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Latest AIPA meet throws some interesting suggestions
In the latest AIPA meet on Sunday, 2 demands were put forth to the government. First was to regulate private school fees and second was to make it mandatory for all children of government servants to attend government schools.
In a conference organised by the All India Parents Association (AIPA) on Sunday, parents from 18 states raised 2 crucial demands in front of the government. Regulation of private school fee structure and mandatory enrolment of the children of public servants in government-funded institutions were put forth in the conference.
"Laws should be enacted to regulate fees and other charges in private schools, besides bringing all minority schools in the country within the ambit of the Right to Education," an (AIPA) statement said.
The Delhi-based organisation also said the government should enact a national law on the lines of the Allahabad high court judgement directing all public servants to send their children to government schools.
Ruing the "commercialisation of education", AIPA member Indrani Banerjee said the quality of school education has kept declining post liberalisation and has now reached its nadir. "We should have a new and better education policy to realise the dream of our former President APJ Abdul Kalam, who wanted primary teachers to inculcate creativity in schoolchildren," she said.
In a bid to breathe life into government run schools, another AIPA member said that unless the government spends more and rationalises its expenditure on education like in the UK and France, state-run schools will continue to remain "bureaucratic exercises".
The mushrooming of private schools and rising drop-out rates are a direct result of the government's failure to focus on the "holistic development" of school education, he said.
"The government should amend the Right to Education Act to make schooling compulsory up to class 12 instead of 8th standard. Also, school education should be made completely free," said Ashok Agarwal, President, AIPA.
AIPA, as a body that represents parents across the nation, should have put more practical demands to the government. Top most being how to increase the effectiveness of the RTE campaign given its dismal rate of performance today. Rather than helping with increasing effectiveness, this demand to widen the net to include all students till class XII seems outlandish. Also, it is a well known fact that anything made mandatory has the opposite effect. So the mandatory attendance of government school by the children of government servants seems out of place. Isn’t that curtailing the choice of freedom of these students?