It was a summer morning in 2030 and a kid picked up a newspaper ..He quickly asked me what were (erstwhile) Inner city /Municipal schools? When did they exist and Why did they vanish?
For a moment let's get back to current day in 2014. Where our public schools are very much present but do they really exist for the common 'middle' class? Does any one care to read or know about them expect the people looking to exploit them for private gain?
Is Public Private Partnership in Education the death knell for the Government Schools in the country?
Almost 2500 classrooms in municipal schools in Mumbai,India have bee given away to various NGOs/Trusts Under the School Adoption/School Support Programme. Almost 650 classrooms for non educational purposes, and quite a few are using it for Education but are being commercially exploited.
Despite notices given to almost 650 NGOs asking them to vacate the classrooms, the department has been able to recover only 16/18 classrooms as on date after a period of almost 6/7 months.
CACR members have observed many classrooms/schools being exploited commercially too, a case of Varun International School functioning within a municipal school and not only depriving the children of all facilities and amenities like free uniforms, school books, notebooks, etc. but also asking the parents to pay fees of Rs.5000/Rs.10,000 and even punishing the children in classrooms when they fail to pay within a stipulated time.
Moreover this NGO not only exploits and uses more number of classrooms than specified in the agreement, but also is able to issue School Leaving Certificates to children from the BMC, despite functioning as a private school, paying a miserly rent of Rs.1000 to the corporation....Recently this matter was bought to light by the print media here.
There are also some more instances of MS-CIT courses being provided within a municipal school, charging fees of Rs.3150/child and enrolling hundreds of children for this course, with no facility for the municipal school children....schools converted to Junior Colleges, private schools, etc. large scale commercial exploitation.
In a way, if the Government seriously decides to implement the 25% reservation clause for EWS in private and aided schools, which it has not done in the last 3 years of the RTE Act, there will be further reduction in enrollments in municipal schools, since parents prefer to send children to private schools and English medium schools, etc. So indeed our future generations will read in newspapers that the Municipal schools existed somewhere in the past and are a extinct phenomenon now.
CACR is facing a herculean task of ensuring retention of children in municipal schools despite the huge amount of tax payer money budgeted for primary education.
Absolutely shocking state of affairs in such an important issue like basic primary education, in the country.
But then does the 'common middle class' care enough to do something about it?
Do join us to build a PUBLIC VOICE to save the vanishing structures called Municipal public schools
Nitin_CACR
For a moment let's get back to current day in 2014. Where our public schools are very much present but do they really exist for the common 'middle' class? Does any one care to read or know about them expect the people looking to exploit them for private gain?
Is Public Private Partnership in Education the death knell for the Government Schools in the country?
Almost 2500 classrooms in municipal schools in Mumbai,India have bee given away to various NGOs/Trusts Under the School Adoption/School Support Programme. Almost 650 classrooms for non educational purposes, and quite a few are using it for Education but are being commercially exploited.
Despite notices given to almost 650 NGOs asking them to vacate the classrooms, the department has been able to recover only 16/18 classrooms as on date after a period of almost 6/7 months.
Moreover this NGO not only exploits and uses more number of classrooms than specified in the agreement, but also is able to issue School Leaving Certificates to children from the BMC, despite functioning as a private school, paying a miserly rent of Rs.1000 to the corporation....Recently this matter was bought to light by the print media here.
There are also some more instances of MS-CIT courses being provided within a municipal school, charging fees of Rs.3150/child and enrolling hundreds of children for this course, with no facility for the municipal school children....schools converted to Junior Colleges, private schools, etc. large scale commercial exploitation.
In a way, if the Government seriously decides to implement the 25% reservation clause for EWS in private and aided schools, which it has not done in the last 3 years of the RTE Act, there will be further reduction in enrollments in municipal schools, since parents prefer to send children to private schools and English medium schools, etc. So indeed our future generations will read in newspapers that the Municipal schools existed somewhere in the past and are a extinct phenomenon now.
2030: PUBLIC SCHOOLS Now extinct
CACR is facing a herculean task of ensuring retention of children in municipal schools despite the huge amount of tax payer money budgeted for primary education.
Absolutely shocking state of affairs in such an important issue like basic primary education, in the country.
But then does the 'common middle class' care enough to do something about it?
Do join us to build a PUBLIC VOICE to save the vanishing structures called Municipal public schools
Nitin_CACR
