its ambitious plan to establish sainik schools in every district of the State.A prime plot of land admeasuring over 40 acres near the Alibag sea-shore has been sanctioned by the government for the school which will be run by the management of Maratha Mandir educational society from Thane.The work on the multimillion rupees worth project is in progress and the school will become functional from June in the next academic year. Initially, class five will be started and subsequently higher classes will be added each year.The intake capacity of each division has been fixed at 40 pupil. Two teachers, as against 1.5 teacher per division rule of the department, will be provided per division as an exceptional case.The state talent search exam for the class four students is the eligibility criterion for admission in the school.``The prime aim of the sainikschools is to prepare the students for a career in the armed forces. However, sometimes the students fail to make it to the armed forces and taking this into consideration it was decided to have an exclusive naval school in the State, which would also open up avenues for students in other marine services like merchant navy,'' Patil said.The admission process and recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff will be done by a committee comprising chief of district soldier board, deputy education director of the region and two representatives of the school management. While the school will be run by the Maratha Mandir, the State Government has provided land, teaching and non-teaching staff and the non-salary grant to the school.Greater emphasis will be given on the adequate naval training to the school pupil. Although for the intial classes the curriculum will be general as in other sainik school, more technical subjects will be added in higher standards, said Patil.
