School merger plan ‘anti-poor’, say Opposition leaders

ROW ERUPTS

- HT Correspondent

LUCKNOW: The UP government's decision to merge primary and upper primary schools having less than 50 enrolled students is snowballing into a political row with opposition leaders labelling the move as “anti-poor and detrimental to education policy”.

Addressing party workers in Lucknow on Wednesday, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said: “The education system is in a bad state under this government...it is promoting privatisation. The BJP government is closing 5000 primary schools in the state as part of a conspiracy. These are the same schools that were made booths during elections and BJP is continuously losing.

If such a large number of schools are closed, where will the poor children study...how will the daughters go to study in far-off schools.”