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Only 17% families go for BMC schools

Praja survey says poor quality of education in 1,295 civic schools makes parents turn their nose up and opt for private institutes.

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Parents send their children to municipal schools because they cannot afford private institutions.
Reflecting the poor quality of education in schools run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), a survey found that over 83% households in Mumbai have opted for private schools instead of municipal ones.

There are 1,295 BMC schools in the city.

Conducted in March-April 2013 by Praja Foundation, a non-partisan voluntary organisation, the study surveyed 6,038 households which had school-going children.

According to the findings, 78% household from SEC C and 68% SEC E send their children to private schools.

Socio Economic Classification (SEC) is the classification of households into groups on the basis of education and occupation of the chief wage earner with ‘A’ being the uppermost and ‘E’ being the lowermost of the affluence hierarchy.

“These are sections of society which the municipal schools are meant to cater to. But last year, we found out that 89% of the households sending their children to municipal schools said they were doing so only because they could not afford private schools and would change if given a choice,” said Milind Mhaske, Praja Foundation.

The survey also found out that 86% of the respondents whose children’s current medium of instruction is an Indian language would prefer to go to English medium schools.

Education experts said that the changing aspirations and perceptions are the main factors for the shift. “People’s aspirations change and they want their children to learn English,” said Farida Lambe, founder-trustee, Pratham.  

Another indication of the poor quality of education in municipal schools is the high number of students taking tuition from outside.

The percentage of respondents sending their children to municipal schools and enrolling them in private tuition or coaching classes is 51%.

Ramesh Joshi, president of BMC teachers’ association, said the number of students going to tuition does not reflect the school’s poor quality of teaching.

“Students go to tuition because of the vicious propaganda and peer pressure,” he said.

Of these 51% students, 14% are taking tuition from their own school teachers.

Lambe said: “Students going to municipal schools do not learn a lot in their early years so they need extra support and their parents are not educated to provide that help so they seek external help.”

The survey also drew a comparison between the pass percentages of students in the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) studying in private and municipal schools. While the pass percentage of students in municipal schools has increased to 60 in 2013 from 52 in 2009, it is 20 percentage lower than their counterparts attending private school.

dna’s report highlighted another fact in its December 12 edition. In the last five years, primary schools run by the BMC lost 41,446 children, which is a 10% decline.

In 2007-08, more than 4.2 lakh children enrolled in BMC-run primary schools across eight mediums of instruction. The number declined to 3.79 lakh by 2012-13, the civic body’s education department data revealed.

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