Revisiting the Debate of Private Vs Public Schooling: Some Unexplored Dimensions

12th UKFIET Conference on Education and Development

Kamlesh Narwana

Research Scholar

Centre for Historical Studies

Jawaharlal Nehru University

New Delhi, India

• Unprecedented Growth of Low Fee Private (LFP) School in India. (Give some number)

• Responsible Factors – Aspirations of middle class parents for English medium – Better accessibility and quality – Teachers’ accountability

• LFP School criticized for – Their untrained teaching staff – Faulty teaching methods – Uninformed choice among parents

• Study Revisit Public vs Private school by looks into – The role of English medium in popularity of private schools, – The teachers in LFP and Government schools – Parents perception about Private and Government schools.

Context of the Study

• Sample Size: 5 government and 4 private unaided schools situated in semi-urban area. Out of these, two private schools are unrecognized (eventually missing from School census data i.e. DIES data) and two are unaided recognized). Besides this, to analyze the impact of Government English Medium school, one government and two private school situated in rural setting are also studied. 

• The study is largely based on qualitative data collected with the help of Focused Group Discussion, in-depth interviews and informal discussions with parents, children, teachers and Head of schools.

• Secondary data (mainly District Information System of Education, DIES) is also used to analyses the percentage of teaching staff, Medium-wise private school, number of private schools etc.

Sampling, Research Methodology and Data Collection

• Two different Scenarios:

– A) The existence of Hindi medium private schools in the presence of Hindi medium Government Schools • All four surveyed private schools in town follow Hindi as medium of

instruction.• As per DIES data 2010-2011, more than 50 percent of private

schools in town have Hindi medium and have registered high enrollment like their English counterpart.

– B)The presence of Hindi medium Private schools in presence of English Medium Government Schools• In spite of all these major facilities in English medium government

school, there are two Hindi medium private schools in the village which attracts students in large number. These schools have hardly witnessed any decrease in their student enrollments in the presence of English medium Government school.

Medium of Instruction: Is it Really a determining factor?

• Different studies (Lall 2000, Mehta 2005, Desai et.al. 2008, Jain and Saxena 2010, Sarangapani and Winch 2010, Nambissan 2012, Nawani 2013) argued that teachers in low fee private schools are not professionally trained and have basic educational qualifications and also not equipped to teach first and second generation of school goers.

• Out of 4 surveyed schools, two schools had cent percent professionally qualified teaching staff, third school had 87% and the fourth school had 40% qualified teaching staff.

• According to DIES 2010-2011, out of total 8 private unaided schools in research setting, four schools have 100% trained teachers, three schools had 88% trained teachers. Only one school had less than 60% qualified teaching staff

• As per DIES Flash Statistics 2010-11, Private unaided schools have 84.40% regular and 82.69% contractual professionally trained teaching staff in Haryana.

Professional Status of Teachers: Another Bone of Contention

• Social composition: three private schools have high proportion of SC and BC students (School A: 88%, School B: 77% and School C: 74%)

• Economic profile of Students: 85% students’ parents are daily wage earners.

• Educational level of parents, 80% parents were illiterate and 20% of parents were educated up to Elementary and secondary level

Issue of First generation learners and Marginalized Sections

• The parents of these children are daily wage labourers, they treat government school as free crèches where their children are safe for the whole day with free mid-day meal.

• In government schools, only ‘residual’ students take admission. Those who are really interested in education, go to private school. These people are not interested in education. These children mainly come for mid-day meal, stipends and free stationary.

• The teachers themselves accepted their caste based discrimination in selecting the School hockey team. In an utter castiest tone, the interviewed teacher said that “If there is any student from our caste/community, we can take them in team. How can we allow these people (students from lower castes) to play with our children in school team”.

Teachers regarding marginalized sections

• “In my family, no one is educated. My son is the first one to go to school. I am dependent on him for any matter related to reading and writing. When he used to go to a government school, he was not even able to read the name of places on buses, ward numbers and name of doctors in hospitals. My neighbours used to read and write letters for me. Now he is going to private school. At least now, he has started deciphering letters and also can help me out while visiting places like bus stand, hospitals, bank and post offices.”

• When my child used to go to government school, he never used to get any home work. Now after joining private school, he completes his homework after school.

• Though I do not get much time to visit school, but whenever I went to the government school, teachers were never found in the classroom. They are chatting, playing cards and having tea. However, this is not the case in private school. Teachers are always in classroom.”

Perception of parents about Government and Private schools

• The growth of private schools is proportional to decrease in the stakeholders’ faith in public school. The medium of instruction is not always a determining factor, as disillusioned by the dysfunctional government schools, parents even prefer Hindi medium private school than English medium government schools.

• The private schools are also now hiring more trained teachers. It can be result of increasing privatization of teacher Education which eventually has made obtaining a degree or diploma very easy task.

• The issue of marginalized sections and first generation learners remain unaddressed even in the presence of trained government teachers. The need of improving teachers’ education is essential for improving the experiences of the marginalized sections.

• Given the fact the government schools are the largest sector serving the population on the lowest rung of social pyramid, the importance of government school cannot be negated in the presence of increasing privatization. Nevertheless the solution lies in improving the miserable condition of public schools rather than criticizing privatization.

Conclusion

Thank You!