In West Bengal, an unsigned and undated notice bearing the name of the state’s school education department recently surfaced, stating that the government, as part of its expansion plans, intended to operationalise schools through the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model.
However, the Education Minister of West Bengal, Bratya Basu, dismissing the matter, said that he did not have any information regarding any draft prepared by his department, proposing a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model for schools.
The draft circulated on social media clearly stated that to merge the best practices of both government and private schools, the School Education Department, Government of West Bengal (GWB), intends to operationalise schools through the PPP model and leverage the unused infrastructure of the government.
The government will contribute to encouraging private investors in the school education sector under the PPP model by extending more flexible government contributions by providing amenities like land or building or infrastructure to the investors.
An agitation against the notice came days after information surfaced on social media about the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme of GoWB. Several left-affiliated organisations of students and teachers, including Students’ Federation of India (SFI) and other Left-backed teachers’ organisations, threatened to agitate against the government if it went ahead with any such plan stating that the children of the lower strata will be deprived of basic education and private schools will get all the benefits.
State unit member of SFI Shubhajit Sarkar said, “This is a deep conspiracy to hand over the education sector to corporate groups close to the government. We will agitate against it. We are ready to go to any extent.”
Following the agitation against the notice, the government official said that in case of protests, the government will now carefully consider the draft.
Read all the Latest Education News and Breaking News here
Comments
0 comment