Earlier this year in Punjab’s Sangrur district, Government teachers, under the banner of the Democratic Teachers Front (DTF) protested, accusing the government of privatising government schools on one pretext or the other. While their primary demand was asking for the dues to be paid off, it also depicted the poor state of government schools. Most teachers are hired on a contractual basis and as a country, our bureaucracy is not exactly known for moving through the files quickly – red-tapism, the word that is often used for the lethargy of babus. But if the teachers are in such abysmal conditions, imagine the plight of students. The public school set up in India is in a need of dire changes, changes that can only be clocked if the private sector is involved.
Enrolment in government schools is falling sharply
According to a Business Standard report, that offers insights into India’s public-school education crisis, between 2010-11 and 2015-16, student enrolment in government schools across 20 Indian states fell by 13 million, while private schools acquired 17.5 million new students.
Between 2010-11 and 2015-16, the number of private schools grew 35%–from 0.22 million in 2010-11 to 0.30 million in 2015-16–while the number of government schools grew 1%, from 1.03 million to 1.04 million. In 2018, 55 per cent of fifth-grade children in public schools in India could not read a second-grade textbook
Moreover, according to another report, despite the Rs 1.16 lakh crore ($17.7 billion) spent on Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)– the national programme for universal elementary education– the quality of learning declined between 2009 and 2014.
NITI Aayog suggests Public-Private partnership
India’s top planning body, the NITI Aayog in its report titled, “Three-year action agenda” released in 2017, had recommended that Non-performing or “hollowed” government schools should be handed over to private players under the public-private partnership (PPP) model. Meaning, the think tank wanted the private sector to adopt government schools while being publicly funded on a per-child basis.
The think tank also noted, “the average number of students per school was 12.7 on which the average annual expenditure per child came at Rs 80,000. The total (annual) salary bill of teachers for these schools stood at Rs 9,440 crore in 2014-15.
Citing several reasons for its recommendations, NITI Aayog stated, “High rate of teacher absenteeism, limited time spent on teaching when the teacher is in class and generally poor quality of education are among important reasons for this emptying out. Outcomes are worse in government schools than in private schools”
“PPP models could also be explored where the private sector adopts government schools while being publicly funded on a per-child basis. This may provide a solution to the problems of schools that have hollowed and are incurring massive expenditures,” the Niti Aayog recommended.
PPP could help get rid of income disparity in education
The layman discussion while balancing the pros and cons of public and private schools more often than not hover around the pricey fee structures and the disparity between the two. However, if NITI Aayog’s recommendations are implemented, the middle path can be charted and the income problem that does not allow the poor, marginalized populace to enrol their children in private schools can be removed.
As for the benefits, it far outweighs the cons. The private sector has made remarkable infrastructure changes and replenished state of the art framework. They have introduced modern techniques of teaching, which helps children in better learning and increase their performance. Students have largely benefitted and prospered from the development of private schools.
Kejriwal’s lies about Delhi government schools
However, the likes of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal who usually thump their chest for having allegedly revolutionised the education sector in the national capital tend to create a false mirage and sell the rosy dreams of a world-class government school setup.
But like his several other hollow promises, the plight of government schools in Delhi is another classic case study of Kejriwal’s model of bogus development. A report released by the Public Policy Research Centre in 2019 titled ‘Politics of Performance vs Politics of Propaganda: A comparative analysis of education in Delhi government school vis a vis MCD schools & Kendriya Vidyalayas,’ revealed that the Kendriya Vidyalayas far outshone Delhi government schools on several parameters, be it in terms of students pass percentage or marks obtained in senior secondary classes.
The report also stated that it is blatantly false that the Delhi government schools students are different from KVs’. In fact, the same Delhi government schools achieved a 95.81 pass percentage in 2015. It is to the credit of the AAP government that it has devastated the outcomes and dragged to a pitiable 71.58 per cent in five years.
Modi government still queasy about NITI Aayog’s recommendations
The Modi government is still weighing its options when it comes to implementing the recommendations suggested by the NITI Aayog. Former Minister of Human Resource Development, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank in the Lok Sabha last year had remarked that the centre had no plan to privatise primary education. However, this is the same government that has kept ‘reforms’ at the centre of its policy, so there’s hope that sooner or later, the centre might come on board.
Last year, the government finally brought in the New Education Policy (NEP) that shifts focus from degrees to knowledge. After 70 years of independence from British rule, this is the first attempt made by any government to end the psychological slavery imposed on us with British education.
The Indian education system, developed under the British Raj and later continued by Congress, was aimed at creating non-questioning and hard-working executives who could assist the British officials to run the government in the country. With NEP, every student would get free education between 3-18 years and pre-schooling (3-6 years) is also compulsory.
However, to ensure the success of NEP with its flexible teaching structure, the mediums imparting the knowledge must be strengthened. The collective public-private partnership can effectively solve the problem. The naysayers looking to target the idea should answer only one question, would they be willing to send their wards to public schools in their current state? If the answer is no then it is obvious that we are long overdue for the changes.