63% parents unhappy with BMC schools

In a household survey conducted by Hansa Research commissioned by Praja Foundation in 2014 March-April across the city with a total sample size of 22,580 households, 4,276 households had children going to school.

Among this, 63% of parents were not happy with BMC school as the quality of education is poor; 44% said teachers were not good, and 36% said infrastructure facilities were poor; 33% said facilities provided to students were not good and 29% said students here had very little scope in the future.

Quality of education, teachers and infrastructure are thus the three big reasons cited by parents for not being happy with municipal schools.

Though SSC results in BMC schools have improved and the teachers' inspection form shows good evaluation report, parents claim that the quality of the education is not satisfactory.

Praja has a few suggestions for BMC—empower and strengthen school management committees (SMCs) to improve accountability at school level; focus on teacher trainings, SMC trainings and capacity building; free teachers from unnecessary administrative duties; be strict in filling out of comprehensive evaluation (CCE) and inspection reports; link reports with performance appraisal of teachers; strengthen data management systems, etc.

Number of BMC schools in city: 1,266
Number of students in BMC schools: 404,251.