Private schools’ staff work on holiday to get new admissions

It seems many private schools authorities are making hay while the sun shines. With their counterparts in government schools pre-occupied in Sikhya Kranti activities, the private schools are trying to enrol as many as students as possible during the new academic year.

Even though Tuesday was declared a public holiday, heads and teachers of some private schools continued to call residents to impress upon them to get their wards admitted to their private schools. Recent announcement of Class VIII results by the Punjab School Education Board is further proving helpful for private schools in alluring students for Class IX to their institutes.

However, Aam Aadmi Party legislators Jaswant Singh Gajjanmajra and Mohammad Jamil-ur-Rahman have claimed that residents of all three subdivisions of Malerkotla district were enthusiastic to shift their wards from private institutes to government schools in general and Schools of Eminence in particular after they were invited to functions being held to inaugurate various projects undertaken at 162 government schools.

Gajjanmajra and Rahman further said that projects worth lakhs had been undertaken at almost all 98 primary and high schools falling under Amargarh segment and 64 schools of Malerkotla subdivision. The AAP legislators said the state government led by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann was poised to provide facilities at all government schools on a par with their private counterparts, so that wards of poor and middle class families can have access to quality education near his or her home.

They said it was for the first time that the government had earmarked 12 per cent of the budget for education and teachers were being updated on the latest in their fields by spending lakhs on their visits to foreign countries.

Ahmedgarh and Malerkotla SDM Harbans Singh said the authorities at various government schools had already been sensitised about undertaking administrative, academic and promotional works in such a manner that students or their parents are attended to properly even when a function is taking place at their venues.

On the other hand, headmasters and principals of private and private-aided schools of local towns and surrounding villages said preoccupation of authorities at government schools had given their staff a chance to bring more students to their institutes and persuade their old students to not to get allured by short-term propaganda. “When it comes to the question of survival, everybody will try to strike the iron when it is hot,” argued a principal who claimed that a substantial number of old students of government schools had approached himm for admission in Class IX.

Ludhiana