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The govt has to walk a tight balance between the future of schools and students
While Karnataka govt officials are on a closure spree of schools that have low enrolment, Kerala is taking a stand that closures may happen only when court directs to do so, else schools will continue irrespective of enrolments and efforts will be taken to improve schools.
With the media rife with news over the closure of close to 3,000 schools in Karnataka for lack of students the neighbouring state of Kerala is taking a strong and informed stance on the issue.
"We never cared about the connection between schools and children. The education sector lost its vigour due to the unbridled growth of unaided schools and the failure to improve the quality of education imparted in government or aided schools," said educationalist and former MG University VC Rajan Gurukkal.
Gurukkal feels that it is ok to club schools without sufficient students for better education, at the same time; the government should restrict clearances to new unaided schools.
Like his predecessors, education minister C Raveendranath has made his government's stand clear. "No school will be closed down for want of students. We do not see schools as a commercial entity. The contribution of school in the life of a student is not negligible. Barring court directives, this government will not close down any school. We are planning to create a comprehensive master plan to revitalise every school," he said.
Another lens through which school closures is the imminent unemployment of teachers and the school closures are opposed, with children from poor families used as the face of aversion to the closure.
Former Kerala University VC A Jayakrishnan, who teaches at IIT-Madras, felt that closing schools was justified if they lacked the required student strength. "Irrespective of social status and income, every parent chooses an unaided English medium school for their kids. How can we blame them? Their choice is influenced by the elite who send their children to such schools and they get better education. Since nothing empowers like education, they chose the best," he said.
Convener of state higher education protection council and Cusat syndicate member R S Sasikumar said that the practice of projecting unaided school managements as greedy and unethical should be stopped as the schools they began were a social service. "There may be people who see it as a business entity. Rather than trying to teach them about social responsibility, government should adopt a realistic approach and ensure quality education. The priority of the government and other stakeholders should be quality education and not protection of existing institutions, irrespective of whether they function with or without students," he said.
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