Dropout rate continues to grow in Mumbai municipal schools, says Praja report

Quality of education and lack of good teachers are prime reasons

geetanjali

Geetanjali Minhas | December 22, 2015 | Mumbai


#praja report   #praja report mumbai municipal schools  
State of municipal education in Greater Mumbai shows no improvement as compared to previous years and continues to be telling of education standards of the municipality. Praja Foundation’s   latest report on municipal education says that there is a decline of around 40,778 students in the last five year cumulatively, i.e. more than 9 percent.
 
As compared to previous year (2014-2015), there was a drop of 2 percent students from nearly 1252 municipal schools across the city as compared to previous year. Fresh enrolments have slipped down except for English medium schools. Marathi medium schools have shown the sharpest decline in enrolment with -19.50 percent followed by Tamil medium schools with -15.31 percent. Conversely, English medium schools have shown a rise in enrolments with 14.77 percent.

The report also said that 13 students out of every 100 dropped out of school in the said period.

Lack of quality education and teachers have been cited as main reasons for parent’s dissatisfaction at the municipal school education.  
About 44 percent parents have cited lack of quality education and 42 percent parents have blamed poor quality of teachers.

The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) plans to spend Rs 50,534 per child, students are given free education, school inspectors rank the quality of teacher in these schools as excellent and as per the internal CCE and the RTE Act most students are getting more than 60 percent marks. Infrastructure compliance too is almost 100 percent. However,  despite the increase in budgetary allocation for education, it is not getting translated into higher enrolments in schools run by MCGM. Under the Sixth Pay Commission, municipal employees are getting Rs 6000 (per child) for school education. MCGM spent about 1.68 crores in 2014-2015 under the scheme. 

Milind Mhaske, project director, Praja points out, “Out of the total 227 councillors, 166  have not asked a single question on the issue of education during the period of April 2014-March 2015. Whereas if we look at the number of questions raised by the education committees members it is abysmally low with 58 in 2014-2015.”

Nitai Mehta, founder and managing trustee, Praja, says, “If we want to make this country a knowledge economy, programmes like Digital India, Smart Cities and Skill India a success, basic education of the country should be improved especially at the primary level. Elected representatives should raise issues of education more at the designated forums.”

The survey was carried out on 22,850 households and data was compiled with the help of RTI queries.  
 

Comments

 

Other News

Targeting root causes of cancer with green policies

The Budget 2025 was splashed across headlines with its innumerable numbers and policies, but lurking behind the balance sheets is a threat that it has not accounted for yet — the silent, merciless clutches of cancer. The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that it remains one of humanity`s mo

Congress needs course correction: Prithviraj Chavan

Prithviraj Chavan, a former Maharashtra chief minister and veteran Congress leader, feels his party has probably failed to provide a viable alternative to the government, and it needs a course correction. “I do acknowledge that the Congress party may have failed to provide the alternat

Major haul of illegal arms and ammunition in Manipur

In a significant breakthrough, Manipur Police, in a joint operation with Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), the Indian Army, and Assam Rifles, recovered a massive cache of illegal arms, ammunition, and explosives during coordinated search operations across five valley districts in the intervening night o

PM visits crash site, meets the injured

Prime minister Narendra Modi on Friday visited the Air India flight crash site in Ahmedabad to assess the situation first-hand. He met officials and emergency response teams working tirelessly in the aftermath of the disaster. He also condoled the loss of numerous lives in the tragic air accident. He con

Air India flight crashes in Ahmedabad

The Air India flight to London crashed in Ahmedabad within munites of the take-off Thursday afternoon. There were 232 passengers and 10 crew members aboard, and reports suggest there was slim chances of anyone surviving. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed and exploded in a fireball barely out

Cabinet approves two multitracking projects of Railways

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by prime minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday approved two projects of the railways ministry with a total cost of Rs. 6,405 crore. These projects include:  1. Koderma – Barkakana Doubling (133 Kms): The project sec

Visionary Talk: Amitabh Gupta, Pune Police Commissioner with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now





Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter