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| The state of affairs in private schools | | editorial | |
The suicide committed by a ninth class student of a private school, in
Jammu, Jatiender Singh, unable to bear the humiliation and thrashing
by the principal of the school, for the student's failure to deposit
the monthly fee in time, has brought to fore the sorry state of
affairs in the private schools. Some of the private schools, run by
some unscrupulous elements, as commercial shops exploit the students
and their parents in different ways. While heavy fees of charge and
moneys extorted from the parents under various pretexts, most of these
schools lack the desire infrastructure and facilities. Even the staff
in the school is not qualified up to the desired standard. Above all
the students are treated inhumanely and the parents and guardians of
the students do not get the desired respect and behavior from the
school authorities. That the principal of the school in question,
Kirtan Singh, was arrested by the police only after the death by
suicide of the student sparked off wide protests and the protestors
resorted to picketing and blocking the road is a sad reflection on the
functioning of the police and the administration. With the growing
awakening among the people at large to give quality education to their
children, there is mad rush of opening private schools. Since
government schools, notwithstanding equipped with better
infrastructure like libraries, laboratories, play grounds and lately
even computers, as well as the staff being comparatively well
qualified, show poor results, the parents have developed a craze to
admit their students in private schools. The concerned authorities in
the education department are quite liberal in granting permission to
every tom, dick and harry to open school, read educational shops.
Neither the background of those applying for permission to open the
schools, nor the minimum requirements for running the schools are
taken into account while granting permission for running the schools.
No wonder that some criminal elements have also infiltrated the field
of education and even some totally illiterate persons have become
educationists by opening schools. There are invariable complaints of
the organizers of these schools and the staff members exploiting the
female students sexually as well. Even some high fly schools, a large
number of which has lately come up in Jammu, with very heavy
investments made, with the soul purpose of earning huge profits in
turn, are bereft of certain basic pre-requisite. One such school in
Jammu run by a highly renowned educational society in the country, is
being run in a by lane of the congested area in the city. The approach
road to the school is quite narrow and congested, causing good deal of
inconvenience and hardship to the parents to drop their children in
private vehicles and even on foot. The lane gets so congested that
passing is a hell of job. Then parents or guardians are made to wait
in the open in the scorching heat and even in the heavy rain to pick
up their children. The school which charges exorbitant fee, has made
no arrangement of waiting room or hall. The complaints appearing in
the media sometime back about the sexual exploitation of female
teachers of one such high fly school in Jammu city, were not taken
notice of buy the authorities. By mere arresting one erring principal
of a school, the overall rot in the private schools cannot be checked.
There are frequent reports about some private aided schools paying
very meager salary to their staff, but getting receipt of much higher
salary paid to them. All these irregularities need be checked.
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