While the Shiv Sena drums up a feverish pitch on its Mumbai for Maharashtrians campaign and aggressively pushes the cause of Marathi, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) ruled by the party is struggling to run Marathi-medium schools in the financial capital and ended up closing 27 such schools last year because there were not enough students to sustain the schools, reports Indian Express.
On the other hand, the country's richest civic body is witnessing a steady rise in the number of students wanting to study in its Hindi medium and English medium civic schools or go to private schools.
Officials said this was a reflection of the demographics and cultural aspirations of even the city's not-so-well-off classes who generally send their children to civic schools.
BMC schools cater to about 4.4 lakh students of the total estimated 16 lakh in Mumbai who study in classes one to 10. Data accessed by The Indian Express showed that the number of Marathi-medium BMC schools fell to 407 last year from 434 in 2008, the number of students in these schools fell by nearly 20 percent to 107,413 in 2009 from 132,725 in 2008.
On the other hand, the number of students studying in Hindi-medium BMC schools went up to 113,726 from 111,149 and those in English medium BMC schools went up to 26,637 from 21,138 during the same period. While the number of Hindi medium schools stayed the same at 234, BMC opened two new English medium schools last year to take the total to 48.
BMC also runs Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati and Urdu medium schools and officials said that besides Marathi other regional language schools also saw a fall in the number of students last year. Urdu medium schools, which teach nearly 1 lakh students, were the other which saw a rise in students along with Hindi and English.
“Parents feel that their child's future is limited if he or she studies in Marathi and that English can boost their chances of securing a better living,” said a BMC education department official.
The numbers have come as an embarrassment for the Shiv Sena at a time the party is seeking to up the ante on identity politics, largely seen as an attempt to outdo its rival Maharashtra Navnirman Sena which hurt the Shiv Sena badly in the Lok Sabha and the Assembly elections.
Mayor Shradhha Jadhav said that the BMC would try its best to keep Marathi schools running despite the falling numbers. “It is unfortunate that parents prefer private and English medium schools to Marathi schools,” she said. “The need is to create awareness among parents about the importance and value of Marathi and the need to preserve the language.”
Chairman of the BMC standing committee and Sena MLA Ravindra Waikar said that the BMC would introduce schemes to attract parents to Marathi schools. “It is unacceptable to see these falling numbers and we will bring out schemes so that Marathi schools don't die,” he said.
