Dummy schools in Ahmedabad? Coaching classes are tying up with regular schools!

By Rajiv Shah

Dummy schools? Well, this is the new term that has been coined -- and they are a "happening" in Ahmedabad, vibrant Gujarat's business capital. An insider who happens to occupy an important position in one such school told me the other day, what are known as many "classes" -- the after-school coaching shops -- have "tied up" with recognised schools.
"The children are helped by enrolling them in regular schools, which for them operate as dummy schools. They don't have to attend classes. Their attendance is marked as present. They appear in regularly in all examinations. Only once a week they are required to go to their dummy schools where they are enrolled, that too if they are science students, as the coaching classes don't have lab facilities", I was told.
I have no idea if the Gujarat government is aware of this development. However, it is highly unlikely that the politicians associated with the ruling BJP don't know about it, as many of them, as also those of the Congress, are known to run regular schools, privatised and government aided. Are dummy schools are just an extension of the privatisation of education, one of the main thrusts of the New Education Policy? Let policy makers take a call.

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