Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 12

Five schools in the state have been identified for establishing Cadet Training Wings (CTWs) that will train and prepare students to become commissioned officers in the armed forces.

Under the programme, envisioned to increase the contribution of the state to the armed forces’ officer cadre, the schools will be responsible for academics up to the Class XII level, while special instructors under the supervision of the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Armed Forces Preparatory Institute (AFPI) at Mohali will conduct structured leadership and personality development capsules at the schools for potential students.

Expenses for running the capsules, which will mirror the training at AFPI, will be borne by the government.

The shortlisted schools are the Yadavindra Public School (YPS), Patiala, Punjab Public School, Nabha, Army Public School, Beas, Doon International School and YPS, both in Mohali. A dozen schools had applied for the programme.

Three training nodes to coordinate the activities are being set up.

“Keeping in view the administrative limitations, only five schools will be covered under the programme in the first phase. More schools will be brought on board gradually,” said AFPI Director, Maj Gen BS Grewal.

“While final approval and release of funds from the government is awaited, we have begun preliminary work and interaction with the schools is underway,” he added.

The AFPI was set up in April 2011 to arrest the declining trend of the youth from the state joining the armed forces as officers.

Prior to this, Punjab was sending only six to eight boys to the National Defence Academy per batch, but now this number has doubled. In June this year, 17 out of the 29 cadets from the sate who passed out of the Indian Military Academy were from AFPI.

Over 110 AFPI cadets have been successful in joining various service academies and the tally for 2018 will be 26.

The state government had initially wanted to set up three more institutes on the pattern of the AFPI, where all boarding lodging and training expenses for the two-year fully residential programme are borne by the state. However, financial constraints warranted a re-think and the government went in for the CTWs instead where existing infrastructure of the schools would be used.

Leadership and personality development 

• The shortlisted schools are Yadavindra Public School (YPS), Patiala; Punjab Public School, Nabha; Army Public School, Beas; Doon International School and YPS, both in Mohali.
• The schools will be responsible for academics up to the Class XII level.
• Special instructors under the supervision of the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Armed Forces Preparatory Institute (AFPI) at Mohali will conduct structured leadership and personality development capsules at the schools for potential students.