There is no plan to privatise primary education, the Centre told the Parliament today. This statement was given by Minister of Human Resource Development, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank in the Lok Sabha today in response to Kaushalendra Kumar question on whether it is fact that NITI Aayog has suggested that Primary Education may be given to the private sector to reduce the burden of salary to teachers and other infrastructure.
In its three -year action plan, the government think tank NITI Aayog had suggested to handover non-performing or "hollowed" government schools to private players under the public-private partnership (PPP) model.
"PPP models could also be explored where the private sector adopts government schools while being publicly funded on a per child basis. This may provide a solution to the problems of schools that have hollowed and are incurring massive expenditures," the Niti Aayog had recommended in the action plan which was released in 2017.
High rate of teacher absenteeism, limited time spent on teaching when the teacher is in class and generally poor quality of education are among important reasons for this emptying out. Outcomes are worse in government schools than in private schools, the NITI Aayog's report said.
NITI Aayog has envisaged reforms to boost the infrastructure of the teaching sector of the country. In its "Strategy for India" report it has discussed about the current situation of teachers and the way forward to improve the sector.
The report carried by the think tank reveals the downside of teaching sector in terms of induction of teachers, in-service training, lack of robust system for balancing the demand and supply of teachers, among other factors.
Among the various measures the NITI Aayog has suggested for the improvement of teaching sector, is a national electronic teacher registry and performance indicators. The salary increment of teachers should be linked to an assessment of their performance, it has said.
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