No Free Lessons Here

EDUCATION in India is going the onion way," observes parent Samaresh Narang mincingly. "Both are scarce, low-quality and prohibitively expensive. Only for those who can pay up loads does India home-deliver onion soup and elite education, the rest have to make do with the rotten left-overs and even these are getting unaffordable by the day." More frustrated than furious, Nar-ang thumbs through a pile of well-filed fee receipts from Prabhu Dayal Public school in Delhi's Shalimar Bagh where his daughter studies: tuition fees that were Rs 300 last March have spiralled to Rs 590 this April. "A 96 per cent hike in a year. For what? Is anyone going to keep a check on this?"

Well, recently the Delhi High Court did issue a 90-page order against the arbitrary increase in fees under the "garb of autonomy" by unaided private schools in the capital. No more than a 40 per cent hike, the court ruled and appointed an independent committee to investigate the issue school by school.

 Oblivious to the initiation of this committee, two little unrecognised, unregistered 'public' schools continue business as usual in one of the labyrinthine bylanes of Delhi's downmarket Nirankari colony. In the first, christened Blooming Bird Public School, one Mrs Pushpa Singhal (BA-pass from Agra) squeezes in 100 children into two small spaces at Rs 75 a month each. She boasts four 'XII-pass' madams, a Rs 5 fee hike over the past year, and a sizeable income supplemented by the tuitions she takes off these same students in the evening.

In unhealthy competition is the Little Angel Public School some distance away. An amazing case study for educational entrepreneurship, its owner—who possesses no degrees whatsoever—runs a beauty parlour next to the room that houses 45 bored children. A teacher tolerates the wriggly students till the clock strikes one, and then moves to the next room to become a beautician. She gets Rs 400 for teaching and Rs 800 for her hair-cutting skills.

Both schools are up to class V, after which students get into similar, though 'recognised', privately-run 'public' schools where the fee is about Rs 200 a month. Both have parents yanking children out of government schools to put them into these 'English' schools. Both have admission tests.

So does Delhi's posh G.D. Goenka school, one of the country's most expensive affairs. Meena Wig, exporter of heavy machinery, got her son admitted here in class VII recently. She paid Rs 70,000. None of it 'under the table'. But she's a satisfied customer: "No more driving my son from tennis to swimming to horse-riding. Rs 9,900 quarterly and the school provides all. I'm very happy with it." Air-conditioned buses, centrally-cooled classes, personal Internet accounts, and the study shop is delivering.

A little information input here though. Most large schools are run by NGOs or trusts. They receive their land, or part of it at least, at a subsidised rate and enjoy tax reliefs. And they are, in theory at least, not supposed to be money-making ventures.

But aren't they really? Ashok Bhimani, president of Mumbai's Leelavati Poddar School Parents' Association, thinks yes: "The nursery section last year hiked its fee from Rs 100 to Rs 750. It also introduced a Rs 8,000 annual fee. This, considering a child in nursery is barely there for more than two hours!" The hike annoyed parents so much that they took the school to the Mumbai High Court. The case later shifted to the Supreme Court where courses such as 'Parental Enrichment', for which the school was charging money, were put to an end.

But then the country's overburdened courts can hardly keep tabs on the many ingenious heads (see infographics) our schools continually devise to make money  off hapless, and sometimes unquestioning, parents. Journalist Charu Soni confesses to never having bothered to find out why she is paying an annual, intriguingly named, "watch and ward" fee for her son in Delhi's prestigious Modern School.

Understandable, perhaps, considering that the competition to get a child admitted into these elite, or any school really, is so tough that one feels almost grateful for the chance to pay up. "Starting from the underhand donation to receipted funds for 'benevolence', they know every way to extort. But to our amazement, we discovered school accounts hardly ever show profits or financial reserves on paper," says Vijender Kumar, president of the Delhi Abhibhavak Mahasangh, the parent body that filed the PIL against arbitrary fee hikes in private unaided schools last September.

POINTING at a humungous chart the Mahasangh has worked out on the income and expenditure structures of 91 public schools in Delhi, Kumar shows how most schools put huge amounts of money against notional costs like building and vehicle depreciation to show expense. "Costs are adjusted and huge profits are diverted into private pockets or into mindless expansion to generate more money," says Kumar. A practice that the Delhi High Court's recent order prohibits: "Tuition fee cannot be fixed to recover capital expenditure to be incurred on the properties of the society."

Yet Shyama Chona, principal of the much-sought-after Delhi Public School, maintains that schools have a duty to expand so as to accommodate more students. With 53 branches countrywide and three abroad, DPS is still far from satisfying all those who knock on its doors for admission. "For every 10,000 admission applications, we can take in only 300 students. Frankly, I am relieved every time a new branch opens up—it means another avenue for a child whose parents want to give him the standard of education that we are credited for," says the principal. "Instead of misplaced zeal in bringing down fees and curbing expansion of good schools, the focus should be on uplifting the standards of education."

T.R. Gupta, president of the Action Committee for Private Unaided Recognised Schools which is planning to appeal against the curb on fee-hike in the Supreme Court, says: "The same government that has done so little to ensure that any good happens in its own schools cannot be empowered to interfere with schools that provide quality education. Everyone knows what children get in return for 'free' education in government schools. Why don't they mend their own house instead of meddling with ours?"

True. Even the most casual query unveils the farce behind the 'free' education in the sarkari schools. Presswallah Harprasad pays a monthly Rs 48 for his son in the capital's Model Town I Government Boy's School, where the child has failed twice and is still struggling in class V at age 13. Harprasad says his money goes towards the school's hiring a teacher privately because it is understaffed. In addition, he shells out an extra Rs 200 for his son's private tuitions.

Then, if hardly any education comes free at all, does its price indicate its quality? Does education really get better as it gets more expensive? Is it really like the service industry, where extra facilities can be picked up for a price? Can one rave and rant for clumsy delivery of promises?

Sadly, even that doesn't quite happen. Most parents reeling under the zooming costs of (for the want of a more appropriate classification) B and B plus category public schools vouch for the fact that the increase in fee never has anything to do with the facilities extended to the children. Further, the dynamics of the demand-supply end up pushing the better and 'honest' schools into becoming exclusive, elite institutions where only children from a certain monetary and social milieu manage admission: the affluent engineer's child gets in but the rich paanwallah's doesn't. The latter then pays a donation and manages admission in a B plus school. Thus starts the mindless expansion of such commercial study shops in the education mart. Because those who can't afford even these B plus schools are forced to pay and struggle for schools of a lesser standing. So, all but the exclusive schools end up charging more. And subsidising education for those who can afford some extra.

THUS, Abha Adams, principal of the progressive Shriram school in Delhi, argues for a fee hike: "We have a healthy teacher/student ratio of 1:12. But it will become impossible if these fee-hike curbs continue. Honest schools like ours depend on school fees alone for income. We've had to stop construction on our DLF campus in Harayana due to shortage of funds. So even if we are imparting meaningful education, we can't take in many more students. We are already running losses, how do we pay teachers?"

 Reinforcing this linkage between fee hikes and availability of good teaching staff, Mrs Elizabeth Joseph, principal of Bangalore's Bishop Cotton Girls, admits: "In our school the fee has been raised only thrice in the past 10 years because we had to hike our teachers' salaries. We have to offer fairly reasonable salaries to retain our staff."

 An opinion that is shared by N.G. Khaitan, president of the society that runs Calcutta's South Point School. He says a hike of at least 30 per cent in tuition fee is imperative if the teachers are to be paid according to Pay Commission scales: "Sixty to 75 per cent of the cost of education goes into teacher salaries, they just have to be met through substantial increases in fees."

An argument which, in wrong hands, sees many schools minting money at the expense of demoralised teachers. Recently, angry teachers from M.M. Public School in Delhi's Pritampura approached the Mahasangh and alleged that they received no more than Rs 1,500-2,000 for signing on pay receipts of Rs 5,000 and above. Further, they accused the school authorities of making them sign blank cheques which were being used to draw out money that was deposited in their names in accounts opened by the school.

"In times when a maid cannot be got for less than Rs 1,000, so many schools employ primary school teachers for no more than Rs 400. And the poor parents who pay through their nose keep wondering why the teaching is poor," says Kusum Jain of Parents' Forum for Meaningful Education, a body that's striving for a better education system through judicial battles. "Look at the profits even in small ventures: Take even Rs 70 from 100 students and give out just Rs 1,200 among three teachers. Charge Rs 50 as admission fee. Take tuitions in the evening. And earn a neat Rs 15,000 monthly for ruining the lives of so many children. Not to forget the fact that most of these ill-taught students, after class V, are turned down everywhere but in government schools. No wonder the latter have such lousy results."

The issues involved in this rampant commercialisation of school education are complex indeed. Both sides, those who argue against and for fee hikes, have valid cases. Those who have made schools an industry will continue to do so—with or without laws to keep them in check. Are there any solutions at all? Dr Anil Sadgopal, head of the Department of Education, Delhi University, forwards one. An utopian concept perhaps for some, the academic is confident that Neighbourhood Schools introduced by an Act of Parliament will put an end to the rabid commercialisation in school education. Rich or poor, all children of a locality would then go to a common school designated for that area. Each school, funded by the government and managed locally, would choose its medium of instruction and syllabus.

 Sadgopal predicts enhanced marks to show better results by most such schools in the beginning. But a few years and the better institutions would prove their worth through the quality of students they send out in the world of higher education: "Most colleges and universities have their own entrance tests and interviews these day."

 Says Sadgopal: "It's not an idealistic theory on education. The concept works fine in Canada and Switzerland. But then you'll say this is India. But India needs it more than those countries. Not the handful few who can pay Rs 10,000 every quarter but the rest need it. The rest don't want a status quo on the issue. They need more than just debates on fee-hikes and bad teaching. Their need matters. It's 'Education For All', isn't it?"