{"id":437,"date":"2017-11-30T08:22:29","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T08:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/2020\/12\/23\/making-government-schools-great-again\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T11:14:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T05:44:22","slug":"making-government-schools-great-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/making-government-schools-great-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Making government schools great again"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a telling scene in Hindi Medium,<\/em> the recently released Hindi film, that sums up the feeling of a lot of parents in India. Mitho panics about the fact that her daughter, Piya, won’t learn anything in a government school. She’s especially worried about English–and that not learning good English at the government school could lead to Piya being unsuccessful in life.<\/p>

A good quality education for their children is every parent’s dream; they see it as a ladder to a better life. And, not very long ago, government schools in India helped them get there. Several luminaries from various walks of life were, in fact, products of these schools.<\/p>

However, a lot has changed in recent years. In the last two years alone, more than six and a half million children have moved out of government schools owing to the poor quality of education there. And countless small private schools promising ‘English medium’ education have mushroomed all over the country. Ironically enough, research shows that on average, private schools deliver only as well as the government schools.<\/p>

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Focusing on the right problem<\/h3>

A common sense solution to this predicament, then, would be to fix our neighbourhood government schools.  However, simply allocating money for infrastructural improvements is not enough; it requires more.<\/p>

[quote]Allocating money for infrastructural improvements in schools is not enough.[\/quote]<\/p>

Parents who have a voice (and those who do not) must together start demanding good quality government schools.  It is also important, among other things, to build accountability structures into schools, empower parents and train teachers.<\/p>

That’s what we set out to do when we set up The Education Alliance (TEA)<\/a>, an initiative to engage education nonprofits to assist the government in driving change in government schools.<\/p>

Starting in 2015 with one school–SDMC Lajpat Nagar-III–we have made systematic efforts to bring in strong educational nonprofits–such as Gyanshala<\/a>, Muni International<\/a>, Study Hall Education Foundation<\/a>, Simple Education Foundation<\/a>, Deepalaya<\/a>, Katha<\/a>, Vidya,<\/a> Learning Links Foundation<\/a>, Ark<\/a>,  Lead Schools<\/a>, and I am a Teacher<\/a>–to work in the primary schools of SDMC.<\/p>

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Photo courtesy: The Education Alliance<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p>

These partner organisations have academic as well as administrative responsibilities and are in charge of driving enrolment, attendance and student learning in collaboration with the government principal and teachers.<\/p>

Within just a year of launching the School Quality Enhancement Programme, proof points of success have started pouring in. While 550 schools in the rest of the system lost 12,000 students last year, enrolment in the 12 intervention schools more than doubled to 1,600 children. By the end of 2016-17, all schools exceeded the student attendance target of 80 percent, while teacher attendance stood at an impressive 94 percent.<\/p>

The government and the nonprofit partners together deployed 77 teachers, up from 40, thereby ensuring no child was left behind. A journey that began with one school in 2015, now has 30 schools with a potential to impact 6,000 children across all grades (Nursery through Grade 5).<\/p>

With five-year MoUs in place–and the hope of a five-year extension beyond that–we expect to be around until the schools are able to sustain on their own.<\/p>

Results beyond numbers<\/h3>

We are also witnessing softer, more intrinsic wins that are not adequately captured in the numbers:<\/p>