THERE MAY be a government school run by Infosys or Bharati in remote parts of India under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model, if the issue related to fee does not turn out to be a stumbling block.

The possibility arose on Monday after a successful meeting of government officials with the representatives from 15 top companies working in areas related to education.

"We had people from top companies willing to invest in the area of higher secondary education," said a Planning Commission official.

The government wants to open 2,500 model schools of the total 6,000 in the 11th five-year plan in different parts of the country with private partners. The idea is to get financial resources from the market as the government would not have sufficient funds to open all the 6,000 schools by itself. The govern ment estimates that the cost of opening one school would be Rs 10 crore.

The model proposed for PPP says that government will provide some resources for infrastructure and will, therefore, have some stake in the running these schools. However, the managerial control of these schools will lie with the private part ner, a government official said.

After the first meeting with the corporate world, a commission official said, they have been briefed about the scheme and asked to submit their recommendations on the PPP model they want.

The official, however, said the corporate world appeared interested in playing a role in improving India's secondary education level. "There were discussion on what type of infrastructure and quality of education could be provided with the help of private sector," an official said.

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