Private schools back in business

Post-COVID-19 recession, close to 5,000 students from more than 400 state-run primary schools have migrated to private schools in Prakasam alone, according to sources

At the height of the COVID-19 recession, 36-year-old Venkateswaralu, a marketing executive of a private firm, took a Transfer certificate (TC) for his son studying in a corporate school and joined him in a state-run school. The financial crunch during the pandemic and the impressive series of initiatives the State government took to improve the quality of education in its schools persuaded him to take the decision.

Thousands of other parents also made such a move during the COVID-19 lockdown period because of the financial crisis of the time when they couldn’t afford to pay even 60% of the school fees demanded by the private schools, which switched from classroom teaching to online classes then.

But, the glory of the state-run schools has been limited to only two years, with parents preferring private schools to government schools for their children now.

According to Education department sources, approximately 5,000 students from more than 400 state-run primary schools have migrated to private schools in Prakasam alone.

While the improved financial situation can be cited as a reason for this, the series of rapid educational reforms taken up by the State government without preparing the students for the same seems to be hurting the schools’ performance.

The merger of classes Three to Five with high schools, imposition of English medium teaching and phased introduction of CBSE standard of education in these schools and imparting Byju’s e-learning programme into the curriculum have not gone down well with the stakeholders.

Even though the government school students in the remote village of Bendapudi have floored one and all by speaking American English, most students in the state-run schools found it difficult to read even a few sentences fluently in English.