Out of the total 1,574 schools in Patna, only 21% are government-run. Besides, private ones have a better teaching, attendance record. But many of the private schools are not recognized by any official body. This puts their students in a spot while trying to pursue higher education. The schools could also face closure under the Right to Education Act, or RTE Act.
A study by India Institute, education think-tank, and the Newcastle University of Great Britain found that 21% of 1,574 schools were government-run while the rest are private ones. At least three-fourths of these private schools offered low-cost or affordable education.
This category of schools, they found, had a better record of attendance and teaching, as measured by parameters borrowed from education non-profit Pratham’s Annual Status of Education Report (ASER).
According to the study, at least 65% of the school students in Patna studied in private institutions, against a national average of around 20%.
“What has been found in Patna is unlikely to be different from many parts of India. Our study data is a complete census of the schools in Patna,” Baladevan Rangaraju, head of India Institute, told Prashant K. Nanda of the financial daily, the Mint.
The study team observed that about 30% of the students in the unrecognized private schools were “double enrolled” in government schools, he said.
Nearly 70% of the parents surveyed preferred to send their children to private unaided schools as in most of the cases the fees were affordable, the study found.
The report classifies private unaided schools into three categories based on monthly fees: 69% of them were low-cost schools collecting less than Rs. 300 in fees; 22% were affordable with fees of Rs. 300-500; and 9% were high-cost with fees exceeding Rs. 500.
The study also showed a parental preference to provide boys, rather than girls, with better education, Rangaraju said.
He added that the teacher-student ratio of 1:22 and the 90% attendance of teachers in unaided private schools were better than in government schools. Several studies have indicated that teacher absenteeism is a huge problem in government schools.
Vinod Raina, an educationist and a member of the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE), was quoted in the daily as saying that if the study says 78% of Patna’s schools are private then it’s a “junk study” as it has counted unrecognized schools as part of the system. “Anyone can not put a board saying it’s a school, come and take admission,” he said. CABE is an apex education advisory body that helps government in policy making.
Raina also argued that the quality of education in government schools was good. “The Board results tell us that the top scores come from government schools,” he said, referring to the Navodaya Vidyalaya and Central schools that have performed well in school board exams.
However, Rangaraju said closing schools for not adhering to the RTE Act may not be a fair assessment of reality. Under the Act, schools in cities need to have at least 800 sq.m. of space but that may not be feasible because of a scarcity of land and the not-for-profit nature of education.
“RTE talks about input without emphasizing on outcome. This needs to change if we want to improve the quality of education,” said Rangaraju.

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