The 365 primary-cum-secondary (classes K-X) schools owned and run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (i.e. Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation) — the richest civic government countrywide with a budgeted expenditure of Rs.19,931 crore for fiscal 2009-10 — suffer a massive image problem. Although the corporation proposes to expend a sizeable Rs.1,431 crore for the education of its 650,000 students (a handsome Rs.22,015 per child per year), there seem to be fewer takers for the education dispensed by BMC schools.
While no self-respecting or aspirational middle-class household would dream of enroling its children in a BMC school, even parents lower down the social pecking order are deserting them, despite their offering free tuition, uniforms, textbooks and mid-day meals. Yet notwithstanding the steady flight of students from its Marathi medium schools, civic fathers don’t seem to have cottoned on that poor households — for whose benefit BMC schools exist — want English language, if not English medium, education for their children; motivated and accountable teachers, and better learning outcomes. Even though in 2008, the corporation had to close down 188 of its schools under the pretence of renovation.
The flight from government schools is a statewide phenomenon. According to Mumbai-based educationist J.M. Abhayankar, in 2007-08 total enrolment in Maharashtra’s private schools (7.9 million) exceeded enrolment in government schools (7.7 million), for the first time ever.
Instead of attending to fundamental academic issues to stem the flight of students from its schools and provide taxpayers with greater value for their money, BMC educrats have fashioned a new gimmick to enthuse its low-income parents and students clientele. With effect from the start of the new school year beginning July 2009, 200,000 classes V-X students of BMC schools will be given free-of-charge special training in music, swimming, athletics, singing, drama, sculpture and sports. To provide these co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, BMC proposes to rope in experts from various fields to conduct special classes for children.
Abasaheb Jadhav, BMC’s education officer, says that work has begun on a master plan to introduce special classes, “so that BMC schools are not inferior to private schools in the provision of holistic education”. Admission into special classes and coaching programmes will depend upon students’ interests and aptitude.
According to him, among the star sportsmen and performers signed up are cricketers Pravin Amre and Vinod Kambli; actors Nana Patekar, Naseeruddin Shah, Sachin Pilgaonkar and Charushila Sabale; singer Abhijeet Sawant, and Doordarshan newsreader Swati Sathe. Significantly, Jadhav and other BMC officials refuse to divulge the additional amount budgeted for this project.
Unsurprisingly, monitors of Maharashtra’s education scene are less than impressed by the latest rabbit pulled out of BMC’s hat. “I don’t see the point of all these cosmetic gestures. They are PR activities which will provide a good photo opportunity for BMC officials. The actual challenge before BMC is to improve infrastructure and teaching standards in schools so that students receive useful education. An annual budget of Rs.1,431 crore for education is a large amount, but I am sure that not even half of that sum is being spent on students. Instead of attending to core issues, BMC officials continue to make big plans which will benefit them and no one else,” says Prof. Omkar Patki of the department of business management sciences at Mumbai’s Jai Hind College.
Quite clearly, BMC officials are yet to learn that while co-curricular and extra-curricular education is necessary and desirable, it should complement rather than serve as a substitute for staple academics.
Neha Ghosh (Mumbai)
Rising reverse flow
One of the many paradoxes which characterises 21st century India is that while this country hosts the world’s largest youth population (550 million citizens are below 24 years of age), its 431 universities and 21,000 colleges can accommodate only 9 percent (11 million) of the cohort in the age group 17-24. With admissions hard to come by, and also because the quality of higher education is nothing much to write home about, foreign students tend to overfly India.
Nevertheless according to a count in 2008, the total number of foreign students enroled in institutions of higher education in India is nearing 50,000 (cf. 600,000 in the US) with 82 percent of them concentrated in larger cities. This is quite a jump from the 30,000 foreign students registered in 2006.
The reasons for this quantum increase are high prices of tuition abroad, and fast track India’s more positive image on the global front. Moreover, aggressive marketing by managements of Indian professional colleges keen to earn the higher fees payable by foreign students, is also playing a major role in attracting foreign students to Indian colleges and universities — engineering, medical, law and B-schools in particular.
Santosh Desai (20), born and raised in Dubai, is on his third visit to India and first to Pune. He is here to complete the procedural formalities which are the precondition of admission into the College of Engineering Pune (COEP), where he intends to enrol in a course in information technology. “I stand a much better chance of acquiring admission than students from India who have to write a Common Entrance Test because COEP has a 15 percent non-resident Indians quota,” he says. Although Desai will shell out an annual tuition fee of $5,000 (Rs.2.5 lakh) as against Rs.30,000 paid by Indian students, the higher tuition fee compares favourably with fees charged by western colleges/universities.
Desai is just one of the thousands of students from Middle East countries who are expected to make a beeline to Pune in the wake of major promotional campaigns undertaken by city-based institutes offering professional courses. For instance, for the first time in the history of COEP (estb.1854) — the third oldest engineering college in Asia after the College of Engineering, Guindy and IIT, Roorkee — a team of senior faculty and administrators undertook a extensive promotional tour of Indian schools in the United Arab Emirates (including Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and Dubai), and participated in Getex — an international education fair — staged in April 15-18 in Dubai.
“The enthusiastic response we received makes me confident of our promotional effort bearing fruit,” says N.B. Dhokey, director of admissions at COEP, which was granted autonomous status in 2003-04 and has since been exploring various options to raise money and resources to take on global competition.
According to Dhokey, a prime cause of COEP’s high vacancies in the NRI/PIO quota was lack of awareness abroad about the college. “Few people in west Asia, which has a wide network of Indian schools, knew about COEP,” says Dhokey. Therefore authorities are keen to ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself this academic year.
Such foreign students trawling expeditions were also made by other varsities such as University of Pune (UoP), Symbiosis International University (SIU), Bharati Vidyapeeth University (BVU) and Maeer’s Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT) — all of whom participated in Getex 2009 which attracted people from around the world.
Inevitably, engineering and business management study programmes are the most popular among the majority of NRI/PIO parents in the Middle East. “Most Indian schools in these countries are enroling students in a big way. And since Gulf countries lack good institutions of professional education, they are keen to seek admission in reputable engineering colleges and B-schools in India,” says Vidya Yaravdekar, director of the Symbiosis International University, Pune.
Huned Contractor (Pune)
