First steps for career in services

At present, basic military training is imparted to students enrolled in the Rashtriya Indian Military College (RIMC) at Dehradun, five Rashtriya Military Schools (RMS) at Chail, Ajmer, Bangalore, Belgaum and Dholpur and 24 Sainik Schools located in various parts of the country.

These act as feeder institutions to the National Defence Academy (NDA). The curriculums of these institutions are specifically designed to train the boys academically, mentally and physically for entry to NDA.

In addition, there are several thousand schools, colleges and professional institutes that subscribe to NCC training for volunteering students.

Set up in 1922, RIMC is a public school that takes in boys after a national-level entrance exam for classes 8-12. It has a strength of about 250 students. RMSs were established from 1925 as King George's Royal Indian Military Schools to take care of the education of the sons of defence personnel.

In 1952, the schools were reorganised on public school lines and admissions were made open to the sons of defence service officers and civilians.

The Sainik Schools, which admit boys in class VI and IX, were conceived in 1961 by VK Krishna Menon, the then Defence Minister, to rectify the regional and class imbalance amongst the officer cadre of the Indian military, and to prepare students for entry into the NDA.

An analysis done by Parliament’s Standing Committee on Defence revealed that on an average, 76 per cent of RIMC students join NDA whereas the percentage of Sainik Schools and RMS students was 20 and 18, respectively. According to reports, students from Sainik Schools comprise about 25-30 per cent of the NDA course strength.