Breakfast scheme lures kids from pvt schools

VELLORE: The success of Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme has had an unexpected fallout – primary class students leaving private schools in large numbers to join government primary schools, sources said.

Subsequently, it has resulted in private, self-financing schools cutting down on both teaching and non-teaching staff as they are unable to meet their salary needs, which were till date met through the collection of fees from students.

The impact is more in rural areas than in the Vellore town, sources said.

Fr Johnny, correspondent of Sneha Deepam Higher Secondary School at Vasur on the outskirts of Vellore town rued, “Our original strength of 2,000 has now been reduced to around 1,000 as students in the primary classes (Classes 1 to 5) left to join government primary schools due to the attraction of the CM’s Breakfast Scheme.”

Similarly, another school operated by the catholic community at Veppur near Visharam, 12 km from Vellore found its 1,300 student strength reduced to around 300 now, sources revealed.

The same is the case with minority run self-financing schools in the Vellore and Katpadi areas though the loss is not as much as in rural areas or those on the outskirts of Vellore Corporation.

“As rural households are mostly poor economically, the breakfast scheme has been a godsend which helps parents work without feeling guilty about sending their wards to school without morning tiffin,” a source revealed.

“As in addition to breakfast, government school students also get free lunch, text and notebooks, uniforms, cycles and laptops all free, they naturally gravitate toward government schools,” a Vellore school correspondent refusing to be named said.

Reiterating this, Fr Johnny said, “as self-financing schools rely on students’ school fees to meet related needs, including the salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff, we have had to let teaching and non-teaching staff leave resulting in staff strength coming down by nearly half.”