TOI : Govt funds students shifting to pvt schools : Nov 13,2007
Govt funds students shifting to pvt schools
Hemali Chhapia | TNN
Mumbai: At a time when countries across the world are working to reform their public education system, the Maharashtra government has decided to pull out bright students from state-run schools and enrol them in private institutions at its own expense.
In the coming academic year, close to 800 meritorious students from Maharashtras government-run residential and zilla parishad schools will be pulled out and admitted to private English-medium institutions, many of them run by politicians.
The state will pay Rs 60,000 per year to a group of private schools for theboarding and lodging and educational expenses, including books and uniforms, for each child. This will amount to spending Rs 28 crore on 800 children from classes five to ten. The allocation will increase with each passing year as more children enjoy the benefits of the scheme, and most of it will go to trust-run schools backed by provincial leaders.
The government feels the scheme will provide students from the lower social strata a leg-up in institutions which have a higher success rate and boost their career prospects. A lot of these students are even good in sports and other extra-curricular activities. Our scheme will give them the much-needed push, said minister for tribal welfare Vijay Kumar Gavit.
However, educationist Heramb Kulkarni, whos based in Ahmednagar and is familiar with the functioning of the school system in the hinterland, terms the move a defeat of the public education system. The scheme is also seen as robbing staterun residential schools which have low pass percentages (30%-35%) of the necessary role models. Bright future for some, poor edu for others
Mumbai: Not all agree with the state governments decision to pull out toppers from state-run schools and admit them in private schools. Educationist Heram Kulkarni opined that the move could rob state-run schools of role models.
So, on the one hand, while the scheme could serve as a ticket to a brighter future for the chosen fewmost of whose families comprise marginal farmers and agricultural workersfor the rest, it would mean studying in an environment bereft of quality academic standards.
The residential school model has already failed because teachers are highly demotivated. Managements are not bothered about low attendance, said an educationist. In his view, a scheme such as this one would divert funds from a sector thats in dire need of improvement in quality.
As critics point out, a large chunk of the funds will go to institutions controlled by politicians in small towns. Of the 20 private schools where the students will be enrolled, many like the Pravara Public School in Ahmednagar, the Amrut Vahini Model School and the Vijay Nana Patil School in Jalgaon are run by trusts backed by legislators and ministers.
At present, four to five lakh students study in approximately 2,000 residential schools run by the tribal welfare and social welfare departments. Apart from these, the scheme will reach out to thousands of day schools run by zilla parishads. Gavit, the minister under whom the schools function, said he plans to reach out to a larger population of underprivileged students through the scheme in the coming years. We want to increase the number of students gradually. I want to take it to a thousand students in the academic year beginning 2009 and so on.
Incidentally, the scheme has been formulated following the launch of a pilot project this year
in which 100 students were pulled out of the public system and sent to private schools. These students, known as scholars, were selected on the basis of a test conducted in government-run schools after the fourth standard final exam. The brightest of the lot were shifted to private schools from Std five. While the Centre has agreed to bear the financial burden for the first year, the state will have to take care of their education for the next five years until Std ten.