AMC’s English-medium schools a hit

AHMEDABAD: Jai Devipujak, 6, rattles off all the alphabets of the English language with élan. The face of his father, Dipak Devipujak, beaming with pride, tells the tale itself. Dipak, a roadside vegetable vendor, is living his dream of educating his son in an English-medium school.
The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s (AMC) experiment with English-medium schools seems to be working out rather well.The civic body has set up six English-medium schools in the city with the aim of stemming the exodus of students from Gujarati-medium and other vernacular municipal schools to those teaching in English.
Today, there is a long waiting list of students seeking admission into these English-medium municipal schools. Encouraged by this enthusiasm among people, the AMC is now planning to set up another three English-medium municipal schools.
Administrator of Ahmedabad municipal school board, Lagdhir Desai, said that they had two English-medium schools in Kubernagar, and one each in Shahpur, Danilimda, Rakhiyal and Ellisbridge.
“These have attracted more than 1500 students, some of whom had withdrawn from municipal schools earlier. We are giving English-medium education free-of-cost,” said Desai. He further said that the response had been so encouraging that the municipal board will soon set up three more English-medium schools at Kankaria, Vatva and Paldi.
“We hope to see the new schools start operations from the 2015-16 academic year,” said Desai.
The fact that English-medium education is now available at municipal schools free of cost has made many parents shift their wards from private schools to civic body’s English-medium schools.
Yusuf Qureshi, a resident of Shahpur, now goes to the Shahpur municipal English-medium school. His father, an auto-rickshaw driver, shifted him from a private school in Dariapur recently. The private school charged Rs 350 as monthly fees from each student but Yusuf is not getting the same education free at the municipal school.
Principal of Danilimda municipal English-medium school, Kalpana Jadav, said: “We have a waiting list of 40 students for admission in the Standard 1. At present we have students from Chandola, Narol, Danilimda, Kankaria, Shah-e-Alam and Jamalpur.”
Now, much like private schools, administrations of English-medium have been forced to put up boards announcing ‘admissions closed’ when all vacant seats get filled up. Principal of Shahpur municipal English-medium school, Rekha Desai, said her school had two divisions which could accommodate 60 students.
“But we have 105 applications for admission. This clearly shows that the parents are now more inclined towards English-medium education, and that too at a municipal school. More such schools are the need of the hour,” said Desai.