Activists say more money doesn’t result in better schools, ask BMC to impart better education instead
First the good news: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is allocating more money to education. And now the bad: A major chunk of this enhanced budget goes into infrastructure and not actual educational facilities.
As per the Praja Foundation's report on school education, the BMC's budgetary provision for education has increased by 36 per cent in the last five years. But despite this, the number of students has shown no increase, while 94 per cent of respondents said they want to shift to private schools.
"In the last five years, the education department's budget went from Rs 1,540 crores in 2013-14 to Rs 2,094 crores in 2017-18. But most of the money is spent on fancy projects rather than improving education," said Milind Mhaske, director, Praja Foundation.
In its current budget, education takes up Rs 2,569 crore. The BMC proposed 35 new schools affiliated to the CBSE and other boards like IB, IGCSE, ICSE, etc. under a public-private partnership system. For the setting up of 24 new civic-run schools, the BMC even set aside Rs 25 crore. Besides, there is also a Rs 90 crore provision for providing school bags, uniforms, shoes, tiffin boxes, umbrellas, free bus passes, etc. Despite all this, however, students' figures reduced by 23 per cent in the last five years.
"Student numbers are on the way down for the last few years, but it's due to a general tendency people have about enrolling their children in English medium schools. To counter this, we started initiatives like Mumbai Public School and student numbers are increasing in these schools," said Mangesh Satamkar, chairman of the BMC's education committee. "Besides, we also provided counselling facilities, tablets for classes VIII to X, training from the British Council for teachers, etc."
Shivnath Darade, former member of the education committee, said, "The Mumbai public school or semi-privatisation school schemes are good, but the BMC has to check on these NGOs because in some cases, it was found that the teachers were not as per RTE criteria or the institutes showed false numbers of students."
STUDENTS DROPPING OUT
8,98,953 Total number of students (As of 2017-18)
48% Of Marathi medium schools shut in last 10 years
39.7% Of Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada medium schools shut in last 10 years
229 Schools shut in the last 10 years
426 Schools with fewer than 100 students (35 per cent of all BMC schools)
WHERE IS THE MONEY
BMC allocated Rs 2,569 crore for school education. It proposed 35 new schools under a PPP system. Rs 2.5 crore was set aside for installation for sanitary napkin vending machines and sanitary incinerators in 159 civic-run schools. The civic body also proposed CCTV cameras in 381 BMC schools, while also proposed Rs 2.38 crore for providing protein-rich snacks and mid-day meals to students.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
 "BMC school")
)
"Student numbers are on the way down for the last few years, but it's due to a general tendency people have about enrolling their children in English medium schools. To counter this, we started initiatives like Mumbai Public School and student numbers are increasing in these schools," said Mangesh Satamkar, chairman of the BMC's education committee. "Besides, we also provided counselling facilities, tablets for classes VIII to X, training from the British Council for teachers, etc."
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}