State Education Policy should strengthen and expand network of govt. and aided institutions: T.N. Catholic Educational Association

Says, privatisation and commercialisation will make education unreachable for the poor and the disadvantaged sections of society

The Tamil Nadu Catholic Educational Association (TNCEA) has stressed that the proposed State Education Policy for Tamil Nadu (SEP-TN) should concentrate on strengthening and expanding the network of government as well as government-aided private educational institutions and discourage commercialisation of education by self-financing institutions.

The suggestion has been made to the SEP-TN formulation committee headed by retired Delhi High Court Chief Justice D. Murugesan. A delegation led by Most Rev. George Antonysamy, president of Tamil Nadu Bishops’ Council and TNCEA, handed over the suggestions to the former judge, according to Fr. A. Xavier Arulraj, a designated senior counsel in the High Court.

The primary source of funding for education should be from the public exchequer. Role of non-State actors should only be in addition to and supplemental to the contribution of the State and not as a substitute for the same. “The more that education is privatised, lesser the control of the government and farther it will be from the reach of the poor,” the TNCEA warned.

Stating that St. George Anglo-Indian School in Chennai, established in 1715, was the first public school in the country, the association said, British administrator Sir Thomas Munro established the Board of Public Instruction in 1826. The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) was established in 1851 and the grant-in-aid scheme was introduced in 1855.

At present, there were more than 37,200 government schools and 8,400 government-aided private schools in the State and the Catholic church as well as the Church of South India had a network of around 5,000 of the aided schools. Having been totally non-commercial, the Christian missionaries had opened the avenues of modern and secular education to all.

However, after 1980, the government allowed mushrooming of private matriculation schools and caused irreparable damage not only to the concept of imparting education to all without any discrimination but also to imparting education in mother tongue. “Ultimately, public schools became the preserve of the poor and came to be perceived as inferior in quality,” TNCEA lamented.

In order to salvage the situation, the association urged that SEP-TN must insist that the government ensures 100% Gross Enrolment Ration by increasing the number of government and aided schools in the neighbourhood and extends all welfare schemes, including nutritious meal and breakfast, up to Class XII in aided schools too.