Primary/Secondary/Higher Secondary Education

Email sent to HRD Minister Smriti Irani on 02-Jun-2014

Dear HRD Minister,

Congratulation for being the youngest cabinet minister in the parliament. I believe you already got hundreds of suggestions, advice on what you should do in next 1 year (10 suggestions from Sagarika on twitter). This mail is no exception. We know that education is a state subject, but centre's role should not be limited to formulating strategy like RTE and do nothing.  Let me share my ideas what HRD ministry at the centre can do to compliment state investment on education.

Primary/Secondary/Higher Secondary  Education

Build at least 5 iconic schools (from primary to H.S.) in each block in next 3 years totalling 25,000 schools. These schools will have all the modern facilities like spacious class room with big LED TV and projector, good library, educational software, 1 computer for every 10 students, state of the art practical room, big kitchen with dining hall to accommodate 1,000 students, playground, swimming pool, auditorium, facility for indoor games like badminton, table tennis, branded school bus.

Number of students in each class should be limited to 100 divided into 2 sections. Number of teachers should be at least 40. Lunch will be cooked and served in the school itself.

I guess each school will cost onetime Rs 4 crore to build and running cost of school maintenance, teachers' salary and mid day meal. Big question is who would finance it? Short answer is We. let's work out some out of box ideas

a. Corporate finance: For every 25 employees, company has to buy an education bond which is equal to the average annual salary of the company or Rs 1 lakh whichever is lower. The bond will mature after 20 years with certain percentage of interest. Company has to purchase this bond each year for next 5 years.

b. Individual finance: Each individual earning more than Rs 20,000 per month must buy similar education bond which is 3% of his annual salary. The bond will mature after 20 years with certain percentage of interest. Individual has to purchase this bond each year for next 5 years.

c. Each student owes to the school Rs 2,000 per month as tuition fee which needs to be paid off within 3 years of getting a job. 

d. Part of education bond money will be paid off on maturity from recovered loan to the company and individuals

e. Allow advertisement within the school premise to raise money

f. Companies whose average salary is more than Rs 50,000 must sponsor a teacher for every 25 employees

Identify 10% of the school where special emphasis will be given on all kinds of sports specially Olympic events. So, additional investment is required to build indoor sports complex. We should hire a consultant from Russia or Germany to advise the ministry how to build world class sports infrastructure in the school.

We should encourage students to study astronomy. Powerful telescope should be installed at minimum 1,000 school premises.

Every school should be attached to an industry and experts would hunt for talents who will receive scholarship for higher study and special mentoring session. Number of scholarship may be limited to 1 or 2 per school.

I think centre needs to invest Rs 100,000 cr to build these 25,000 schools in next 3 years.