Kasturbha Gandhi Primary Marathi School was, not too long ago, a bustling Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) school in Gandhi Nagar, Worli. It was housed in one of several buildings in the area made by the Slum Redevelopment Authority as housing for people relocated under its schemes, and meant to serve the children of local residents. Just ten years old, the five-storey building is in good shape, but the Marathi-medium school has been closed for two years now, because there weren’t enough students. The lower floors have been converted into a health post and a TB clinic; classrooms on higher levels wait for other city departments to occupy them.
Locals say that the school died a lingering death, with the student strength shrinking, and classes being merged until there was just one teacher coming in. Even that teacher would have administrative work and made a peon mind the students.
Residents blame falling enrolments on changing demographics. “It used to be a busy school,” said Rajendra Chavan, a shopkeeper who has lived here all his life. “But now, there are hardly any Marathi people here; many sold their flats and moved to distant suburbs.”
“Eventually, they asked us to move our kids to a bigger school nearby,” said Vandana More, whose three children study in municipal schools. She is bitter about the effect the closure has had on her daughter’s education — “Her English is very bad and her prospects of securing a job are dim.” But she has enrolled her son in a BMC English-medium school nearby. The family can’t afford private school education but at least an “English medium education may help him get a job.”
Bhavanishankar Road Upper Primary Marathi School, in the heart of Dadar, was also once a crowded school which closed two years ago. “Classes would be buzzing with energy,” Razia Aldar recalled. Ms. Aldar is a street vendor at Dadar, and she studied at that school as a child and sent her children there too. “I remember teachers visiting our homes and dragging us to school. If there was no one at home to comb our hair, they would even braid it for us.” But it too saw dwindling enrolments, and unused space. Now the BMC proposes it be amalgamated with the Gokhale Road Municipal Marathi School nearby.
“A major chunk of our students came from neighbouring slums," said Dilip Ghanekar, the school’s caretaker and gardener. "After the slums were demolished, we lost a huge chunk of the Marathi population which shifted to ancestral homes in Solapur, or to Chembur. It killed our school.”
From 2009 to 2013, two of the three floors of this prime location were rented out to the IIT PACE Academy, which was to train BMC students for IIT entrance exams. After that, they were rented out to a junior college run by the Vidyalankar group, where seats are reserved for BMC school students. With the BMC school closed, now the floor it used houses offices of the Sarva Shikhan Abhiyaan and a BMC committee. Various wings of the Shiv Sena, like Shiv Udyog Sena, Maharashtra Vahatuk Sena and Shikshak Sena, are also located here. Ironically, the party’s members in the BMC’s education committee are protesting the closing down of the same school.
Drastic drop in enrolment
These are not rare cases. Enrolment in BMC-run schools has fallen drastically, and the BMC seems to be unable to convince the city’s residents to send their children to its schools.
The BMC’s Education department recently proposed to officially wind up 35 such schools in Mumbai city and amalgamate them with neighbouring schools. Mahesh Palkar, education officer, said: “These schools are already closed due to low enrolment; there is no teaching there. We are merely formally closing it on paper, so that school documents could be shifted over to the amalgamated school.”
Ramesh Joshi, general secretary of Brihanmumbai Mahapalika Shikshak Sabha, a BMC’s teachers’ union, and a former corporator who served on the BMC’s Education Committee for 16 years, is scathing about the BMC’s executive, saying that it does not want to provide education. “The fact is that the executive part has already shut down these schools, unilaterally, over the last few years, and is now simply officially seeking permission from the political wing for the same. Most of these schools stand in prime properties, and the BMC is all set to hand them over to private bodies or coaching institutions.”
The Education Committee, made up of the elected representatives, unanimously rejected the proposal at their meeting on January 31, and demanded a detailed explanation from the department about steps taken to save the schools. Shubhada Gudekar, chair of the committee, said the BMC has no resource shortage. “We are already spending so much, and can afford to spend much more on children to get them back in our classrooms. Teachers must tell us the problems, and we will go all out to resolve them and get students back.”
Teachers complain that teaching multiple syllabi to students in different classes is tough enough, but the BMC requires them to do other work too. Govind Dhavle, general secretary of Mahapalika Madhyamik Shikshak Shikshakotar Karmachari Sena, said that the BMC does not sanction administrative staff to it schools, plus large-scale vacancies in head teacher posts, putting the burden on teachers. “Worse, teachers are made to attend government seminars on non-academic work, like how to fill in details on online government portals, and threatened, through memos, if they fail to attend.” A teacher asks, “How much time is left for education?”
Former mayor and local corporator Snehal Ambekar said there was no attempt to save the schools. “At the Ganpatrao Kadam School in Worli, there were about 20-odd students enrolled for Marathi medium for Class I, but the teachers asked them to shift to the main school at Worli Naka. They could have tried to revive the school, but the teachers deliberately pushed the few students out to other schools.” GK school’s Marathi-medium primary classes are now closed, and she fears that once students in higher classes finish school, this school will die too.
“Closing schools is not the solution,” Mr. Joshi said, “and it cannot be done, under the Right to Education Act, as it closes the door of education to the poor.” He has moved the Bombay High Court against the policy, but the matter has not come up for hearing yet.
Passing the burden
Mumbai 08/02/18: Kasturba Gandhi BMC school in Gandhinagar, Worli Photo: Emmanual Yogini
In this years’ education budget, the executive of the BMC has proposed handing over 35 of its schools to private institutions. Municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta explained it thus: “Many corporates approach us wanting to help education as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility. We told them that instead of help, they could just take our schools and run them themselves.” The Education department is now taking back classrooms that it had rented to private groups so that it can hand them over to private schools. “We cannot just hand over a few classrooms,” Mr. Mehta said. “We are looking for buildings with at least 10 to 12 free classrooms to hand over.”
Mr. Palkar said, “As enrolments reduced, the number of classrooms for teaching kept reducing and classrooms subsequently were rented or given to other organisations. Post-2010 we decided, as a policy, to not allot school classrooms for non-educational purposes. We are in the process of retrieving our classrooms.” Private institutions, he said, will be able to choose their own curriculum and staff, and handle the administration of the schools. “The BMC will only place its own head teacher there to ensure that norms — admission to the poor and that students are taught free of cost — are followed.”
Sainath Durge, committee member of Yuva Sena, said, “We want clauses to be incorporated in the draft policy to ensure these private organisations run the schools well. A review committee will scrutinise their schools every six months, and if found to be inadequate, then their permissions will be withdrawn. Yes, privatisation is needed but it will be ensured that they don’t have a free run.”
Nitai Mehta, founder of Praja Foundation, has reservations on this de facto privatisation. “Handing over a few schools to private organisations on a one-off basis is great, but is that a sustainable model or solution? What BMC needs to do is to focus on imparting quality education in classrooms.”
Teachers express some cynicism too. Asking not to be named, one said, “What if these managements lose interest in running schools? I recall an incident where a private body wrapped up an entire school project the moment it stopped receiving aid from the US. Students were left high and dry.”
“Our municipal schools are not bad,” said Shiv Sena corporator Anjali Naik. “Even I have learnt in one of them. Unfortunately, today no one wants to send their children to municipal schools. Even those who work as maids and watchmen and can’t afford to pay school fees prefer to send their children to private English medium schools. It’s their mindset that needs to be counselled and dealt with.”
Surekha Sutar, who worked as a maid when she went through difficult times, but got her four daughters into private Marathi-medium schools, said that curriculum in BMC schools is basic, with no emphasis on gaining knowledge. She said, “In my chawl today, all children go to English-medium schools, as they don’t want to lag behind others.”
The BMC is attempting to cater to the demand for English-medium instruction with ‘Semi-English’ schools —maths and science are taught in English — starting by converting its regional language schools to this pattern, and is trying to introduce English as the main language in all its schools. This brings its own problems. Mr. Dhavle said that teachers from Urdu and Hindi medium schools are being made to teach Classes IX and X in English, despite not being comfortable with the language. “Besides, this kills enrolment in our own language schools.”
Money is not the issue
The BMC, India’s richest civic body — its current budget is ₹27,258 crore — has, so far, attacked the problem by raising budgetary allocations. Per-child spending is probably the highest in the country. It already provides 27 items for free to its students, including books, uniforms, raincoats, bags, and shoes, and plans to add BEST bus passes too. Aside from scholastic materials (₹123.11 crore allocated in the 2018-19 budget), it will also spend on future-gazing items like virtual classrooms (₹16.92 crore), tablet computers (₹18 crore) digital classrooms (₹37.38 crore), computer labs (₹8 crore), and even a free annual picnic to Kidzania (₹5.04 crore).
All this has not helped stem the exodus to private schools.
Ravi Duggal, country co-ordinator of International Budget Partnerships, an international NGO, said that 77% of the educational budget is spent on core schooling, but part of the problem is that all allocations are not used. “In 2016-17, the BMC allocated ₹149.57 crore for students’ welfare, but spent only ₹75.97 crore. They were supposed to spend ₹98.92 crore for a quality improvement programme, but actual spending was ₹67.63 crore.”
Mr. Mehta of Praja said, “You cannot just throw money at a problem and skirt the real issue.” That issue, he said, is that parents do not see value in sending their children to BMC schools, since quality education is not being imparted despite good teachers and infrastructure. What is needed, he said, is political and administrative commitment to changing education and bringing in accountability: for example, making schools independent, with adequate powers and responsibilities with the school leader.
Privatisation is not the solution, Farida Lambay, co-founder of Pratham, said. “There are two major reasons for enrolments going down: changing demographics, with the population in the city going down and that in the suburbs increasing; and increased spending capacity and parental push towards private education.” Another issue, she said, is that most BMC-run schools are only till Class VII, which discourages parents, who would prefer to send their children to one school till Class X. “BMC must start integrated schools from kindergarten to Class X.”
Perhaps the perception that only the poor send their children to BMC schools has created a class divide. Ms. Lambay thinks the solution is to improve the quality of the education imparted. Mr. Joshi of the teachers’ union agrees. “Look at the vast difference in the quality of education delivered in public schools in Delhi and Mumbai. In countries like the US and UK, public schools are greatly valued.”
“Public education must be so robust that all must want to put their children in government schools," noted Ms. Lambay. With the BMC, that currently seems like an unattainable goal.
Schools to be closed
Marathi
Ranchoddas Marg Municipal School, Borivli
Bandongri Municipal School, Kandivli (E)
Posha Nakhva Municipal Marathi School, Andheri (W
Oshiwara Municipal School no. 1, Andheri (W)
Kherwadi school
Ghatla Marathi School No. 2, Chembur
Deonar Pada
Nare Park Municipal Marathi School, Parel
Worli Municipal Marathi School No. 3
New Naigaum Municipal School
Shankarrao Palav Marg, Parel (W)
Kasturbha Gandhi Nagar, Worli
Matunga Labour Camp No. 2
Bhavani Shankar Road, Dadar
Ratanbai Valbhai School, Ghatkopar
Pant Nagar, Ghatkopar
Rajarshi Shahu Nagar, Dharavi
Cumballa Hill, Malabar Hill
Ganga Vidya Mandir, S-ward
Sewri Municipal Marathi School
Chakala Marg, Andheri (E)
Hindi
Veer Sambhaji Nagar, Mulund
Mohali Village Municipal Public Secondary School, Kurla
Kherwadi Municipal Hindi School No 1
Gujarati
Jogeshwari Caves Municipal Gujarati school
C.K. Bhandup Gujarati School
Sevaram Lalwani School, Mulund
Chembur Naka Municipal Gujarati School
City of Los Angeles Municipal Gujarati School, Dadar
Kasturbha Gandhi Municipal School, Byculla
Urdu
Tank Road, Bhandup
Sahakar Nagar Shatabdi Sohla Urdu School
Abhyudaya Nagar Municipal Urdu School
Tamil
Tank Road, Bhandup
Telugu
Dharavi TC Municipal Telugu School
The BMC’s Education department refused to provide the list of schools. This list has been provided by teachers’ union Brihanmumbai Mahapalika Shikshak Sabha.
