Many Matriculation schools have not yet re-opened. Even those that have, are in a miff. Thanks to the common fee structure heralded under the Samacheer Kalvi programme. Fee structures have suddenly been lowered quite drastically - and schools have been strictly told not to charge their students more than the stipulated fee. One common refrain from schools is 'how can we pay our teachers good salaries if we take less fees from our students?' The quality of teaching in schools will come down, say school managements, in what appears to me to be a veiled threat.
I don't want to debate this stand. I don't know enough about it. I don't know on what basis the government agencies have structured fees. I don't know how schools have been so far structuring their fees. I also don't know where all the revenue of the school goes, nor how much of it is actually disbursed as teacher or staff salaries. All I know is, teachers have never been getting good salaries. Not even in the era of unregulated fee collection.
And that leads to several questions:
So where has all the money been going all along?
If teacher salaries are so directly related to teaching quality, why have they not been paying good salaries and hiring good teachers so long?
What's the point in threatening to lower teacher salaries as a reciprocal measure? Or of making an emotional issue intended to touch a raw nerve in the parent community? Or of taking an aggressive anti-government stand and refusing to lower fees (as some schools have done.) Or of threatening to go to court for a stay?
Why can't our schools adopt a more positive problem-solving approach? Why can't our committees and associations of Principals or Correspondents or Managing trustees analyse a spectrum of school balance sheets and show how much of school revenues goes towards teacher salaries, or infrastructure maintenance or development? How will their budgets be hit by this new restriction? By how much will they fall short?
Can they transparently share their figures and then make a case out of it? Will that not be a more convincing and reasonable approach? Will that not raise their stock in the eyes of the public?
And again, can't we look at alternative solutions? Can't school managements be practical and business-like and explore alternative revenue streams?
Now to take a closer look at school infrastructure.
Every school - even those with terrible infrastructure - have, at the very least, a school building, a computer lab, a library and a central courtyard. The best of schools have big playgrounds, play pens, audio visual rooms, mathematics and science labs, bigger and better libraries. After 3 or 4 pm when schools close shop for the day, none of these facilities are open for use. But can't these amenities and infrastructure be put to more productive use after school hours?
1. Can a school not open up its library as a reading room for the local community after school hours?
2. Can the school not throw open its school rooms to the local community to hold classes (music, dance, just plain tuitions)? Or allow a local debating society or a club to conduct its meetings for a small fee?
3. Can it not invite local children to play in its ground every evening for a fee?
Or the local women to collect for group chanting, or tea party sessions?
4. Can it not let out its av room for small conferences, meetings, training programmes?
5. Can a school management not tie up with a local enterprise ready to take on the responsibility of providing after-school care for school students?
Of course, it is not as easy as it appears. Of course there will be operational issues to consider. Property to be protected. Security to be ensured. Lots of debating and brainstorming to be done. But it seems to me that a lot of valuable resources are being serious underutilized. Perhaps the time is ripe to take a closer look.
Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. And its twin, innovation. If our schools will not display innovation, enterprise, and creative problem-solving in this dire hour of need, where will our students ever learn these qualities?
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