Although dismissed as pious intent, if not populist propaganda, the Central government’s proposal to promote 6,000 model secondary (classes VI-X) schools in every administrative block countrywide (i.e 6,000 blocks) during the 12th Plan quinquennium (2012-17), is inching forward. Of these 6,000 model secondaries, 2,500 are proposed to be promoted in the public-private partnership (PPP) mode. Presenting the Central government’s budget on March 16, Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee confirmed that “in the 12th Plan, 6,000 schools have been proposed to be set up at block level as model schools to benchmark excellence. Of these, 2,500 will be set up under public-private partnership (PPP)”. Plans drawn up by officials in the Union HRD ministry indicate that the 2,500 PPP secondaries affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will be promoted in administrative blocks which currently lack secondary schools. Each school will accommodate 2,000 students, with the Centre sponsoring 980. In Budget 2012-13, a provision of Rs.972 crore has been made for these model schools. Under the blueprint being finalised in the HRD ministry, private partners will procure land sites and design, develop, operate and manage the PPP model secondaries. The government will offer a 25 percent infrastructure grant and pay the tuition and other expenses of students sponsored by it. In compliance with the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (aka RTE Act), 25 percent of seats will be reserved for children drawn from poor households in the neighbourhood with the government paying for their schooling. The initial contract period between the Union government and private education providers will be ten years, renewable by mutual consent. Thus far, private education trusts, societies and private educationists have failed to respond to the PPP model with discernable enthusiasm. With the Central government having “sneakily transferred” part of its obligation to provide free education to children aged six-14 under the RTE Act to private schools, educationists are wary about government intentions and fear “creeping controls” and “inspector raj” in private education, especially in model PPP schools. “The government needs to pay adequate attention to the root problems plaguing its own schools — lack of funding, teacher absenteeism, high dropout percentages, poor infrastructure, lack of quality teachers. Public-private partnership is not the solution to these deep-rooted problems. The government needs to invest more in improving its own K-12 schools on the lines of Kendriya Vidyalayas or Navodaya Vidyalayas to inspire private educationists to collaborate with it,” says Ambarish Rai, convener, RTE Forum, a Delhi-based coalition of 10,000 NGOs including Save the Children, Campaign against Child Labour, Unicef, Oxfam-India, National Coalition for Education, among other civil society organisations. However Rakesh Mittal, vice chairman and managing director of Bharti Enterprises (including Bharti Airtel, India’s largest mobile telecom corporate) and trustee of the Bharti Foundation, which manages five senior secondary schools in partnership with the government of Punjab under its Adarsh PPP schools initiative, believes the PPP model can be made to work. “The Central and state governments should promote the…
