The Indian Express             19.11.2013

AMC set to open five new English-medium schools

Aiming at providing “affordable” options of English-medium schools to
middle class and lower middle class sections, the Ahmedabad Municipal
Corporation (AMC) school board has planned to add five more
English-medium public schools – Ahmedabad Public Schools (APS) – to the
existing one at city’s Shahpur area, that was inaugurated in May this
year.

The areas, where these schools would come up in the coming
academic session (that will begin from June 2014), include Dariapur,
Gomtipur, Pritampura, Isanpur and Ramapir nu tekra. While the selection
of these areas has been done on the basis of a survey, carried out by
the board to gauge the demand and possible number of students who would
enroll in these schools, the target certainly is the middle class, even
slums.

These schools will open in five different zones of Ahmedabad,
leaving only the New West zone that is not expected to get one. The
school board is also contemplating to rope in non-government
organisations and educational societies that could provide support and
guidance in setting up these schools.

Apart from providing English-medium municipal schools to
residents who cannot afford private schools, the reasons cited by the
AMC school board include meeting the demand raised by parents. These new
schools would be on the lines of the Shahpur APS; KG I , KG II and
Class I. At present, there are nearly 150 students at Shahpur APS, the
first English-medium municipal public school.

“Irrespective of community or economic status, the preference for
English-medium schools among society has witnessed an increase every
year. The AMC school board thought why not start government schools in
English medium that do not have issues of exorbitant fee, donations and
other additional expenses. Also, the response to APS in Shahpur has been
encouraging,” said the AMC School Board Chairman Jagdish Bhavsar.

The survey carried out by the board revealed that despite the
increasing number of English-medium private schools in the city, they
were not running out of students.

Some of the areas covered in the survey included Girdharnagar and
Saraspur that have middle and lower middle class population and have
witnessed an increase in private schools.

Among the five areas shortlisted for English-medium government
schools, the survey revealed, the demand was the highest from Gomtipur.
“The residents of Gomtipur have been demanding an English- medium school
since last year. The survey has estimated that the school will get over
50 students at the entry level, KG I,” said AMC School Board
Administrative Officer L D Desai.

The school board is planning to use the existing infrastructure
for new schools. For this, the existing school buildings would be used
for new schools as rooms are available during morning shifts, similar to
the arrangement done in Shahpur. The AMC school board is running 456
municipal schools across Ahmedabad, but the majority of these schools
are Gujarati-medium.