BMC to ask state government for grants to run marathi schools

Mumbai, May 14 (UNI) The education committee of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will ask for grants to run the BMC-run Marathi schools, facing a high level of drop-outs.

The biggest problem faced by the Marathi medium schools in the last few years is that the level of drop outs is very high and the administration is not able to do much about it because of the lack of grants and other facilities.

''The state is telling BMC's education committee to reduce the number of school drop outs in Marathi medium schools and on the other hand it has stopped the grants allotted to language schools,'' said BMC Education Committee Chairman Mangesh Satamkar.

The drop out rate of Marathi medium school students in BMC schools has gone up because of the decreasing demand of Marathi in the job sector and also the decrease in facilities.

Satamkar said the State Government has taken a decision at a cabinet meeting in 2001 and written a letter to the Education Committee of BMC stating that the grants given to the schools will be stopped. The stopping of grants for the schools means that 50 per cent of the revenue for the school will come down thereby making it very difficult to run them.

Satamkar said ''It is very difficult for us to run the schools and we are definitely going to write about it and discuss the various issues with the state government.'' UNI