BMC’s Poonam Nagar CBSE school receives max applications

MUMBAI: Municipal schools in Mumbai offering non-state board curricula have received twice as many applications as there are seats for the 2025-26 academic year

MUMBAI: Municipal schools in Mumbai offering non-state board curricula have received twice as many applications as there are seats for the 2025-26 academic year.

BMC’s Poonam Nagar CBSE school receives max applications

The civic body received 2,452 applications for the 1,200 seats up for enrolment in its 21 schools that offer the CBSE, ICSE and IB curricula. Of these, the Poonam Nagar school in Jogeshwari East has received 236 applications for its 68 seats – the highest for the 2025-26 academic year.

The Poonam Nagar school is also the first school run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to offer the CBSE curriculum, after national and international curricula were introduced in English-medium civic-run schools for the 2020-21 academic year.

The BMC, which has also rebranded its schools as ‘Mumbai Public Schools (MPS)’, opened admissions to its 21 MPS schools for the 2025-2026 academic year on January 1. The lowest response was seen at the Malwani Township CBSE school, which received 52 applications for 68 seats. The school also saw a lower response vis-à-vis other schools during the last academic year. The sole IB board school received 35 applications for 26 seats. With the lottery system in place, students will be selected for admission next month.

“Since the Poonam Nagar school is the first BMC school offering the CBSE curriculum, we have been receiving a higher number of applications for this school,” said an education officer from the BMC. “After receiving twice the number of applications compared to the number of seats, we have decided to stop accepting applications. After scrutiny, if seats remain vacant, we will take a decision,” he said.

On why the Malwani Township CBSE school has received such a tepid response, locals say that students enrolled here are unable to cope with the curriculum.