The Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) has issued a notice to the BJP-controlled municipal corporation in the city on Monday, seeking an explanation within two weeks for the poor performance of primary schools. The commission also said an inquiry has been ordered into the “poor quality of education” in the MCD schools.
This comes after MLAs of the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), including the party’s chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj, live-streamed their visit to the schools on social media platforms on Saturday, highlighting the “poor condition” of the buildings, classrooms, toilets and campuses, and slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for raising questions on the Delhi government’s expenditure on the construction of its schools.
However, the MCD denied that the condition in its schools is poorer than those run by the city government after the AAP MLAs live-streamed their poor condition on social media.
As per the statement released by the MCD, the learning outcome for Class 3 for the national capital includes all category of schools for Delhi State. Schools included are Private recognized, Government aided, Central government , State Government which also includes municipal schools.
“It is difficult to fathom as to how MCD schools can be pointed out for overall performance of class 3 learning outcome when it has nearly 28 per cent of the total share of students of Delhi State. The schools taken for survey under NAS, more than 70 per cent schools are the ones other than MCD schools. This fact seems to have been overlooked by DCPCR. The Corporation, nonetheless, will respond to the notice of the Commission soon,” the statement further read.
In a notice of inquiry, the DCPCR, the statutory watchdog of the Delhi government in matters of child rights, cited the National Achievement Survey (NAS) report 2021 for Class 3 to highlight the quality of teaching and learning in the municipal schools.
The NAS Class-3 results paint a dismal picture of teaching and learning in municipal schools, which rank Delhi amongst the lowest 5 performing states in India,” the notice read.
“In fact, the Class-3 results of Municipal Corporation of Delhi are below the national average in all three subjects: Language, Maths, and Environmental Studies. The average state score for Class 3 in language is merely 52 per cent while the national average is 62 per cent,” it added.