Time to take teaching to a new level, government should decide
Unaided schools across the nation are piling on the pressure. As part of their pan-India move, the All Goa Government-Recognized Unaided Schools Association (AGGRUSA) has planned a peaceful march on April 7 to voice their issues. At the centre of the protest is a call for autonomy, non-payment of fees of government-sponsored economically backward students, demand for recognition of private schools on learning outcomes rather than infrastructure and to provide a level-playing field and open up the sector as ‘for-profit’.
First up is that several State governments have failed to pay the fees of the economically backward students admitted to private schools under the quota system of RTE. Against this the private schools have requested the government to hand over a voucher of the like amount to the students so that they can get themselves admitted to a school of their choice, rather than schools waiting endlessly to receive payment from governments.
Private schools have taken teaching to a different level as compared to the age-old government schools. Parents too consider private schools for their holistic education and overall development of the child. It is these schools which have adapted quickly to changing times and technologies. The success of private schools is reflected in the numbers. Not only the students opting for private schools have gone up, but the number of such schools, over the years has shot up drastically. In Maharashtra alone, the number of private schools has doubled in the past four years, while many government-run and private-aided schools closed down during this period.
On the flip side, the private schooling comes at a huge price, i.e fees. In Goa, several schools have been using indirect means of extracting such fees which may not necessarily be shown as tuition fees. Some even give a separate receipt as donation which again runs into lakhs of rupees. In far-away Telangana private schools have been charging tuition fees as high as Rs 5.42 lakh and one-time admission fees of Rs 1 lakh. These fees are however approved by the government on submission of audited accounts. Secondly, there have been several lowly paid untrained teachers which make their way into the private school system and there are no checks and balances from the government on this count.
Private schools may be considered unlucky if we are to consider the liberties given to those running tuition classes. Coaching institutes which prepare students for competitive exams are allowed to charge exorbitant fees with virtually no government control. Call it commercialization of education or not, private schools have delivered results where government schools have failed miserably. It’s time government decides on either giving greater autonomy to private schools or taking its own schools to a new high.
