Private schools, are they a boon or a bane
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: May 17 2011 -

THE LACK of teaching skills in government school teachers have led to a spawning of private schools. Are they good or bad, this has become a bone of contention.

One the one hand the government schools have only themselves to blame, they are handsomely paid but have little to show as achievements.

They are the ones who are given refresher courses to improve teaching skills, at government expense that is, but to be fair in judging them they still struggle to deliver.

Private schools have sprung up at every nook and corner to fill the void created by the dissatisfactory performance of the government schools. As far as these private schools are concerned they are unmistakable business enterprises. Their purpose is to make money through imparting education.

If the levels of efficiency of these private schools is on a level plane it would be very difficult to find fault with them. Unfortunately this is not so and they vary in contrasting quality.

But what do people have against private schools? First let us ponder over what they are proposing. They say they are schools which teach in the English medium. To this end parrot teaching enables young children to recite English rhymes, the English alphabet and numerals.

May be this is considered an achievement but let us also not forget that illiterate old men and women have learnt these rudimentary steps by rote, without any assistance from these 'exclusive' schools. In other words such 'achievements' make little impression.

Forget English, those intrepid elders have even picked up snatches of Korean by watching Korean soap serials.

The second disturbing aspect is of English pronunciation as expounded by teachers in the private schools. On occasion their pronunciation sounds alien and in other cases it is so heavily laced with a Manipuri accent that parents are inclined to term it as 'Englipuri'.

One is led to believe that students adopt a pronunciation practiced in homes and change that while in school, back to the format preferred by the teachers.

Is this disturbing enough? The sordid story is alas not over. The private schools have, in their efforts to make more and more money created a new phenomenon where young children come back home to tell their parents that they are required to take money to the school authority for whatever reason that might be conjured up.

On many occasions it is to expend on birthday parties of 'Miss', 'Madam' or 'Sir'. What an alarming way to impart quality education. And the flimsy excuses given to extract money from the parents goes on ad nauseam.

It is time to call an end to this farce.

Let these people be made known that parents approach their institutions because government schools have failed to deliver, not because parents feel they are on a mission to promote quality education, that is a claim on which many parents have many things to comment upon.