PMC plans Rs 10 lakh campaign to attract students

In its bid to prevent thinning out of students from civic schools especially Marathi and Urdu medium the Pune Municipal Corporation PMC Education Board would be launching a special lsquomedia campaignrsquo to increase enrolment at its 310 schools in the city A budget of Rs 10 lakh has been set aside for the campaign that will commence in the first week of March New approach The main building of the PMCrsquos Education Board at Shivajinagar PicKrunal Gosavi For the first time ever the board would be using mediums like hoardings flex boards road shows and even advertising on some private television channels to promote its schools The board officials believe that this kind of promotion would help boost numbers in classrooms in the new academic year which starts in June The proposed campaign would be on between March and May Booster dose The Pune Municipal Corporationrsquos Education Board will be using mediums like hoardings flex boards road shows and even advertising on some private television channels to promote its schools Representation Pic ldquoStudents dropping out is a major problem Several parents want to enrol their children in private English medium schools But the fact is facilities we provide in our schools are on par with the ones offered in private schools The only problem is that awareness about PMCrun schools in society is very low The proposed campaign will succeed in doing the needful which is the need of the hourrdquo Education Board Head Shivaji Daundkar said ldquoWe are going to fix electronic signboards at five major locations in the city Besides we will be arranging special road shows through which we would be covering slum areas in the cityrdquo One of the important aspects of the promotion drive would be doortodoor visits and awareness meetings ldquoWe are going to include all 2500 teachers and 1500 employees including all officers of the education board in this drive They will hold small awareness meetings in the areas where we can expect enrolments in schools located in the vicinity of these areasrdquo Daundkar said Deputy Education Officer Shubhangi Chavan said the main problem the board faces is the lack of awareness on the part of slum dwellers about the existence of civic schools in the vicinity ldquoParents are clueless about our kindergartens where we provide free education and uniforms to children aged between three and six We can highlight all the facilities through our special campaign on local television channels If we are able to attract children through this campaign then it will increase the overall number of students across all the 310 schoolsrdquo Chavan said Member of Education Board Shirish Phadtare said it was a genuine attempt on the part of the board to attract students from all strata of society to the wellequipped civic schools and he praised the decision to conduct a special campaign to promote civic schools ldquoWe believe that the said campaign will definitely increase the number enrolments in our schools for the upcoming academic year which commences in Junerdquo Phadtare saidu00a0 English first As parents prefer enrolling their children to English medium schools civic schools witnessed a record number of enrolments for the current academic year that stood at 3359 students While the fall in the number of students seeking admissions to Marathi Urdu and Kannada medium was recorded at 3096 The number of students from Std I to Std VII at civicrun English medium schools shot up from 7613 on September 30 2011 to 10972 in July 2012 A similar increase was observed at kindergartenlevel where the number of admissions recorded for the current academic year is 6198 studentsu00a0 Sstudent statistics Students in Marathi medium September 2011 66758 July 2012 64182 Total dropouts 2576 Students in Urdu medium September 2011 7140 July 2012 6651 Total dropouts 489