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STRONG SCHOOLS BUILD A STRONG SOCIETY

Zafar Bhat. Dated: 11/20/2017 6:20:59 AM

ZAFAR BHAT Jammu, Nov 19 Categorically choice gives parents the freedom to move between schools and systems. As the analysis shows, many parents already do this at the transition from primary to high school. Does the mix of abilities this produces in different schools and sectors leave government schools at a disadvantage – deprived of a full range of student abilities, and therefore handicapped when competing for each new generation of students? We believe not. Prospectively, government institutions should give students an education that is comparable and at times superior in quality, and at a time when cost pressures, particularly for housing, are squeezing family budgets. Proximity is a second advantage: relatively few students must travel far to the local school, where those at private schools can waste their time on long commutes. However, many people initially assume that given the resources, parents will automatically choose nongovernment over state schools. Yet government schools have several significant advantages over their competitors. Cost is the major one. Our supposedly free state schools may charge fees, but they are extremely low where those in the private sectors vary widely and can sometimes reach tens of thousands of rupees a year. The third is social immersion. At a state school, students encounter peers from many different backgrounds – a mirror, more or less, of J&K society at large. Other things being equal, this encourages robust independence and gives them an inherent advantage in later life – including, notably, in coping with the stresses of higher education – over those whose parents may have preferred the more closeted, homogeneous and undifferentiated culture of a private school.
Pertinently, these advantages are becoming clearer to many parents, as other trends show. As the breakdown we have published shows, the process is uneven, but in some areas, governments are now scrambling to find sites to re-establish schools. Closer inner-city development, including especially intensive redevelopment such as that around Green Square, is placing the schools that remain nearby under extreme pressure. School sites near such locations were sold off only one or two decades ago. This is more than ironic; the events are recent enough, in fact, to be more properly described as mismanagement.