Page 110 - Education World Dec 2021

Cover Story EW BUDGET PRIVATE SCHOOLS RANKINGS 2021 22

INDIA’S TOP-RANKED BUDGET PRIVATE SCHOOLS

Contrary to public opinion the number of budget private starting with the Kothari Commission
schools — an entrepreneurial response to 1.20 million (1967) recommending that annual
government (Centre plus states) ex-
state government schools defined by rock-bottom learning penditure on public education should
outcomes — is not small. 400,000 BPS countrywide have a aggregate at least 6 percent of GDP,
staggering enrolment of 60 million children it has averaged 3-3.5 percent for 74
years. The outcome of this (some say
calculated) neglect is that 21st century
India hosts an estimated 300 million
adult illiterates, and over 50 percent
of class V children in the majority of
1.2 million government schools can-
not read and/or comprehend class
II textbooks and solve simple math
sums.
It’s against this backdrop that one
should assess the contribution of BPS
to Indian education. They offer low-
priced primary-secondary English-
medium education to millions of chil-
dren from low-income households,
providing them a chance to break
the illiteracy-poverty cycle to which
bottom-of-pyramid citizens are sen-
tenced by the establishment and left
liberals who dominate the academy.
The establishment loves to hate
BPS. According to them, BPS exploit
St. Mary’s High, Mumbai’s Bharat & Neelam Malik: new technologies hybrid model the gullible poor by promising supe-
rior English-medium education which
n the hearts and minds of the edi- Society, a Delhi-based think tank, an they seldom deliver. Therefore, s.19
tors of EducationWorld, promoted estimated 400,000 BPS levying tu- of the milestone Right of Children to
I22 years ago on the eve of the new ition fees ranging between Rs.6,000- Free & Compulsory Education (RTE)
millennium with the mission state- 50,000 per year are operational Act, 2009, mandates that BPS which
ment to “build the pressure of public countrywide, and have a staggering don’t fulfil several infrastructure
opinion to make education the #1 item enrolment of 60 million children, a norms should be levied heavy fines,
on the national agenda,” i.e, to accord number almost equivalent to entire failing which they should be forced to
top priority to human capital develop- populations of Britain and France. close. However, government schools
ment, India’s unique Budget Private BPS provide an alternative mainly pri- are exempt from fulfilling s.19 norms.
Schools (BPS) have a special place. mary and often secondary, schooling Moreover, during the forced gov-
Contrary to myths manufactured option to aspirational lower middle ernment mandated 16-18 months’
by communists and leftists who dom- and working class households desper- lockdown of all education institutions
inate the academy and media, the ate to provide their children accept- countrywide because of the Covid-19
number of BPS — an entrepreneurial ably good English-medium education, pandemic, the Central and state gov-
response to the country’s 1.20 million a pre-condition of socio-economic up- ernments declined to accord BPS the
state government schools defined ward mobility in the low-opportunities status of MSMEs (micro small and
by crumbling buildings, multi-grade society shaped by post-independence medium enterprises), which would
classrooms, chronic teacher truancy, India’s neta-babu brotherhood that have qualified them for concessional
lack of toilets, English (Inglish) lan- accords low priority to mass educa- bank loans. On the contrary, most
guage aversion and rock-bottom tion and human capital development. state governments issued notifica-
learning outcomes — is not small. For instance, despite several high- tions and circulars advising parents
According to the Centre for Civil powered commissions and committees not to pay contracted tuition and

110 EDUCATIONWORLD DECEMBER 2021