Uttar Pradesh State Approves School Cluster Scheme for Low Enrollment
The state government has approved a new scheme of creating clusters of schools by merging multiple schools having enrolment of less than 20 students.
The idea is to combine them and create one big school wherein appropriate infrastructural can be provided to students along with a nurturing atmosphere with a great number of children in one campus encouraging healthy competition, sportsmanship and other aspects of holistic development of children.
The state’s Commissioner of Education Suraj Mandhare Thursday issued a detailed plan of action to implement the scheme.
The scheme is opposed by many from the education sector as the plan indicates closure of around 15,000 small schools.
Many from the sector believe that a large number of these schools are from inaccessible, hilly areas and closing them might lead to an increase in school drop-out from these areas, especially girls.
A big chunk of critical views also state that this scheme is directly opposite to the Right To Education (RTE) Act which mandates that a primary school should be made available within 1 km from the child’s residence and a secondary school, within 3 km.
“According to the parameters explained in the plan, the cluster school’s location should not be farther than 40 minutes in a bus, from the original school. This 40 minutes in rural or hilly areas is a long distance. Does the government expect a child to travel for 40 mins in a bus to attend school, in rural areas?” questioned Jalinder Sarode, Secretary from Shikshak Bharati, an association of teachers.
He continued, “Kothari commission in the year 1968 had suggested a similar school complex scheme. And it was deemed unsuccessful. Now the state is planning to bring it back under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. This will have a huge adverse impact on basic school level education offered by the state through government schools in rural areas.”
In the letter, Mandhare said, “The objective of the scheme is to not close down government schools. It is to strengthen them by ensuring that all schools are provided with adequate infrastructural facilities and raising the quality of education imparted at the government school by providing opportunities of holistic personality developments.”
There are over 1.10 lakh schools in the state of which around 65,000 are run by the government.
As per the UDISE data, there are a total of 14,783 schools have less than 20 students enrolled with them. Many of these schools, according to the plan, have either one or two teachers and lack other infrastructure.
Government is already running a pilot of cluster schools in Panshet from Pune district and in Toranmal of Nandurbar district.
The letter issued by the commissioner asks all local administrations to submit proposals for creating clusters of schools from their respective jurisdictions, based on the same model of pilot project.
As per the UDISE data, with the new scheme of cluster of schools, 1,85,467 students studying in these schools and 29,707 teachers will be replaced as the mergers begin.
Recently, Maharashtra had approved the scheme of adoption of government-run schools by NGOs or individuals to ensure better infrastructural support at all schools.
Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/uttar-pradesh-govt-approves-scheme-for-schools-with-less-than-20-students-to-be-merged-to-create-clusters-8952234/
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