From the next academic session, primary schools run by Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) are in for a complete makeover. The civic body has decided to teach two of the main subjects — mathematics and environmental science —in English medium. The move is being seen as one of several efforts to cope with the competition from mushrooming private and convent schools. Mayor Archana Dehankar said, "Despite several efforts, corporation schools are finding it hard to come up to the standards of private and convent schools. This is an attempt to draw level with them. Dehankar said that the education department is starting various programmes and adopting new technologies to compete with elite schools. "The education department has decided to outsource training of over 900 teachers so that children studying in primary and secondary schools have good teachers," said Dehankar. "We cannot overlook the significance of technology, so we have also introduced computer training for students in the zero-hour period," she said. With more and more private and convent schools opening up in the outskirts of the city, the enrolment of students in corporation schools has shown a sharp decline. Parents prefer to send their children to private schools irrespective of the distance the children have to travel daily, NMC enrolment figures show.