Going forward from my last article, I have a system in mind which can drastically improve the school education.
The Govt schools, specially in villages, have much better infrastructure than private schools. The only thing they (private schools) have extra is dedication and accountability, because parents are paying through their nose.
Slowly and slowly ask for bids from private entrepreneurs for running those Government schools. Bids have to be in line with the airport bidding.
The entrepreneur will have to say how much subsidy he needs from the Govt to run the school with zero fees maintaining the same standards.
If the entrepreneur can expand the capacity then the Govt will grant free admission to the previous years strength and he is free to charge the extra students.
It has to be done slowly as there are lakhs of Govt teachers and they should not have fear of losing their jobs. Curtail recruitment of new Govt teachers. There are very very honourable exceptions and I salute them but I can safely say 60% of the teachers in Govt, are white elephants.
Do we know how much it costs the nation to give employment to one teacher?
If you have not done calculations then you will be surprised to know that per teacher cost over life time comes to nearly 4 crores of today’s money.
Average pay per month is INR 75000.
Per year INR 9 lakhs
Works for 35 years*9= INR 3 Cr 15 lakhs
Then draws pension for 20 years @ 50000 per month
Another 1.20 crores.
Total 4.35 Crores +Medical and other facilities enjoyed by him will take the current cost to 5 Crores.
We pay this money, to give 5 crores salary to a Govt employee, we have to pay nearly 8-10 crore taxes as half the money gets eaten up by administration.
Have a look at few Govt teachers and check their motivation. They were brilliant when they entered the service but the system crushes their motivation. They will serve the country if they are not inducted in Govt service, to be destroyed by the system of transfers.
If any Govt teachers cooperative wants to take over a school, give them huge incentive. The Govt will be relieved of paying them the salaries.
Create a win win situation.
Make education “for profit” business but it better be a good business.
Govt should restrict itself to just monitoring the standards.
Design the standards for City schools and village schools.
Whoever passes or commits to pass should be allowed to run the schools.
The Govt should install CCTV live monitoring at it’s own expense. Right from school inspector to Director of education and Minister shall have access to the activities anytime. All activities to be recorded.
The education entrepreneurs shall be given incentives based on achievements and by grading A+, A, B+… etc. Financial grants to establish more infrastructure be given based on this.
I have a complete framework in my mind and solution to every problem that may come up in this.
I may not be able to recall all aspects at this time.
I request the readers to comment in comment box if he sees any flaw in this system. Either I will satisfy him / her or I will redesign the system incorporating his concerns.
Please ponder upon this and come up with better ideas and suggestions. It is upon us to give feedback to our leaders. This will only improve their ideas.
Its a good article… However, I suggest few changes viz.
(i) let the school property be licensed for a period of say 10yrs through e-auction for which the school shall pay a licence fee to Govt. subject to cap on maximum fee (to be escalated every year with some index like WPI, etc.) which the school can charge from the students. This will enable the school management to decide their finances independently;
(ii) students pay fee to school (which is subject to maximum cap as per licensing rights given to school) and in return subsidy through DBT in account of student. By doing so, the students can demand for facility from school management. Further, in case better facility is available else where then students will avail the same resulting into pressure on school (which has to pay licence fee to Govt. irrespective of number of students).