Rajasthan Pauses Bold Plan To Get Private Players To Operate Govt Schools

Smarting from the rout it faced in the recent by-polls held in the state, the Rajasthan Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) government has decided to shelve its ambitious plan of introducing public-private partnership (PPP) in the state’s education sector, The Hindu has reported.

The PPP policy was first notified to the state education department on 12 September, 2017 and 300 schools mostly in rural areas were to be handed over to private players as a part of the pilot. The private players to be selected through a bidding process, who would later appoint their own teachers and management staff to the schools.

225 of the 300 schools chosen for the pilot were in rural areas and had big buildings and playgrounds which were to be handed out to the private operators.

However, a notice that the policy is now ‘kept in abeyance’ has been issued by the state education department and a three member committee, headed by the state Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria, has been formed to look into the objections to the move.

The move was being protested by villagers and the teacher’s union, as well as some ruling party MLAs over the apprehension that the private players would raise schools fees and deny education to poor students.

The BJP had lost out to the Congress on two parliament seats and one assembly seat where by-polls were held, coming as a huge shock in view of the state elections that are to be held later this year. The move to repeal the policy is hence being seen as a result of these by-poll defeats.