About 30,000 applications have been received for admission to 12,000 seats in 80 Jharkhand government-run Schools of Excellence so far, an official said on Thursday.

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on May 2 had inaugurated 80 government Schools of Excellence, as part of an academic reform to provide quality English-medium education at par with private schools to children going to government schools.

"Against the total number of 12,146 available seats for admissions to Schools of Excellence (SoEs) a whopping number of approximately 30,000 applications have been received across the state by the school management till May 17. The number of applications is 246 per cent higher than the total seats," an official said.

Maximum number of applications have been received from Deoghar at 3,247, Lohardaga at 2,254, Giridih at 1,708, Palamu at 2,322 and Ramgarh at 1,489.

In view of the demand of the parents, the deadline for submission of applications in Schools of Excellence (SoEs) has been extended till May 25. Earlier, the government had fixed the date for application from May 2 to May 15.

The selection test will be held on May 30 while the first merit list will be published on June 7 and admissions as per the merit list will start from Jun 12.

These 80 district-level Schools of Excellence are part of the government's aim to provide quality education opportunities to 15 lakh school children studying in government schools including plans to set up 325 block level schools and 4,091 gram panchayat level model schools across the state in the second phase.

Last month, at least 10 students of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) in Khunti district, a part of a government project to reduce gender disparities in rural areas and among disadvantaged communities, had qualified in the JEE (Mains).

Online training of Principals of 80 Schools of Excellence has been given by the National Center for School Leadership in two phases. The training of Principals of 80 Schools of Excellence has also been completed in two phases by the Azim Premji Foundation.

In January, training was imparted by IIMs for capacity building of principals. All students in these 80 Schools of Excellence will be imparted vocational training for 11 trades, the government had earlier announced.

These include Agriculture, IT, ITES, apparel and make-up and home furnishing, media and entertainment, automotive, tourism and hospitality, beauty and wellness, multi-skilling, electronics and hardware, retail and healthcare.