Indian Express 06.12.2010
Over 5,000 drop out of Marathi schools in year
sharvaripatwa Tags : Shiv Sena-ruled Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, BMC, Marathi medium schools Posted: Mon Dec 06 2010, 04:33 hrs
Mumbai: The efforts of the Shiv Sena-ruled Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to increase the number of students in Marathi medium schools have not helped. Over 5,000 students have dropped out of its Marathi medium schools in a year, from 1,07,413 in 2009 to 1,02,214 in ‘10. The number was 1,32,725 in 2008.“English is an international language and parents are preferring to send their children to English-medium schools,” said Abashaheb Jadhav, education officer, BMC. “We are focused on providing better facilities in Marathi-medium schools; we emphasise to parents that children will get the best education in regional languages. Yet, the number is dipping... English language skills are considered essential for any job prospects.”
The civic body’s Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Urdu schools also saw a drop in number of students. However, its Hindi and English medium schools are seeing a rise in number of students. While students in its English medium schools have gone up from 26,637 in ‘09 to 29,808 in ‘10 (The number was 21,138 in 2008). In Hindi medium too, the rise in numbers is substantial; from 1,13,726 in 2009 to 1,16,819 in 2010.
An official said the numbers in Hindi medium schools were correspondent with the rise in migrant population from North India. In the past year, the BMC has opened a Hindi medium school and shut one Gujarati, Kannada and Tamil medium school each. “We do counsel and advise wards and parents if they are making a shift from any medium,” Jadhav says.
The BMC had recently started circulation of two Marathi language newspapers for selected classes in its 1,331 schools, which cater to over 4.5 lakh students. These schools employ 13,132 teachers.
Education committee chairperson Rukmini Kharatmol of the BJP, however, said the data could be incomplete. “The trend might not be true regarding the dip in number of students in Marathi medium schools. But there is a certain preference for English langauge nowadays.”
