Schooling in Covid times teaches Punjab a lesson
Private schools have done a service to government schools. They taught government school officials the value of competition. They have been acting as job creators
The Covid-19 pandemic has come as a kiss of life for government schools of Punjab. More than 2.1 lakh new students were enrolled in these schools till the second week of June. An estimated 70,000 new admissions were made in pre-primary sections. The rest are students who shifted from private schools.
Government Senior Secondary School (Multipurpose), Ludhiana, for instance, achieved a rare feat. For years, it was teaching only 1,700 students. The school was closed due to the lockdown and summer vacation but 905 new students enrolled themselves in it. The principal demanded 15 more teachers to deal with the increased workload.
It seems hundreds of students in Punjab were waiting for corona to happen before they could shift from so-called teaching shops to temples of learning. A deputy district education officer also underwent a change of heart and enrolled his son in a government school.
SLEEPING BEAUTY AND THE PRINCE
The situation reminds us of the fairytale of sleeping beauty. Sleeping beauty was under a curse to sleep for 100 years until a prince kisses and wakes her up. The prince, in this case, is the virus. The government and school education department of Punjab have acted as the good fairy. Earlier, education department officials cared two hoots for rules to increase enrolment in government schools.
It happened during the lockdown. Schools, government and private, were ordered to be closed. Government schools don’t charge more than a nominal fee, so they did not. Private schools were prohibited from demanding any fee from parents and show-cause notices were issued if some schools sent a reminder for dues. Private unaided self-financed schools were also asked by the government to pay salaries to their staff.
An FIR was registered against private schools found open. On the other hand, government school staff was asked to go door to door for enrolment. Many a child was waiting to get enrolled in a government school and leave the private school that was fleecing the parents. It was not difficult to know.
SHARING DATA OF CHILDREN
The education department prepared separate lists of children studying in private affiliated and associated schools. These lists were based on the data uploaded by these schools at e-Punjab portal, a compulsory exercise for all schools.
These lists showing the name of private school, name of child, name of class and mobile phone of the child/parents were provided to the staff of government schools by district education officers. Justifying it as a necessary step in times of competition, they saw nothing wrong in the act, which was termed as breach of children’s privacy by management bodies of private schools.
In fact, the Punjab education department, the custodian of password protected data of e-Punjab portal, was sharing data of children, as young as pre-nursery, with WhatsApp groups of government school teachers. There are 1,01,439 government school teachers and a large number of them have been given verbal orders to go and get the students. Students were asked to walk in and there was no need for a school-leaving certificate at the time of admission.
In this process, private schools found that more than one lakh students vanished from their books submitted to e-Punjab.
It may be true about a microscopic minority, but all unaided private schools, affiliated and associated, are not fleecing parents. A large majority can be termed low fee private schools or budget private schools.
TURNING JOB CREATORS
Government schools in Punjab came to their senses only after they found their credibility low as compared to private schools. In a way, private schools have done a service to government schools. They taught government school officials the value of competition. They have been acting as job creators.
A greater number of people earn their living working with low fee private schools. They provide good quality elementary education to rural and small town children. They pay their bills. They are not a burden on public money. In such a case, government schools should aspire to make progress but not with a heavy boot on the chest of low-fee private schools. All schools, existing outside the public sector, are not teaching shops.
amanpreetdu@gmail.com
The writer is convener, courses committee on social sciences, CBSE. Views expressed are personal