Dhanya Rajendran & Alankrita Anand | The News Minute| July 15, 2014|
An advertisement on an online classifieds portal says: “Buy for 15 crore non-negotiable - Rs 2 crore per annum income guaranteed.”
The product on sale is not a restaurant, bar or even a vehicle. The advertisement is for a co-educational school on Hosur road in Bangalore. And these are its salient feature: the school is recognized by the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (ICSE) board and state board, and has 1,800 students studying in Classes 1-10.
Rs 2 crore income in a year? Well, the offer was too tempting to refuse.
The News Minute called on the number accompanying the advertisement. A person named Praveen who said he is authorized to speak on behalf of a ‘Sai Trust’, told us that the trust was planning to start another educational institution and so wanted to raise money by selling this school.
As we haggled about the price, Praveen assured us that the deal is a fair one as the income generated from the school can be increased according to will. “As of now we collect Rs 15,000 as donation from each student, this is why our profit is low. You can increase the donation and increase your profit.”
A quick glance at online portals and even advertisements in newspapers, and we realised that Praveen and this school in Bangalore are not an exception. We had a lot more options. There were many schools that have been put on sale.
Is it illegal to sell a school? No, it isn’t. Private school infrastructure can be sold by the management. But what’s unscrupulous is the brazen manner in which the advertisements project schools as money minting machines.
Baladevan Rangaraju from think-tank India Institute says it’s perfectly legal to sell schools. “Registration of schools happens in three stages- first the trust or the society is registered, then the school is recognized by the state government and the affiliation to a central board like CBSE or ICSE comes only when the school is till 10,” he said.
Renni D’Souza, who has worked with child rights and children’s education says, “There is no problem in selling a school, this just means a change in management. The problem is there is no one to monitor CBSE and ICSE schools properly, because their regulating offices are based in Delhi or elsewhere.”
Both however added that it was unethical to sell schools on the basis of profit.
One advertisement put up by someone wanting to sell a school in Coimbatore says, “School is a good business. Invest and make 2 crore rupees per annum.”
When we called up the number given on the advertisement, a man who claimed to be a ‘broker’ authorized to sell the school said, “The school is on the Mettupalayam highway. There are good facilities.” With this, the man offered some sage advice: “After you buy the school, you can decide whether to retain staff. And if you do, the salaries to be paid are your discretion.”
An ad for a school in Delhi is even more curious. The ad says, “Sale for 26 crore rupees. 2500 square yard DDA, land allotted by Social Culture Centre, one acre land school backside - but case in Supreme court.”
Pretending to be from the ‘Sai Trust’ (inspired from the Bangalore broker) we asked Thakur, the broker whose number was mentioned in the ad, what exactly the issue of the disputed land was about.
Pat came the answer from Thakur: “The land belongs to Delhi government, but we can use it. Since you are a Trust it is easy to get the land in your name, just need a good lawyer.”
The ad also mentions that the land can be used for setting up a restaurant, bar, exhibition centre, art gallery, drama training centre or canteen. How generous.
One common thread between all the brokers is that they will not reveal the exact details of the school or who owns it till the second layer of talks. “If you are ready to pay the money, then we can arrange a meeting,” said the Coimbatore broker.
Parents, activists, and even teachers have been raising concerns about the commercialisation of education. This state of affairs has literally turned education into a business.