State to admit tribal pupils to private institutions

MUMBAI: With rising complaints on the poor facilities and corruption at tribal ashramshalas or residential schools for tribals across the state, the government is now planning to admit the children to private residential schools instead of their own government ones in phases.

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In the first phase, about 80 such boarding schools with less than 30 students have been identified to be shut down after shifting the students.

The state has 528 tribal boarding schools meant for the education of 2.10 lakh students from more than 10districts. Though the state spends more than Rs 450 crore on such schools, the facilities provided to the children are of poor quality with financial irregularities. The BJP government has decided to outsource the service by shifting students to private residential schools under its new schemes.

“Since 2009, we have been admitting tribal students to English medium private residential schools . In the last two years, we increased the number of seats to about 20,000. This has taken the total number of students studying in the such schools to 49,000 this year from just 6,000 students in 2014-15,” said Rajgopal Devara, principal secretary, tribal development department.

“The private schools are given about Rs 60,000 a year per student for facilities including uniforms, accommodation, food and books among others. In government residential schools, the per student expenditure is higher,” another official said.

In a recent review by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, the department was directed to divert the number of students to private schools to improve on the quality. “With the rise in the number in private schools, the Ashram Shalas have been finding it difficult to find students,” said another official.

“The conditions in the private schools too are not very great. Tribal students are isolated and given secondary treatment,” said Rupesh Keer of NGO Samarthan, which works for tribal issues.