The price of education
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: February 17, 2012 -

The education sector in the state – right from elementary to the highest level – has always managed to make it to the front pages of local dailies, and all for the wrong reasons.

The latest in the series are the case of fraudulent cases of students being accorded illegibility to appear in the coming matriculation exam to be conducted by the Board of Secondary Education, Manipur and the controversy over the rising fees of private schools. Now for a brief look at the later issue.

It is common knowledge that government schools in Manipur save for one or two are in total disarray. Many of these schools have the necessary infrastructure in terms of proper buildings, playgrounds and are manned by qualified teachers.

These teachers are also paid a substantial salary which should have acted as adequate incentive to give their best as teachers. But despite all these factors working for it, government schools have failed to attract students, especially the brighter ones and those belonging to the more privileged class.

The failure of government schools in the state meant that there is lack of places of learning which imparted ‘quality’ education, which equiped the students for future ‘tests’ for a successful career and a better life.

Into this vacuum moved in private schools which sprung up in every nook and corner of the state, notably in and around the greater Imphal area.

While in the days of yore the Little Flowers, the Nirmalabas, Don Boscos were the embodiment of good schools highly in demand, over the years, many new schools began to give stiff competition and even began to dislodge these schools from their perch.

At present these new schools are the most sought after with parents from different backgrounds more than willing to do whatever it takes to get their wards admitted.

As the clamour for admissions to these schools kept increasing by the year, understandably these schools began to increase the amount of fees they charged for the ‘quality’ provided.

These past few days there have been very strident voices calling for cut in the fees.

While we would like even highly successful schools not to shirk its social responsibilities, it stands to reason, that their popularity is grounded on some tangible manifestation of ‘quality’, be it the performance of students in Board exams or in the ‘general standard’ of the students.

They have every reason to believe that they deserve the rewards.

Given these circumstances, the most natural way of lowering the fees of these successful private schools lies in improving the quality of education provided in government schools as also the other numerous private schools.

When options are available, when a larger number of ‘good’ schools are there in front of the parents to choose from, the schools will be forced to cut down fees or add new services to attract the parents.

As for the inaccessibility of these schools to children of the economically disadvantaged group, the implementation of RTE would open the door.

The Act provides for 25% reservation for children of economically backward classes to all the private schools. It is imperative that the state government implements this Act at the earliest.

And the only enduring way to keep the fees to a reasonable level is by revitalizing government schools and improving the 'quality' of education provided there in par or even better than those provided in private schools. The government model schools can be the vanguard in this venture.