Flagging concern over the quality of education at government-run schools in Mumbai, an NGO today noted that during the last two sessions of Maharashtra Assembly Mumbai legislators asked very few questions on education scenario in the city.
Of the 213 questions on education asked by the MLAs from Mumbai during the winter session of 2014 and the budget session this year, only 34 pertained to education in the state’s capital, according to NGO Praja, which published a white paper on the state of municipal education today.
The report states that four of these didn’t ask a single question related to education in Mumbai, which sends 32 members to the state assembly.
“There are no questions on the quality of education or the drop-out rate. Most questions are about teachers or the government’s HR policies,” said Milind Mhaske, project director, Praja, adding that even the number of questions about education overall was insufficient.
If the quality of education in municipal schools did not improve, an order on the lines of one by Allahabad High Court, where it directed the Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary to ensure that government servants, elected representatives and members of judiciary and all others who get any salary from state exchequer send their children to state-run schools, is needed, he said.
“Quality of education in state-run schools is going down consistently with the parents from even the lower income group shifting children to private schools with higher fee. This is a failure of the state in delivering affordable quality education to the masses,” Mhaske said.
“One of the main reasons is that employees of the state administration do not take the responsibility of maintaining quality, which could be because their own children do not go to government-run schools,” he added.
