Quality education reforms the need of the hour in Gurugram

Gurugram: Just as the Aam Aadmi Party held a hospitals-school rally in Gurugram on Saturday, an education workshop was co-incidentally organised in neighbouring Faridabad by the BJP-led Haryana government. The objective of the workshop was to discuss various measures to improve the state of education in Haryana.

Quality education for all is a major challenge not only in Gurugram but the state as well, a fact that for long has been conceded by politicians as well as top government officials.

The government claims to be taking steps to improve the situation, yet education is one area which the Opposition hopes will appeal to voters in the 2019 assembly elections.

Poor quality of government schools, high fee structure of private schools and their reluctance to admit students under the economically weaker section (EWS) category are some major complaints reported from Gurugram.

Corruption and financial irregularities are also reported regularly with the district administration. Recently, it came to fore that public agencies spent over Rs eight lakh on maintenance of a government school in Pataudi which did not even exist!

What further compounds these problems is the numerous unregistered educational institutions that have sprouted in the city. Official data claims that over 200 unlicensed schools are functional in the city.

Many private schools are unlicensed and charge exorbitant sums as fees from parents.

For long, education activists and aggrieved parents have alleged that the district administration has not penalised such unlicensed schools, some of it are operational since 2007.

In March, parents of over 300 students at Global High School in Sector-57 faced a harrowing time as the school management sent them a notice that it was abruptly closing. Stating that their licence of operation was coming to an end, the school asked parents to shift their wards to other schools.

As per law, private schools must disclose the number of seats it has available, so that around 25 per cent of the seats can be reserved for EWS students. Yet, despite various reminders by the district education department, most private schools brazenly flout the rules and do not admit students under EWS.