MUMBAI, July 24: If the city fathers have it their way, BMC schools might soon become techno-savvy, in keeping with the privileged plenty. Corporators cutting across party lines, passed a notice of motion to this effect, moved by the chairman of the civic education committee, Neeta Naik, at the general body meeting today.At a crowded meeting, nearly 20 corporators expressed their agreement with Naik and stressed that the BMC should initiate steps to ensure that students of BMC schools do not lag behind in any field. To make the plan a success, Naik suggested that voluntary social institutions should be permitted to conduct free computer education programmes in municipal schools. The BMC has not included computer education in the syllabi in any of its schools, yet. Reacting to this, Naik said the non-inclusion of computer education in the syllabus has kept the students away from being in tune with the world.After almost three hours of debate on the issue, former mayor R T Kadam, who was presiding over the meeting in absence of Mayor Vishakha Raut, put the motion in for vote, which was later passed unanimously. The final decision on this however, lies in the hands of the commissioner, after it is studied for feasibility.Naik, in a telephone conversation with Express Newsline said the idea behind the introduction of computers to municipal students was to make them self self-sufficient.``A situation has arisen when computers have become the need of the hour. To secure any job, one has to be computer literate. This facility however is available at private schools and so it should be introduced in municipal schools as well,'' she asserted.Some corporators were however sceptical about any institution imparting free computer education to municipal students. The standing committee chairman, Sardar Tara Singh, said that the students who come to municipal schools belong to poor families, and ``nobody will teach computers free of cost in Mumbai''.He suggested that NGOs and Rotary and Lions clubs should come forward help the BMC by donating the machines. The BMC can then appoint tutors, he said. Congress corporator Advocate K A Bastiwala also spoke in the same vein. He said if all the convent schools impart computer education from standard three and four, why not the municipal schools. ``This will increase the competition and municipal students too will come up for top honours. Social institutions should charge nominal fees from the students," he said, reiterating that noone will teach for free. There are 1128 BMC schools in Mumbai, out of which 51 are secondary schools up to Standard Ten.Professor Jitendra Shah, an educationist, feels there maybe two aspects to the proposal. On the one hand, a sincere philanthropist might wish to enter and do good or else those with vested interests might swoop in to make an easy entry into the BMC premises with the ulterior motive of not vacating.Commenting on the success of such a system, Shah aired his pessimism: "We cannot push in high technology when the existing culture in the schools is totally against learning new things." The first step, he feels is to upgrade the orientation of municipal teachers, who should help create an atmosphere for learning something new.
