Cities with large migrant population can take a leaf out of the Surat model, where the municipal corporation has been running over 120 special schools to cater to the needs of the city¡¯s workforce.
Officials said running these schools in languages other than the native Gujarati has encouraged the migrant workers to bring their families to settle in the city.
Over 66,000 students have been enrolled in these non-Gujarati medium schools and their numbers have been increasing in this city, which is known as a hub for textiles and diamonds. Large number of people have been migrating to the city from Hindi-speaking states, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.
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Official data show that a maximum of 55 schools catering to the primary standards from Class I to Class- III are in Marathi medium, followed by 28 Urdu medium schools. The SMC runs seven schools where the medium of instruction is Odia and there are three Telugu medium schools in the city.
¡°We have 25 Hindi and nine English medium schools. We have started the secondary classes in Marathi and Hindi mediums as well to ensure that children of migrants get adequate educational opportunity. You can¡¯t expect majority of people who have come here for work can afford for private schools.
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We are perhaps the only municipal body which runs schools in so many languages and their number has been increasing.
Once a city caters to the educational and health needs, people prefer to bring their entire family to their place of work and that¡¯s a good sign for a city,¡± said an official.
Municipal sources said such schools were conceptualised in late 1990s considering that a large chunk of the people coming to work in Surat were migrants. Referring to the 2001 census data, they said migrants constituted about 30% of the city¡¯s population.
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¡°These are the softer features of a city to be called as a smart city rather than just building high rises and iconic structures.
Surat has been a model for its inclusive approach to meet the requirements of different sections of the society. The SMC has also undertaken some building complexes for the homeless,¡± said an official of the housing and urban affairs ministry.