AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat state education department is aiming to set up 100 English-medium schools based on proposals it has received from various districts in the past few months, said sources close to the development.
This is perhaps the first time the Gujarat government has undertaken such a massive exercise to change the public perception of government-run schools. The government runs about 33,000 schools in the state and 98% of them are Gujarati medium schools. The local civic bodies run many existing English medium schools in cities. Of the 106 state government-run English medium schools, the civic bodies in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot run 56.
The government will set up these new schools using the existing infrastructure at the district or taluka level and by making new teaching recruitments contractually, said sources.
The highest demand for English medium schools is from the Aravalli district, where 12 such schools have been proposed, followed by Mehsana where seven schools have been proposed. In the case of Dang, six English medium schools have been proposed. Ahmedabad and Surat have proposed three schools each.
“One of the main reasons behind this decision is that a lot of students in Gujarat have moved from self-financed schools to government-run schools in the last one and half years because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many of these students, who were studying in English medium schools, had to transfer to Gujarati medium ones as there are very few government-run English medium schools in the state,” said an academician.
The hiring of teachers on a contractual basis could prove to be a major hurdle for these schools going further, he added.
The state education department had earlier said it aims to give a lifeline to the large number of students who have dropped out of private schools during the pandemic period.
In a circular dated September 21, the state primary education department said it will open English medium schools for students who have dropped out of self-financed schools due to the pandemic related issues.
Like other government-run schools, education will be free of cost in these schools too.
From the time Covid-19 struck the state in March 2020, about 5 lakh schoolchildren in Gujarat have left private schools. According to data maintained by the state education department, 2.82 lakh students left private schools in the 2020-21 academic year.
A significant shift from self-financed to government schools can be attributed to the financial crunch witnessed through the pandemic and loss of lives and livelihoods of many across cities and rural areas. In such times, many parents reeled from the pressure of paying an average Rs 15,000 to Rs 30,000 annual fee in self-financed schools.
