Lately, the entrants to the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force have declined and are already crippled by a shortage of around 14,000 young officers. There are many reasons for this like unattractive salaries, tough working environment, limited growth opportunities etc. Though the intake to the corps of officers has been on the wane, the UPSC and the SSB (Services Selection Board) have not compromised on their standards; they continue to pack the right material.

The make-up of the officer cadre of the Indian armed forces a decade after independence was disquieting for a Republic still writhing from the throes of its birth. It was a monopoly of the patrician, blue-blooded alumni of public schools. The infrastructure to nurture the essential levels of physical, mental and intellectual caliber for induction into the officer cadre was found wanting in common schools. Since public schools were beyond all but the affluent, in 1960, the then Defence Minister envisioned Sainik schools at least one in each state to select boys from across the spectrum through an open entrance examination and to rear them for leadership in the armed forces.

The Sainik Schools were modeled on public schools minus the elitism and snobbery. These schools would aim at all-round development to enhance competitive and survival skills, and to foster personality development subliminally. To ensure mainly smart boys from the economically backward bracket joined these schools, the states were mandated to provide merit-cum-means scholarships. The campus life would be free from communal and social bias, and insulated from the rumpus that bedevil student life outside.

Sainik Schools would thus serve as feeders to the National Defence Academy and the three service academies. The Indian Military Academy setup in 1932 is a testimony to the vision and quality of leadership during the freedom struggle. In the past two decades, the profile of those joining the officer cadre and the students entering the Sainik Schools has changed. Earlier, sons of officers followed in their father’s footsteps into the officer cadre. No more. Now boys from a lower pecking order are the ones joining the service academies, a sign of social mobility up the ladder.

In the Sainik Schools, initially boys from indigent and not-so-rich background made it, but gradually they were replaced by those from the better-off stratum in quest for sound education and with the rise in the fees, only the well-heeled could afford education in Sainik Schools and the poor man’s public schools, became unaffordable for the poor man.

The economic boom in the nineties opened several avenues, but since the parents were paying up the fees, their wards were not motivated enough to see the armed forces as their profession. Naturally, the officers from Sainik Schools dipped.  Sainik School needs to be rediscovered to bridge the shortfall. The National Cadet Corps needs to be made universal and mandatory for two or three years at the school level. NCC, besides doing the students a world of good, would inspire at least a few to join the services.