The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is set to open an Army school in Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh to train children to become officers in the armed forces, The Economic Times has reported.
According to the report, the school will be named as Rajju Bhaiya Sainik Vidya Mandir after the former chief of RSS, Rajendra Singh. It will be run by organization’s education wing, Vidya Bharti.
It will be a residential school for boys, and will follow the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) syllabus. It will have students from Class 6 to Class 12. Its first session will begin from April, 2020 with the first batch of 160 students in Class 6.
The opening of the school in Shikarpur, the birthplace of Singh, is an “experiment” that the organization is doing for the first time in the country, Ajay Goyal, regional convener of West UP and Uttarakhand for the Vidya Bharti Uchha Shiksha Sansthan told the publication. It can be replicated to other places in future, he said.
The organization is preparing the prospectus for the first batch of students and the applications will be invited from next month, said Goyal. In the first of 160 students, 56 seats will be allotted to the children of martyrs under a reservation scheme, he added.
The move has been criticised by former UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. As per a Hindustan Times report, the Samajwadi Party (SP) chief questioned the need of opening this school, when the state already has Army schools.
He said the project will entail an expenditure of Rs 40 crore. “What is the point of setting up a private Army school different from the national line?” he said.
Akhilesh further blamed the RSS for following divisive ideology and said the students in its school will “learn about mob lynching, anti-social activity and hatred because the RSS is opening this school to fulfil its agenda".
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