Over the years, a number of schools have come up across the UT, which promises better education and school facilities. Most new schools are launched with business interests and vague altruism as motivating forces. Spawning of private schools in the UT can be construed as due to malfunctioning of public government-run schools.
The government and the business communities including trusts share the responsibility of providing quality education, and it is more pragmatic that way. In the past the valley has not been able to meet demands, mostly educational, and the private sector which has resources available has not stayed away.
Despite the efforts by both the government and private players, something is amiss. Often people refer to old school system, quality education and productive manpower or human resource. Due to the wide gap in what parents expect from school education and what the children eventually get, many private players have started experimenting with new education models. Which takes us to the interesting question as what should an ideal school be like?
The government and the concerned authorities are trying to patch up the visible defects without getting itself into the larger issues that have proven detrimental to our education system. From essential philosophy to giving practical shape to ideas related learning, there is much that remains undone.
In the past a number of schemes have been worked out to improve school education, but the issues linger. Whether it is SSA, Literacy Campaign or Mid Day Meal, when we take a closer look at the achievements there does not appear any silver lining.
Objectives like institutional reforms, quality education, community mobilization, establishment of new schools, etc., are not met in the manner as they are conceived. The UT cannot afford to get rid of the help it receives from the private sectors. Therefore, what is needed is the convergence of public-private authorities to get the education back on track.
As private institute owners are experimenting with the sole purpose to get ahead of competition, both institutional as well as educational, government must reach to them and workout a joint framework with common objectives – to build an ideal school.
As of now, there is not much difference in the overall learning, but with different models coming up now and then, there would be no uniformity and coherence which would affect the education patterns. School education authorities must extend their hand to private enterprises and chalk out a joint strategy.
(Author is a research scholar and teacher by profession)
