Page 42 - EW July 2021 final

Cover Story

expenditure (Centre plus states) for Total duration of school closures due to
public education has never exceeded
4 percent of GDP and has averaged Covid-19 pandemic (weeks)
3.5 percent against the global average
of 5 percent and 7-10 percent spent in
developed OECD countries.
Thus almost 500,000 private
schools have mushroomed across the FRANCE 12
country to educate the progeny of the RUSSIA 13
dominant middle class which shuns
dysfunctional government schools SPAIN 15
defined by crumbling buildings, lack
of toilets, chronic teacher absentee- CHINA 27
ism, English language aversion and GERMANY 34
abysmal learning outcomes, like the
plague. And instead of making efforts ITALY 37
to raise teaching-learning standards in 47
the country’s 1.2 million government PAKISTAN
schools to private schools standards, BANGLADESH 50
the prime objective of education offi-
cials in Delhi and state capitals seems BRAZIL 53
to be to pull private schools — many USA 56
of them globally-benchmarked and
respected — down to government INDIA 56
schools level. Dozens of laws have
been passed to regulate the fees, ad- MYANMAR 57
mission processes, syllabuses, cur- Source: UNESCO (2021)
riculums and administration of pri-
vate schools. Ditto in private colleges,
universities and institutes which host ing graduates by the thousands are Minister: Indian Education Needs
70 percent of students in higher edu- obliged to run full-fledged colleges to Pandemic Package (EW, October
cation. provide additional education to make 2020) advancing a compelling case
T of underfunding public of developing human capital, official — directly couriered to the PMO and
for private schools — especially BPS
them workplace ready.
HE OUTCOME OF decades
Yet despite the critical importance
the Union education minister.
education and unwar-
Unsurprisingly, the Delhi-based
ranted government inter- initiatives to measure and repair the NISA (National Independent Schools
additional damage caused to the al-
ference with private schools has been ready frail Indian education system by Alliance) which has a membership
disastrous. As has been painstakingly the Coronavirus, have been desultory of 55,000 BPS countrywide, believes
recorded year after year by the An- and half-hearted. On the contrary, the that education minister Dr. Ramesh
nual Status of Education Report of neta-babu brotherhood in the Union Pokhriyal and ministry officials are
the globally respected Mumbai/Delhi- education ministry at the Centre and deliberately blocking all attempts to
based Pratham Education Foundation the states have taken advantage of the award MSME status to BPS to force
(estb.1994), over 50 percent of class Covid disruption to attempt to drive many of them into bankruptcy so
VII students in rural primaries can’t private schools out of business. their students will have no option but
read and comprehend class III texts Desperate appeals of BPS promot- to rejoin government schools from
or solve simple multiplication and ers and managements for grant of which they fled in the pre-pandemic
division sums. Moreover, several au- MSME (micro, small and medium era. Shockingly, instead of supporting
thoritative studies indicate that 80-85 enterprises) status to qualify them and enabling the country’s 50,000 re-
percent of arts, science and commerce for debt moratoria and concessional puted private schools — several hun-
graduates and over 70 percent of en- credit from public sector banks to tide dred of them globally benchmarked
gineering graduates are not ready for them over the pandemic crisis, have and respected — the education estab-
employment in Indian and foreign fallen on deaf ears in governments at lishment seems quite willing to drive
multinational companies. Most In- the Centre and states. Ditto a detailed them also into bankruptcy.
dian IT corporates that hire engineer- sui generis cover story titled Prime Therefore, despite the landmark

42 EDUCATIONWORLD JULY 2021