subject: Choosing Between Private Or Public Schools [print this page] Which schools are better? The Private schools or Public schools? How do they compare with each other and what are the differences between them in terms of administration and style of education? This is a question a number of parents ask prior to deciding whether to sending their children to private school.
The comparison between schools can be done along the following lines :
Facilities offered
Class Size
Teaching methodologies
Overall Fee
Administrative Support
Many public school facilities are impressive while others are mediocre. The same is true with private schools. In the public school system, the twin engines of political support and the economic revenue base are critical factors for the success of the school. The facilities provided by private schools reflect the success of the school's development team and that of the school inorder to continue to generate alumni support. Some private schools have facilities and amenities which surpass those found at many top colleges and universities. Private schools also offer academic and sports programs which make full use of all those academic and co-curricular resources. It is hard to find these comparable facilities in the public schools because most of these Public schools are run by the Government which themselves function on a shoestring budget.
According to the NCES report, which is a confidential and comparative report based on a study of Public and Private schools submitted to the Government of India, the private schools have been favored in terms of their performance and administration. Why? Because most of the private schools have small class sizes with a student to teacher ratio of 15:1 to achieve the goal of providing each student with individual attention. On the other hand a public school has larger class sizes, sometimes exceeding 35-40 students in some city schools.
Public sector teachers are generally better paid in comparison to private schools because they are paid by the government scale and offer pension schemes to the staff even after their retirement. Public sector benefits include health and pension costs which have increased so dramatically since 2000 that the public school educators are forced to pay or pay more for their benefits as per their work.
The Private school compensation tends to be somewhat lower than public schools. Again, much depends on the school and its financial resources. In some private schools, which at times could also be International schools, the benefits are immense because they offer boarding facilities and meals. Some of these International schools like the Canadian International School or The Bangalore International School offer students with a variety of facilities like swimming, horse riding and the choice of a number of foreign languages.
Since local property taxes support the bulk of public education, the annual school budget exercise is a serious fiscal and political business because it is supported by government of India. Private schools can raise their tuition fee, and can raise significant amounts of money from a variety of development activities, including building and construction, alumni and alumnae, and solicitation of grants from foundations and corporations. The bigger the bureaucracy, the harder it is to get decisions made at all, much less get them made it quickly. The public education system is notorious for having antiquated work rules and bloated bureaucracies. Private schools on the other hand generally have a lean management structure. Every dollar spent has to come from operating income and endowment income. So, which one comes out on top? Public schools or Private schools? As is evident, there are no clear-cut answers or conclusions. Public schools have their merits and demerits. Private schools offer alternative advantages. Which works best for you? That's the real question which you have to answer.
