Under fire from the media and the middle class for tacitly supporting moral policing in the state, the BJP government in Karnataka (pop. 57 million) is making a desperate bid to focus public attention on its development initiatives, particularly in education. On February 25, the state government’s education department repackaged an eight-year-old school adoption scheme and presented it in a new avatar — the ‘School Nurturing Programme’, inviting corporates to cooperate with the government in establishing public-private partnerships to upgrade the state’s languishing Kannada medium government schools.
Under the repackaged School Nurturing programme, corporates and non-government organisations, which ‘adopt’ one or more of the 48,987 government schools in the state, will be given the freedom to improve learning outcomes in adopted school/s. Unlike the earlier school adoption scheme in which the prime focus was on infrastructure upgradation, in the new programme nurturers (i.e corporate sponsors) will be free to intervene in teacher training, teacher selection, and introducing ICT (instructional communication technologies) to improve learning outcomes.
“IT companies could specially focus on introducing IT in education. Given that the industry is the biggest beneficiary of a high-quality education system, it must complement the government’s efforts in upgrading the public school education system,” said Azim Premji, chairman and chief executive officer of Wipro Technologies and founder chairman of the Azim Premji Foundation, speaking on the occasion.
Since the School Adoption Programme was launched with much fanfare in 2001, only 9,000 of Karnataka’s 48,987 government schools have attracted sponsors, with most of them making one-time contributions for infrastructure upgradation and providing little or nil academic/teacher training inputs. The state government’s public instruction department website (www.schooleducation.kar.nic.in/SchoolNurturing.htm) lists 20 “investors” including Infosys Foundation, Rotary Clubs, Azim Premji Foundation, The Akshaya Patra Foundation, Round Table, India (Bangalore), Lion’s Clubs, as partners in its new School Nurturing Programme.
Ironically Madhumita, a spokesperson of the Azim Premji Foundation, denies that the foundation has adopted any school under the programme. “The Azim Premji Foundation is not partnering (sic) with the government in the School Nurturing Programme. Mr. Premji was invited as chief guest for the inaugural function because of his immense contributions in the field of education and the positive relationship that the foundation shares with the government of Karnataka,” she said in an e-mail response to EducationWorld. Likewise an Infosys spokes-person also denied that the company has adopted any school under the scheme.
The hesitation of private sector companies to enter into public-private partnerships with the state government is understandable. Karnataka’s education department is infamous for nit-picking educrats and inspectors given to micro-managing government primary and secondary schools. Sponsor companies fear that precious time and resources of their corporate social responsibility teams will be wasted in getting government approvals for their school upgradation and teacher training proposals.
“The approval process takes a long time and requires constant follow-up with education department officials, who behave as if they’re doing us a big favour by accepting our plan. It’s better to work with committed NGOs already involved with education,” says a spokesperson of a private sector company who requested anonymity.
However government schools in this southern state, whose flourishing and globally renowned IT industry is experiencing a grave shortage of skilled professionals and personnel, need all the help they can get. A survey report of the Karnataka School Quality Assessment Organisation (KSQAO) published in July 2006 found that only 49 percent and 48 percent of class V and VII students exhibited the required competence levels.
Though the prime responsibility of providing quality education in government schools is that of the state government, Karnataka’s flourishing IT and other corporates — the prime ‘consumers’ of educated youth — need to chip in and pay more than mere lip service to education. And the Karnataka state education department needs to do more than repackage a failed eight-year-old school adoption scheme. It needs to undertake an image makeover and welcome and facilitate corporate sponsors to improve learning outcomes in the state’s beleaguered government schools, which are being deserted en masse by parents who can afford private education.
Debolina Sengupta (Bangalore)