In another typical decision, the Delhi Government has recently decided to provide financial assistance to some of the countries wealthiest private schools. The money is to recompense them for providing books and uniforms to the underprivileged children that they promised to take for free when given land at throw- away prices.

 

361 private schools were given land at institutional rather than commercial rates by the Delhi Government on the understanding that they would reserve a minimum 20% free places for children from underprivileged families.  An investigation found that 170 of these schools had reneged on this agreement and were not providing free education to any child from the ‘weaker sections”. Equally unfortunate is the fact that this has never been monitored by the regulatory bodies.

 

Schools refused to take in the poor children saying that they could not afford the books and uniform that the school insists they have. The schools also claimed that they cannot afford to provide them!

 

Did the offending schools ever mean to include poor children into their intake, or can’t they figure out a way to meet this minor expense?’  It seems like the former, but if it is the latter there are several solutions to the problem.

 

Many schools make massive surplus income from fees and a variety of other sources, and they could use a minute amount of that to pay for the books and uniforms. 

 

Many schools receive charges from vendors like books and uniform sellers so they could use a little of that money. Better still, rather than pay the school, the vendors could provide discounted/free books and uniforms.

 

Other schools allow their premises to be used by outside organisations for ‘after-school activities’ and those schools could use a tiny amount of this income. 

 

Some schools receive donations of tens of lakhs and they could use a little of that funding, and in some schools the Alumna Association/Parent Teacher Organisations contribute to capital projects by fund raising large amounts of money. Some of that could be diverted to supporting books and uniforms for poor children.

 

If they can’t find the money from any of these sources, most schools have over the years built up huge corpuses – and they could use a miniscule amount of that.

 

There are two other ways that the reneging schools can get over the problem. They could get the poor families to pay the cost price of the books and uniforms that they need monthly. (It would mean that the poor would need to find between Rs100 and Rs200 a month). If this burden is too much it could be shared by the better off students – contributing Rs.25/ to Rs.50/  a month. That’s one fifth of what they pay for a weekly burger! 

 

The Delhi Department of Education’s ‘solution’ is to give schools Rs500 for every poor child it takes in.  Obviously this is not a ‘just’ solution, and it is being challenged in court by the NGO ‘Social Jurist’.

 

The Department of Education are pussyfooting around because the schools are owned and controlled by rich and powerful people.  An answer is to investigate the accounts of the ‘Societies’ that were given the land to see if they can afford to fund the learning tools the school prescribes. We need to wait and see if the political will to do it is there.