South civic body to put schools up for adoption
The days of looking down upon municipal corporation schools might soon be over as the South Delhi Municipal Corporation is planning to give up its schools for adoption to organisations such as Bharti Foundation and Azim Premji Foundation to boost the education system for its students.
According to Satish Upadhyay, chairman of the South corporation’s education committee, the civic body is in talks with various stakeholders for the school adoption scheme, which has been successfully done in the UK and US.
“Representatives of various organisations like the Azim Premji Foundation, Absolute Return For Kids, Central Square Foundation, Centre For Civil Society and Bharti Foundation will meet commissioner Manish Gupta on June 10 to discuss the modalities on how the project can be conceptualised,” Upadhyay told Hindustan Times, adding that it will change the perception about civic body-run schools.
“The demand and supply gap is too much as people don’t have much faith and confidence in municipal schools. The middle class spends a fortune sending their children to public schools. Serious policy changes like this are required to encourage people to send their children to corporation-run schools,” he said. As part of corporate social responsibility, private stakeholders will take up the functioning of initially 20-30 out of the 650-odd corporation schools.
“The total administration will be operated by the organisation or people adopting the school. The teachers will be much more accountable as there will be better monitoring,” Upadhyay said.
According to Ajay Batra, head of Azim Premji Institute for Assessment and Accrediation, who is part of the advisory team working closely with the corporation on this project, it takes a lot of effort to make an adopted school function in a proper way.
“Over the last 12 years, we have given educational aid to 25,000 schools in 10 states of the country. These adopted schools will create a system-wise sensitisation and appreciation of the education system. If they can learn from this and replicate it that will be the real success of this project,” he added.
Read the story in Hindustan Times