Class act

Sanskriti school in New Delhi is a shining,solitary example of what our civil servants can do when their own interests are involved. Run by the Civil Services Association,and attended by the children of government officers,it is easily one of the best schools in the city. Now,a Department of Personnel and Training proposal in the works wants the Sanskriti model to be replicated in state capitals across the country. In return for free land,it will reserve some seats for the children of state government officers. While the Right to Education Act mandates that a fourth of the seats be given to poor children,these schools have only 15 per cent to spare.

Its true that Central government officers have to schlep their families to various parts of India,uprooting their children,and many areas where they are posted lack decent schools. But Kendriya Vidyalayas KVs were set up for the explicit purpose of educating these children. The DoPT proposal weakly claims that they do not work very well because they prioritise children from other KVs. Its hard to imagine a Central school refusing to take in a civil servants child. Of course,the KVs may not pass muster on other fronts when compared to a Sanskriti-level experience. But its still the best our public school system has to offer so isnt this energy better invested in shoring up KV standards and expanding access?

This kind of proposal,in fact,feeds into the stereotype of the Central officers attitude to the areas they are posted to their families live in private bubbles of their own,largely interacting with each other and waiting for the term to end. If they had a little more shared experience with the average citizen,in areas like schooling and health,then theres no question that they would pay greater attention to improving them. Its a fact that there are not enough top-tier schools to go around but public administrators reveal their own narrow vision by walling off a specially-created school for their own children.