School principals voice education issues, government listens

Around 28 principals of some of the top private unaided schools in the city, came together to discuss educational issues plaguing the schools at the 4th Annual Principal Talk organised by DNA. The school principals raised their concerns on the implementation of the 25% reservation for underprivileged children, the difficulties of implementing the new education laws, the poor quality of teachers and the need for vocational education, to Sumit Mullick, the state government’s education secretary.

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act makes it mandatory for all private unaided schools to reserve 25% of their seats in standard I for underprivileged students from the academic year 2012-13. It also states that children cannot be detained between standard I to VIII.

The principals said it would be difficult for them to cope with the reservation since it was not economically viable for them and it would be troubling for underprivileged students to settle down in these schools. Sudeshna Chatterjee, principal of Jamnabai Narsee School , Vile Parle West  said, ‘’Instead of reserving seats the government should  strengthen the public private partnership model by allowing schools to adopt municipal schools, sending  their own qualified teachers to these civic schools and allowing students to use their infrastructure.’’

Moreover, the principals admitted that the no fail policy under the RTE, has led to several discipline issues in the schools. Father K Misquitta of St Mary’s School, said, “The act is retrospectively bad. Due to no fail policy students are not paying attention in classroom, teachers have limited authority to control the classroom.’’

The school principals also proposed public corporate partnerships, where the corporate could step in and better the state of the civic schools. Mullick said, “Some of the issues raised were familiar to us and we will carry them forward to the Central Government.’’