Economic
Highlights
New Delhi, 26 October 2020
Private Education
DIGITAL TEACHING
FAILS
By Shivaji Sarkar
India’s private school education is
collapsing. Thousands of schools have closed down, many others are gasping and
it may cost the nation over Rs 1.75 lakh crore a year.
The lockdown has harmed the education sector
immensely. Private education conjures up an image of spunky public schools with
their high fee structure. These too are in crisis. Worse are the virtual budget
schools, charging a fee of Rs 1,000 or less penetrating the rural, small town
or low-income areas of metros, according to the State of the Sector Report on
Private Schools by Central Square Foundation (CSF).
There are about 15 lakh schools, with 26
crore students, according to World Education News and Reviews (WENR). The
recently released Household Consumption on Education in India Report, the
aggregate household expenses are on private schools, about Rs 1.75 lakh crore,
almost equal to the e-commerce sector.
Though almost all are under stress due to
lockdown the worst sufferers are virtual informal schools with a government
recognition or not but serving the hinterlands of the country. It has improved
school enrolment especially in rural areas, where the number of students
attending private schools has increased from 4 per cent in 1993 to 26.6 per cent
in 2017-18.
The CSF report says the
struggle is intense for survival of private education. In normal circumstances,
it is not easy for private schools to attract students and during COVID-19
times it has worsened as parents refuse to pay fees. Weak and digital footprint
has made online unaffordable.
So most such schools have
either closed down or facing closure as they are neither able to pay their
teachers their salaries nor afford infrastructure costs. Some had planned
expansion in early March and even taken loans. Many have gone into severe debt
and even after closures are in distress. Most of these are entrepreneurial
ventures by innovative individuals. In Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh, a shopkeeper’s
son started a school at Re 1- a-day pay concept. Since the students are not
coming to school, entrepreneurs like him have little option but to close down
the operations.
The impact on the society is
severe. These employ mostly jobless youth at low salaries or payment on daily
wage basis or as in Chennai on hourly-payment system. But each school sustains
at least 100 persons on an average. The youth prefer to opt for such jobs for
sustenance as well as the prestige they enjoy in the neighbourhood.
In villages or semi-urban areas
such schools have become the choice for parents, as they are perceived to be
better than government schools, may not be in pedagogy but in overall care that
a child is given. Teachers trained or not, since from the neighbourhood, are
considered dependable.
This is making education more
mass based as the official system has many limitations and despite some recent
efforts suffers from delivery problems. Recruitment of teachers itself is
flawed as the disclosures from VYAPAM in Madhya Pradesh or recent disclosures
by UP government have shown. The UP government also found that the district
officials interfere in Basic Shiksha schools and issued orders for severing
these from the district administration. The orders stated that no district
official should intervene in any such schools.
But online education has come
up largely as cropper in all such schools. The pandemic has given a sudden
rise to the need of having a digital infrastructure and due to their low
budgets, the unaided private schools claim that they are neither able to match
up with elite schools nor with the state-run schools for which the content is
aired through televisions, radio, and other government-run platforms.
Parents do not consider it to
be education. They do not pay to the schools because their wards are not going
there. This apart they find online – mostly mobile phones – teaching expensive
for the high internet costs. Another problem they face is that each child
should have a smart phone, which they cannot afford.
Many children too do not find
online interesting as it interrupts too often and teachers find themselves
limited for lack of eye contact. Students mostly put off video because of the
poor network across the country as also to reduce unaffordable data use. Digital,
which the telecom companies are trying to promote for a revenue model, is
collapsing the education system. At kindergarten and primary level it is
burdening the parents, mostly mothers, as they have to remain present
continuously during online classes that in many cases have become the norm in
metro cities. The parents complain that children do not consider “laptop
teaching” as education and pester them to allow them to go to schools.
Another aspect that has not
been taken into account that home education has become cumbersome, more
expensive and uninteresting as in many families a child at home is a resource
for family work or business. The pandemic panic is mostly being taken as
holiday and the society is complaining of apathy of the schools.
The students and their parents
find being physically at school more affordable and at least fruitful because
apart from the books they learn etiquette, interaction with peer groups, use of
library and social behaviour, even if they quarrel or fight there.
So the society despite the low
incomes does not mind paying for education and that is heavy. As per MoSPI
report Indians are paying 12 times the money for pre-primary education at a
private school. The number decreases to about three times at higher secondary
level. The majority, 70.8 per cent students pay less than Rs 1000 monthly fee,
while 45.5 per cent pay less than Rs 500. The monthly median fee in an
elementary unaided school is Rs 958 in urban areas and Rs 500 in rural India.
Schools complain that at least one-third of the parents default in paying that
also.
The New Education Policy has
also ignored the basic aspect of survival of private education, elementary to
higher. The idea that greedy capitalists use it to shore up their bottom line
is impractical. They have to survive on low fee and also pamper the policemen,
government officials, panchayat pradhans and sundry others. Many in the
business even in national capital are keen on exiting.
The shutdown of private schools
can adversely impact ‘education for all’ and multiply unemployment. With apathy,
low government allocation and highhandedness education is becoming nobody’s
baby.---INFA
(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)
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