Govt looking to overhaul ‘brand’ of govt schools

NEW DELHI: Brand building should be accompanied by implementation of good pedagogy, critical theories of development such as the National Curriculum Framework 2005...

ANNIE KOSHI, Principal,

St Mary’s, New Delhi

Government schools in India have for long been weighed down by a perception problem: the education they impart is suspected to be low on quality, making for poor learning outcomes, their physical infrastructure too deficient to allow them to focus beyond textbooks, and they are thought to have too few, well-trained teachers .

The National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is trying do to something to dispel the negative public perception, which has forced parents to turn increasingly to private schools, hurting enrolment in government schools.

A parliamentary panel asked the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry why new admissions to government primary schools had come down by 15% while they had gone up by 33% in private schools between 2010-11 and 2014-15. The ministry replied that a mushrooming of private institutions had hit enrolment and that some states wanted to set up new English-medium primary schools to reverse the trend.

Introduction of innovative teaching and learning techniques in classrooms, holding regular parent-teacher interactions and starting pre-school classes are some of the steps the NCERT is considering as part of a branding exercise aimed at improving the image of government schools.

“Brand building should be accompanied by implementation of good pedagogy and critical theories of development such as the National Curriculum Framework 2005. If brand building is accompanied by improvement in the quality of educational transaction then it is a great step but if it is devoid of critical pedagogy and evaluation tools then it just becomes a cover-up for other things,” said Annie Koshi, principal at St Mary’s School in New Delhi’s Safdargunj Enclave.

NCERT conducted a national conference on March 27-28 on the theme ‘Branding of Government Schools’ to collect feedback on how to both dispel the negative perception of state-run schools in the country and improve the quality of education they impart.

“A number of papers were presented with many experts giving various suggestions including starting pre-schools... the issue of how to showcase government schools as a brand was also discussed,” said NCERT director Hrushikesh Senapaty.