Private Schools: Time For Serious Introspection

The visit of Melania Trump to a school in Delhi created more than a few ripples, beyond the ritualistic (and frankly boring) tu tu main main between political parties, who in their bovine desperation, dug deeper into coarser public discourse.

The visit, the welcome spotlight on the Happiness Curriculum along with the improvements in the government schools of Delhi (one of the factors for the AAP victory in the recent assembly elections) and efforts taken/initiated by many state governments across the nation, is the key to this counter-intuitive article about private schools.

Recently, while attending an education conference in Hyderabad, the secretary of the TMREIS, a Government of Telangana organisation made a simple, yet powerful presentation about the growth of over 200 Schools across the state in less than five years. The students have developed fuel-free bikes, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, and are now into AI, skill development, etc.

Now, take a look at these headlines across India:

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After conquering Kilimanjaro, TMREIS students set sight on Mount Elbrus

Redevelopment of Kerala school turns into a case study in UK varsity

NCERT syllabus for classes 9 to 12 by 2019Odisha to set up CBSE pattern model schools in 314 blocks

Can govt school students in India do better? This is what an experimental policy showed

State Governments, from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, Itanagar to Ahmedabad, have realised that quality schooling is a vote winner; and has the welcome potential to be an enduring vote winner, beating anti-incumbency big time. The rising cost of living, relative lack of jobs, increasing private school fees coupled with occasional sharp business and security practices have to lead to an image deficit among private Schools; trust the savvy politician to sense a big opportunity. The above headlines, coupled with this extract from an article in The Citizen – "Such efforts have led approximately 2.35 lakh students in Kerala to shift from private unaided schools to public schools over the past two years. Will this add up to yet another ‘Kerala model’ in terms of high-tech education?"  paint a picture, which, if not read the right way, will give Private Schools, a lot of grief.

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Visionary bureaucrats along with the biggest of stakeholders, government teachers (for whom the inability to change have already led to significant numbers among them losing livelihoods) are slowly, but steadily making use of this crisis to reform the government school system and save it from obsolescence.

Residential Schools (including legacy Schools) are now struggling to get students. To quote a very senior and seasoned scholastic school leader not prone to exaggerations..." earlier, we had five students for each seat; now it is getting closer to two….we are now engaging admission consultants to keep our numbers reasonable…"

Rapidly reducing birth rates, increasing costs of maintaining a family and most importantly, the deep reluctance among millennial parents to stay away from their children are major causes for this decline. And, let us face it, the fees are not easily affordable. Those parents who can afford the fees are increasingly turning to schools abroad.

Tamil Nadu, the state with the highest number of students in the higher education space (46 per 100, when the national average is 25 per 100), has in 2019, 60,000 lesser students in Grade 1, compared to Grade 9, with almost 100 per cent of the eligible student population studying in schools. The excellent economic survey (2018-19) by the CEA, Government of India, highlights the following:

• Birth rates are falling faster than earlier estimates
• Reduction in the number of students joining schools have already started in many states
• 0-19 age population share reducing rapidly, from 40.9% (2011) to 34.5% (2021) to 28.8% ( 2031)

The Engineering Colleges' boom between 1990 and 2010 is now well and truly bust. If private schools are to avoid this fate, they need to accept the new realities of Indian student demography.

• learn to compete with resource-rich state governments innovatively.
• deliver sustained, validated, high-quality learning outcomes.
• be transparent and honest in their outreach to the stakeholders.
• be judicious and mature in increasing fees.
• pay teachers well, and treat them with dignity.
• invest in professional development and growth of teachers.

This article is counter-intuitive and somewhat provocative. I will be more than happy to be challenged, corrected, improved upon.

Lt Col Sekhar is an experienced soldier educationist, who is also a trainer, advisor and consultant to many leading schools.

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Disclaimer: Please note that the views expressed in this article are the purely personal opinion of the writer.

Image source: Taekwondo Training By Master Anjesh B. Pasi, At India Public School (IPS) , Azamgarh, UP, India , bestprivateschoolinindia.com