WHY POOR FAMILIES HESITATE TO SEND CHILDREN TO GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS ?

Government of Tamil Nadu is spending several hundred crore of rupees every year in maintaining the government schools. Teachers in the government schools are very well paid. Students studying in government schools enjoy considerable benefits such as free meals and are provided text books, school bags, uniform, cycles, laptops free of charge . There is practically no tuition fees.

Inspite of such incentives , poor families hesitate to send their children to government schools. The hesitancy of the poor families would become very clear, if anyone would care to talk to the parents and interact with them.

These days, most of the families in Tamil Nadu including those belonging to lower income group have only two children and are very keen to provide best education to their children.

Many women and children, particularly in the poor families, are suffering , as many menfolk have taken to liquor habit in a big way and squander their earnings.
In Tamil Nadu today, number of poor families are managed by mothers and grand mothers , who work hard and run the families. The important aspiration of these mothers and grand mothers is that the children should be educated well and they must be provided with quality education. They think that discipline in most government schools are poor and the climate in the schools are not very conducive to provide quality education . Therefore, they are afraid that their children would not be benefited to get quality education , if they would be admitted in the government schools. This is the ground reality whether the government would admit or not.

Under the circumstances, many poor families want to admit their children in private schools in spite of exhorbitant fees, as private schools are believed to provide quality education.

Of course, there are government aided schools ( which are different from government owned schools) where the discipline and educational standards are better and fees are minimal but they are few and far between and very limited in number in Tamil Nadu. More government aided schools are not coming up.

As the government of Tamil Nadu want to enable the poor children to get quality education, the government must necessarily improve the standards of government schools. This is not difficult , if the government have the will to do so.
Probably, this will happen if the Chief Minister would order that all children of ministers and their close families as well as the children of IAS and IPS officers and their close families and other government employees should send their children only to the government schools.

There is nothing wrong in such government policy , as the ministers and government employees get salaries and perks from the government and enjoy variety of benefits including life long pension for them and the government schools are owned and managed by the government. Then , with such policy, the government and the authorities would ensure that standards in government schools would improve, atleast in their self interest.

This may be an utopian and unrealistic expectation but this will meet the need of the poor families and the need of the day.

N.S.Venkataraman
Nandini Voice For The Deprived more