To fight inefficiency, Uttarakhand adopts PPP model for its schools to fight

The Uttarakhand government has, through an initiative it hopes would improve the standard of education, decided to run its schools under the public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

For the first phase, the department of school education has proposed to set up five senior secondary-level residential schools which would impart education from classes VI to XII under the Rajiv Gandhi Navodaya Vidyalaya scheme through PPP on build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis.

The five schools are Diwarikhal in Uttarkashi district, Sumari Bhardar in Rudraprayag district, Gairsain in Chamoli district, Amsarkot in Bageshwar district and Tumaria in Udhamsingh Nagar district.

The state Cabinet has already given its nod to run these schools under the PPP mode.

“This is the first such initiative in the education sector to improve the level of education in our schools. Due to the low standard in, the strength of students is not encouraging,” said P S Jangpangi, additional secretary, school education.

According to official sources, scores of government schools have already been closed down in Uttarakhand, partly due to a shortage in teaching staff and more importantly, poor management.

The department of school education would provide land for setting up the schools under the new model. The concession, according to education department officials, wouldbe for a period of 30 years including two years for construction work.

The maximum number of students will be 422 in all the four schools except that of Tumaria in Udhamsingh Nagar district where there is a provision of enrolling a maximum of 844 students.

Under the PPP model, half the strength of the total number of students would be reserved for government-sponsored students. The government would pay 100 per cent school fees based on the value of grant quoted by the bidder, officials said.

For the remaining 50 per cent seats, the concessioner can charge fees going by the market rates which the government thinks would be a major incentive for running the schools. “This is going to be an experiment where we will witness the results first. If the results are encouraging, we will operate more schools on PPP mode,” said Jangpangi.

BS