The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Thursday, October 17, 2002, Chandigarh, India

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS

50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

M A I L B A G

Education as commerce: the other side

APROPOS your editorial “Education as commerce” (Oct 9), the reason for the wild growth of private schools cannot be attributed to just the badly run government schools or even the so-called convent schools teaching English medium.

The single most important reason for the mushrooming of private schools is the total absence of any law regarding the opening of new schools. The way things stand, any Tom, Dick or Harry can put up a signboard proclaiming the commencement of his teaching shop. There’s nobody around to check his credentials or ascertain if he can even spell education correctly.

Your editorial mentions the CBSE, the state school boards and the parents exhorting them to unitedly stem the rot in the commercially oriented schools, but it has missed the ICSE, which is silently and resolutely working to bring about excellence in all spheres of school education.

The commercialisation of education has its genesis in the establishment of the CBSE. In the nineties there was a quantum jump in the demand for schools carrying the CBSE label. As a result, many semi-literate businessmen put up attractive buildings, hired pliable principals and teachers and got the show rolling.

The CBSE bosses introduced medical and engineering entrance tests after plus two. The result? There was a mad scramble for maths and science tuitions after Class X and teachers everywhere stopped teaching in classrooms and set up tuition shops in their homes. Recently, vigilance raids were carried out on some of these tuition-loving teachers, bringing a temporary lull in their money-spinning activity, but they seem to be back in business. Why? Because parents everywhere want their children to become doctors or engineers.

Regarding NCERT books, these are always in short supply. So what do the schools and the students do? Postpone examinations just because the NCERT is unable to publish enough urgently needed textbooks?

The “open loot” is the direct result of our flawed and lop-sided policies, loopholes in the law, or at times the absence of law. Also people line up to pay hefty donations for getting their wards admitted to so-called prestigious schools.

For obtaining an ICSE or CBSE affiliation, a school is required to procure a “no-objection certificate” from the state Department of Education, which should be actually given by the DEO concerned. But no, our power wielders in the state secretariats grant these NOCs to schools. Many schools are able to obtain an NOC within no time without fulfilling even the most mandatory requirements, while others fulfilling the same may not be granted an NOC for years.

Schools are just a small part of this vast stinking system we have created for ourselves. Singling out only private school managers and their principals for condemnation due to the presence of some black sheep amongst them amounts to doing a great injustice to those thousands of honest, sincere and devoted individuals trying to provide a sound and healthy educational foundation to our youth.

The cleaning-up act has to begin from the top and then only all institutions and organisations, all schools and school principals will fall in line.

A.K. LAWRENCE, Principal, Saint Paul’s High School, Bathinda

Getting cheated willingly: Mammon worship has replaced the missionary zeal in the field of education which has been totally commercialised, politicised and even vulgarised. Surprisingly, neither parents nor teachers and others in the academic hierarchy accept any responsibility for this. Fortunately, for educators there is no cost accounting in education - a commodity in regard to which the customer does not mind being cheated. Maybe because the customer has no sense of having to pay its full cost that is invisible.

ANIL BHATIA, Hisar

Greed unlimited

BEING in the book trade, I know that a school of 1,000 plus students can easily fetch Rs 2 lakh as commission for the Principal or the authority concerned.

The underpaid teachers rush through chapters, writing answers on the blackboard without making sure whether the students have understood the method of problem solving.

Schools charge money under the heads of irrelevant funds. The terms and conditions mentioned in the prospectus etc are totally one sided. The school authorities arrange parent-teacher meetings in such a way that the parents meet a single teacher in a classroom because one parent is easy to manage. If the school authorities have real guts, then let them sit on the stage and react to problems in an open hall. In certain cases the principals speak so rudely that one really wonders whether one is talking to a principal.

ASHUTOSH VERMANI, Chandigarh