Afternoon classes to ease pressure?

Education

In recent times, there has been a substantial increase in the number of kids who are ready to take their first steps towards school. However, the deplorable condition of government schools and lack of seats in private ones are acting as roadblocks in fulfilling dreams and desires of both, the parents and children.

In order to accommodate the pressure, Delhi Government is ready to look into the possibility of allowing private/unaided schools to run afternoon shifts. However, the proposal is not to be mistaken as ‘blanket permission’ by the schools, and will be taken up on a case-to case basis.

There are some schools which will go for the afternoon shift to make optimal use of the facilities that they already have and also cope with the admission rush. But “there will be schools who will pick the scheme to fill their pockets. To prevent such cases, there will be a committee to take into account the infrastructure, teaching staff and other factors before granting permission,” says RC Jain president, Delhi State Public Schools Management Association.

In any case, there are several schools running an evening shift. Most though, are for poor children who pay nominal or no fee at all. Ahlcon Public School, a private school in Mayur Vihar is one such.

“Since 2000, we have been running evening classes. It was not a proper afternoon school because we used to take only three hour classes for students coming from the weaker sections of the society. It was a kind of social work from the school management side,” says RK Sharma, principle Ahlcon School.

However, the management is planning to stop the classes now, citing financial burden. “Running an afternoon shift is a tough task. We are planning to bring the classes to a halt given financial constraints,” says Sharma.

However, the problem also extends to the institutions that the government is running already. Some government and municipal schools have alre­a­dy shut down their existing afternoon shifts.

“Since 2000, the DDA has not constructed any new school. Considering the fact that each year 50,000 new kids are ready to get enrolled, around 250 government schools run by Delhi government and MCD have closed down their afternoon shifts,” says Jain.

The reason is being attributed to additional financial burden on the school. Giving the same facilities as available in the morning shift and appointing additional teachers for the evening shift adds on extra burden.

Today, more than 300 government schools and 700 MCD schools that are running afternoon shifts lack proper infrastructure facilities. Will the scheme work any better in private and unaided schools?