The Namma School Foundation launched by Tamil Nadu government is a scheme that invites people to donate for various needs of government schools. The portal has details of exact need of each school in the state and assures transparency and accountability of funds. This idea had been pursued by IE a decade back and happy to see that it has seen light.
If you are a regular reader of IE, you would remember one of our major missions with the Chennai Corporation during 2012-13. Then, IE had done a survey of 6 Corporation schools in Kodambakkam. We found they had good infrastructure like buildings, open ground, labs, classrooms, but all that they lacked were students! When surveying the households around the school, it was shocking to find that more than 80 per cent of them had enrolled their kids in highly priced private institutions. The reason being English medium of education and image associated with studying in a private school versus public one.
PPP in School Education
We had presented to the then Mayor Saidai Duraisamy that the quality of Corporation schools can be improved through public-private partnership. The idea was simple: there were close to 300 schools run by the Corporation of Chennai that are endowed with good infrastructure and spread across the metro. IE suggested that corporates could be roped in to bring the needed change and this could be done by tapping their CSR funds.
At IE’s call, industry veterans like Mr R Thyagarajan of Shriram Group, Mr S Ramadorai and Mr S Mahalingam of TCS, Late Mr C Ramakrishna, barrister evinced high interest. Imagine a corporation school, where the classrooms are neat and clean with modern facilities along with camps to check children health and train teachers. This would indeed be a dream school. Mr Saidai Duraisamy, infact suggested a school in CIT Nagar that was closed due to want of students, to test our model. Unfortunately, this remained a non-starter due to red tape.
Tamil Nadu is a forerunner in education and more than 80 per cent of schools are managed by the government or municipality. These, at one point of time imparted quality education and produced stalwarts like Management Guru C K Prahalad, Dr P V Indiresan and General Sundarji, among others. Over the course of time, their quality diminished and they did not keep up to changing times.
Namma School – replica of IE’s initiative
Recently, Chief Minister Stalin launched the Namma School initiative. This is the same idea that IE had battled for a long time. Namma School welcomes individuals, corporates and NRIs to fund the cause of upgradation of government schools. It has been registered as a Section 8 company and will function as a NGO that is sponsored by the government and corporates. Venu Srinivasan, Chairman Emeritus of TVS will serve as the Chairman of Namma School Foundation and Grand Master Viswanathan Anand is the brand ambassador.
The Namma School portal is well detailed. Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi, Minister for School Education explained, “we have worked extensively and listed exactly what each school needs. If it is a computer or any infrastructure facility, you would know the unit cost of that.” In the Namma School website, one can donate in cash or kind to any school or can spot a specific school through the drop-down boxes and sponsor directly to them. There is an option also to adopt a school. A video pavilion which is still under build, shows the before and after images of school and will soon provide a 360 degree view of the school.
Chief Minister started the donation with Rs 5 lakh and welcomed everyone to donate. “The education department has the highest budget allocation, but everything cannot be done by the government alone. I assure high transparency and accountability of contributions,” said the Chief Minister as he urged everyone to contribute generously. Around Rs 45 crore was collected during the inaugural.
This is a welcome move. Investing in education is an investment in future. Access to quality education is every child’s right. If this scheme sticks to its fundamental charter, IE believes that this would be another education revolution in the state and a model for the country to emulate.
