With an aim to match convent schools the Akhilesh Yadav Government is planning to start English medium schools in the state where students would be imparted education in English by convent educated teachers.
“Government has plans to start one school in each district where students would be imparted education in English medium. We have to carry out a survey about the feasibility of this project and implement the same by the next academic session,” Basic Education Minister Ram Gobind Chaudhry told The Pioneer.
He said the students in state-run schools are good. They perform better in all the examinations but there is a perception among the people that convent schools are better than the Government schools. “We want to break this myth and therefore we plan to start English medium schools in each district on an experimental basis,” he said. “We have the infrastructure.
I have no hesitation in saying that our teachers are not so comfortable in spoken English because majority of them have themselves studied in Hindi medium schools. So, we will have to hire convent educated teachers and will have to start our experiment from urban areas,” he said.
The state government is perturbed over decline in enrolments of students in state-run schools. Till last few years it was just an urban phenomenon. In cities parents have an option to send their children to private schools but in rural areas government schools were the only available options for the parents. But now many English medium private schools have come up in villages where teachers are regular and they motivate parents to send their children to schools.
“This is a thing to worry. The private schools in villages charge fees. The students are made to come in dress and parents are forced to purchase books and stationary. It means parents are ready to spend money on their children’s education,” he said.
In contrast to this scenario in government schools education is free. Students are given free dress and also served free lunch in form of mid-day meal. This shows people have a fascination for English medium schools and we want to cash in on that, the minister said.