NGOs ‘replace’ kids in BMC schools………Anahita Mukherji
MUMBAI: It’s no secret that public education is in disarray. But here’s a look at just how grim the scene really is. For starters, 2,500 rooms in the 420-odd municipal school buildings in Mumbai have been rented out to NGOs. In some schools, the joke is that there are more NGOs than schoolkids. NGOs pay a pittance to rent rooms in civic schools. The situation has prompted the BMC to review its policy and the civic body may no longer allow new NGOs to rent rooms in BMC schools.
However, NGOs aren’t the only offenders. Private colleges, private schools, political party unions, art academies and yoga institutes have all made BMC schools their home. In fact, there’s a virtually unlimited array of activities that can be carried out from the premises of civic school buildings. Take for instance, the BMC school in the JJ Hospital compound, which houses both a private medical college as well as a teacher training college in addition to an assortment of NGOs. The school runs on the top floor of the building.
Then there’s the Gokhale Road municipal school, which houses both the MNS and Shiv Sena unions as well as scores of NGOs and training academies, including a yoga academy. The school sign board is practically dwarfed by a whole host of boards put up by various institutions running out of the premises. A civic school at Bombay Central even has a distance learning institute affiliated to Periyar University in Tamil Nadu, housed within it.
“NGOs, private institutions and political unions have throttled BMC schools in Mumbai. Why on earth is the BMC renting out rooms in civic schools instead of improving its own education system? There is a systematic attempt on the part of the BMC to destroy public education, as there is much more money to be made from private schools,” said Ramesh Joshi, who heads Brihanmumbai Mahapalika Shikshak Sabha, the largest BMC teachers’ union.
“BMC schools are now being looked at as prime property to be rented out at low rates. Organisations are known to use political pressure and influence to get rooms at rent in civic schools,” said Arundhati Chavan, principal of a BEd college.
There are a handful of NGOs who have opposed the BMC’s practice of renting out rooms. Shaheen Mistri, founder of Akanksha, and a member of the BMC committee looking into the BMC’s policy of renting rooms to NGOs, is against the practice.
“I feel that the municipal corporation should not renew their contract. Projections on the number of children who will attend school in the future show that all the classrooms will be necessary for the school. So many BMC schools don’t even have a staff room,” she added.
According to an IAS officer who was earlier working for the BMC, it’s preferable to rent rooms to NGOs in the field of social service rather than leave them vacant or have them exploited by commercial interests.