12/3/10

Reflections on issues relating to Right to Education (old post)

Reflections on issues relating to Right to Education

Delhi Parents waiting for their little ones' turn to start schooling next year are on tenter hooks at the moment. As our younger daughter turned 3 this Diwali, I and my wife are going through some very anxious moments. I personally remember our experience of going through our elder child's admission process in 2005, which in comparison was a lot smooth sailing. For a while now, parents like us, are waiting for our education minister, Lovely Sahab's directions to schools, which hopefully will clear the cloud of the unwanted haze and facilitate the admission procedure including age criteria. In the short term, my concern is also that a confused system can not be a substitute for the 100 point system developed by Ganguli committee, which was a rational and transparent system at the least. I fear, if sufficient care is not taken in understanding and reflecting on the ground level problems while framing of the guidelines for nursery admission at this stage, all kinds of anomalies and aberrations would start surfacing soon.

The problem, however, goes much deeper and is full of its own complexities. I think implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) is going to be much messier than what's been thought of and witnessed so far. I am writing this blog to draw attention of readers to a couple of practical issues related to inclusion, accessibility, availability and quality of school education specially from the point of view of the disadvantaged categories (which being a broad category includes dalits, STs, minorities, girl child and physically and mentally challenged) but not restricted to them in the spirit of education for all. The motive of writing is also advocating larger provisons in the RTE to recognise the role of voluntary (non profit) sector in elementary education field by crearting grounds for inclusion of the porest.

Lottery as a selection criteria for any given category, particulary those from the economically weaker section or EWS, as suggested by the ministry, seems problematic to start with. It takes a simpleton view of the issue of marginalisation with a teetless affirmative action intent along the lines of reservaion, which proved its inadequacy in the last 60 years, in broadening the social base for democracy or in democratisation of society. The assumptions underlying the theory of univeralisation of education are probably based on some simple statistical analysis leading us to believe availability and accessibility are non issues. My sense is even there is a fallacy. Are there enough well run schools within the reach of every child in our country, even in Delhi and NCR? If the answer is yes, then all other speculations are put to rest. But it's not so, that we all know. Then where do the left out children go, which I suspect will be mostly from poorest families i.e. so called EWS and many of them would be socially disadvantaged too. We sure have schools, but how many will go beyond guarded open door policy admitting disadvantaged category is anybody's guess.

A relevant question that we should be asking at the moment, is what it takes to run a reasonably good school catering to EWS and socially marginalized where even the State run schools are non functional? I am surprised, these fundamental questions seemed to have evaded those who have shaped the most ambitious RTE.

Starting of a school that reaches out to the child from the poorest family, is not just a matter of good mangement. What it requires is more than good school buildings and infrastructure, recruitment of qualified teachers and a good MIS. Running a good school that could cater the poorest, requires a thorogh understanding of how to work in a fragmented society such as our country and deal with the underlying complexities and barriers posed by inequal power relations. One needs to understand the absenteism issues, pertaining to both teaching staff and students. Then comes issues of quality and relevance and so on and so forth. Moreover, such a school requires social leaders with vison and commitment to egalatarian principles, prepared to work 24*7 - day after day - with students, their parents and community towards evolving a shared vision of educating the society. Even before RTE, there were schools and yet the goal of universalisation of educatio always seemed to evade us. The failing of these schools are in the absense of such leadership, for building confidence of the poorest by creating ground for their particpation in education. It implies attracting children to school education who themselves or their parents have never attended a school.

Inequity in the schooling system is a major concern that can not be addressed through half-baked guidelines. School education is a thriving business in our country all ready and many schools perpetrate norms which are unjust for the society. As expressed here by some members all ready, their admission criteria is based on parents' economic status as they charge exorbitant fees by even middle class standards. Its anybody's guess that strong lobbying would be at its peak at the moment, in protecting the interests of many such schools, whereas the axe may fall on many genuine voluntary sector run schools catering to the EWS and socially marginalized in remote and far off places of our country. In Bihar, Jharkhand and the northeast; we come across many places where government schools are in shambles, with falling walls and broken benches, absense of teachers, very high student teacher ratio etc. and the money spinning school industry is no where in the vicinity for it would not make any business sense for them.

I know of some determined initiatives in the voluntary sector, in the form of running schools for the under priviledged or disadvantaged in remote and far off areas of the countr, in Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Meghalaya. These schools are needed as they also become pegs for the communities to come together, take responsibilities and contribute, not just expecting the State to deliver. These schools could be viewed as instruments of imparting good education to the poorest, which itself is a sufficent ground for their recognition under RTE. I fear many such initiatives may die as they may not be able to fulfil the rigorous requirements under RTE.

On top of all these, a concern cutting across all kinds of schools, in varying degree, relates to quality of ecducation and its relevance. Quality is a subjective term, but many studies have shown poor standards of education specially in government schools. Priviledging learning by rot, as this means less work for teachers, reveals absense of creativity snd in some cases sheer laziness on the part of teachers. Relevance of education is a much deeper concern for a country of varrying contexts like India. The real challenge for the curriculum makers in our country is to make the common curriculum relevant to different social groupings and geographies. While generic value of education is immense as education itself is a higher goal of our lives, its intrumental value in transforming individuals and socities is something that we need to work on more as the enrollment increases. This would require understanding of aspirations of young people from all parts of our country, specially those socially disadvantaged like girls, tribal and dalit students and those from far off places. Otherwise, drop-out is going to be a major problem in the system.

Coming back to nursery admission issue, the whole nation is watching Delhi with a lot of hope. Any hasty and knee jerk reaction on the part of the education minister, could seriously thwart progress in implementing RTE, as evident in many other cases of constitutional rights conferred by the Indian State.