Onkar Singh / New Delhi

Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar today approved an increase of 5,000 seats at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas across the country.

The admission to the additional seats will start in the 2019-20 academic session.

In a statement, the HRD Ministry said, now the number of seats has increased from 46 thousand 600 to 51 thousand at the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas.

It said, in the last four years there has been an addition of nine thousand seats in the residential schools.

Mr Javadekar said this is the biggest-ever expansion of quality education for rural students and a step in the right direction. He said, this expansion will provide more opportunity for talented children from rural areas to get a quality education.

Navodaya is the only education system in the country where students give entrance examination for admission into Class six.