No patchwork works
If it is really about educating our children, the entire scheme of things needs a serious review. The statement might seem grandiose and sweeping, but that is how it is. The decision to merge government schools that have extremely low enrolment is a good occasion to open up a meaningful dialogue on school education at a systemic level. The patchwork, or snap responses, may bring some optics, associated with some hope, but experience tells us that it all finally doesn’t yield any significant results. Unfortunately our directorate, our ministry and al other institutions related to education think in terms of controlling things. Education seems to be long shuffled out of frame. Even our policy documents, like NEP, are not followed in their spirit. The concerned departments might hold functions to popularise new frameworks, but no substantial work is done to align it with ground condition. Our school education has suffered particularly for such reasons. The department is too spread out, with thousands working in it, and all energies are consumed in things like transfers, postings and attachments; occasional merger of schools too.
Take this case of government schools with extremely low enrolments, actually a single digit enrolment. Now can we turn around and ask a simple question to the concerned authorities. What is the expenditure on a single child in such a school? Many thousands, if not over a lac of rupees. Now if there is a private school in the vicinity of such a government school and it charges a modest fee, say around 2 thousand, the same system will fling into action on a very insignificant complaint against such a school. And what is more painful, there are cheerleaders in our society! It is here that one can taste systemic toxicity in its worst form.
One would only suggest to the Education Minister and the officials of the concerned departments to sit down with other stakeholders, those who are running good schools at modest charges, and enter into a broad understanding with such schools to create a better ecosystem for education. A kind of a Public-Private Partnership where both benefit to the advantage of our children. Isn’t it better to close down government schools that have extremely low enrolment and support a good private school in the vicinity to take those students free of cost. The government will save much in terms of resource, and children will get better education.
But for this to happen, toxic division of schools into Government and Private has to be rethought. And yes, keep all such things away from ‘Facebookers’.
