35 Marathi-medium schools shut or turned into English-medium

MUMBAI: Over the last few years, around 35 Marathi-medium schools and other vernacular-medium schools run by the civic body were shut or are being converted into semi-English or English-medium schools. According to the civic body’s education department, parents nowadays prefer English medium schools to any other mediums.

To find a solution for this issue, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation  (BMC) have initiated Mumbai Public School (MPS) which is an English medium school and even International schools which will have a Cambridge-based curriculum. There are around 35 to 50 MPS schools in the city. As of the International schools, 25 schools will be started from the coming academic year.

“The demand is for English-medium schools and International boards by the parents. We only go for what the parents ask us and hence we have decided to give certain extra provisions for the English-medium schools,” said a senior official. He further added, “This does not mean any less preference isgiven to other regional or vernacular medium as there is still demand for Hindi, Telugu and Tamil medium is high in certain parts of the city. We are doing what the parents ask for in the best way possible.”

According to Praja Foundation report, since 2012-13 academic year to 2016-17, the enrolments in class 1 in vernacular-medium schools has drastically decreased. While in the year 2014-15, the number of students was 7,131 in Marathi-medium schools, in the year 2016-17, the number fell to 5,631 students. Similar is the case in other vernacular-medium schools such as Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu.