Mangaluru: After vacations, schools across the district will open today and tomorrow there will be many a function to welcome students for the new academic year.

The new academic year starts on a good note when the drop-out student number in the district has come down to 40, which is said to be the lowest in the State. As many as 3.19 lakh students will return to the classes.

Private schools will begin on May 28th while the government schools will start from May 29th. The beginning of the academic year has been considered to be a mechanical process and the head master, teachers, SDMC and parents have been expected to welcome the children as guests. The schools must be made attractive with decoration. On the day of reopening, the school teachers must come early and prepare for the day, directs the district education department.

Text books are freely provided at government and aided schools, but the students need to buy the text books in private schools. The government has already distributed text books up to 75% and the department has decided to distribute the books to the students on the day of reopening. The remaining books will be distributed by the end of May 31st.

Last year, about 75% of the text books were distributed on the day of reopening and the remaining books were distributed in the month of June.

The entry process for LKG, UKG and first standard at private institutions has already been completed. For government schools, the entry process for 1st standard begins from June 1st.

The school uniform for the students at government schools is provided by the government and it is usually handed over to the students during the school reopening day. But this time, the uniforms have not yet been distributed to the government schools.

The education department has already distributed the uniforms to 20 districts and theuniforms will be distributed to Mysuru and Bengaluru division from June 1st.

Private schools decide on a predesigned uniform and provide it to the students. In some other schools, the parents of the students have to procure material and get the uniforms stitched as per the direction of the school.

The parents have also got to bear the expense of clothes, school bag, tiffin carrier, water bottle, shore, umbrella, rain coat, sandals and others.