Govt schools compete with pvt ones to woo students

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Muktsar, February 19

To increase enrolment and compete with private schools, government teachers have taken to a novel way of making posters, highlighting the facilities being provided to students in these institutions. The expenditure is being borne by the teachers only.

Government High School at Butter Sharinh village has displayed 100 posters at prominent places in the village. Besides, the teachers are going door to door to inform the public about the facilities available in the school.

Aditi, headmistress, Government High School at Butter Sharinh village, said, “The move aims at enrolling more and more students. We have good infrastructure here, which we have mentioned in the posters. Punjabi and English are taught here. Then there are free books, uniform and mid-day meal. The school is equipped with reverse osmosis (RO) water treatment plant.”

Malkit Singh Khosa, District Education Officer (DEO), Muktsar, said, “A number of the schoolheads have made the posters and trying their best to get maximum students enrolled. It is a good step and has yielded good results in the past. I have appealed to the teachers in other schools too to take some innovative steps to increase the strength of students.”

However, sources in the Education Department said sometimes teachers carried out such exercises to avoid rationalisation of staff.

“The next academic session will begin from April 1. Thus, the teachers have started some exercises to get more number of students in their schools. It is a welcome step and school management committees are playing an important role,” said a government schoolteacher.

Meanwhile, Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Mandi, Harzi Ram, Malout, has started online registration of students. School principal Vijay Garg claimed that it was the first government school in state to go online.