Secrecy on school closure survey troubles activists

Pune: The education minister as well as the secretary of the department have refused to divulge details regarding the NGO that worked on the survey report, responsible for the decision to close zilla parishad schools where attendance was poor.
The report has also not been made public, triggering concern among retired educationists and activists. In fact, activists are of the opinion that the report should be made public at the soonest so that it is made open to scrutiny.

Mukund Kirdat, an education activist working against the decision to close schools in remote areas, pointed out that any document affecting the education of such a considerable number of children should be made public.

"It looks like there is a vested interest in not sharing the name of the NGO and making the report public. Secondly, there are also rumours that certain corporate entities will be allowed to run these schools a their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activity," said Kirdat.

Kirdat further went on to mention that for a government trashing reports of NGOs such as Pratham, taking such a big decision without any review process on its own also seems rather fishy.

"When the report came out, the government should have formed a committee comprising a civil society member or an activist, a retired judge and a government official in order to review the report and take samples to ascertain if the report is, in fact, true or not," said Kirdat.

Matin Mujawar, another education activist, explained that the top-down decision will only hurt rural Maharashtra in the long run. "The problem with this model is that someone sitting in Mumbai has come to a decision whether the schools in these villages should be shut or not, without even knowing what is happening in villages. These decisions should be taken with utmost care and field officers must ensure that they recommend the name of the schools where an alternative is available to the seniors rather than vice versa," said Mujawar.

According to a zilla parishad teacher, the entire issue has created a fear among tutors as well as parents whose children attend these schools.

"Once the name of your school is on the list, we don't know what will happen next. Parents continue to ask us and we don't have an answer to their questions. Some schools were being spruced up and the process had to be stopped midway because what is the point of the renovation if the school is being shut down" the teacher sought to know.