Public Schools in India
In the Indian context, a public school is generally a non-governmental elite educational institution, modelled on British public schools. These privately owned and well-managed schools are highly sought after. Some of the renowned public schools are the Delhi Public Schools, National Public Schools and Frank Anthony Public Schools. Affluent and upper middle class families send their children to such schools. The oldest public school in India is the Rajkumar College in Rajkot, which also houses boarders. For such public schools, the medium of education is English although at least one vernacular language is also taught as a compulsory subject.
Public schools often produce superior results and a lot of their students are later admitted to higher education institutions of repute, both in India and overseas. The IITs, which are the premier engineering colleges in India, have a large percentage of students from the Delhi Public schools around the country. The management bodies of such schools take the quality of education very seriously. Qualified and trained teachers are employed. The facilities and infrastructure provided to the students are excellent. In addition to the entire curriculum, they offer extra-curricular activities such as sports, science fairs, music and drama and general knowledge. The pupil teacher ratios are optimal. Public schools make a healthy profit, in spite of the intense completion.
It has, however, been suggested that these schools fail to provide education to children belonging to the poorer families. The respective state governments have looked for ways to address this problem. The Delhi government, for instance, has come up with a recent directive that all private schools set aside a small quota for poorer students. Students who are part of this quota are provided free education by the schools. As the initiative is still in its early stages, it is too early to comment on its effectiveness. This inclusion of the disadvantaged sections of society could well turn out to be a very significant feature of India’s public schools.
The contribution of public schools towards Indian society has been immense. A lot of well known people who have excelled in various fields – science and technology, fine arts, movies, sports, politics and journalism – are products of public schools. If you are looking for a listing for public schools in India, visit the website, IndianSchoolMart.com. It contains a listing of schools across India. The listings also provide features for each school that may be of interest to you.
