City schools would now offer all facilities to underprivileged students

Ranchi, Dec. 16: Come April, underprivileged students would no longer be alienated from the facilities enjoyed by children of private schools.

The government is all set to introduce a first-of-its-kind project to blur the line that till now differentiated between students of upmarket private schools and their poorer friends in government-run schools.

At least 100 students of Classes I-V from each of the 213 blocks of the district will be accommodated in 200-odd private schools in the state capital. All students will have to qualify a written test though.

To make this mammoth project a success, the state human resource development department would shell out Rs 1,500 per child to meet school expenditures like uniform, bus fee, admission fee, computer fee among others.

For the selection process, a committee would be formed comprising private school principals who would prepare a set of questions to be later handed over to the government.

The decision was taken by human resource development minister Bandhu Tirkey after a meeting with around 50 principals of both ICSE and CBSE-affiliated schools at MDI House in Dhurwa today.

Tirkey said that the question sets prepared by the principals would be circulated among the government school students who would appear for the test.

Besides, Tirkey also gave away the responsibility to the private school principals to look after the day-to-day welfare of two government schools. “One private school would adopt two government schools. The principals, after visiting the government schools, will prepare a note to get the progress chart ready for each school. The notes will be submitted to the government for appraisal in a series of meetings,” Tirkey added.

“The private school principals will not involve themselves in the monitoring but we want the students of government schools should be motivated after the principals suggestions to improve upon the mode of teaching,” he said.

The children, brought to the city from villages, would stay with parents to realise their dreams instead of putting them in hostels. “Our main focus will be to groom the underprivileged students who are denied basic facilities while studying in government schools. We have taken several schemes to make our students to have holistic development, but we find that in spite of spending crores, we are unable to impart them quality education,” he said.

Ashok Kumar Sharma, the Ranchi district education officer who was present at the meeting, said that his role would be to act as liaison officer among the private school principals to speed up the selection process of the underprivileged students.