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VOLUME 8 ISSUE 3&4 MAY-AUGUST 2009
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THE HUMAN RIGHTS & LAW BIMONTHLY
Experts flay the
Bill as betrayal
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Right to Education Bill
No education 3-6 years
No right 14-18 years
Privatisation
Dilution of standards
Closure of govt. schools
Untrained, underpaid teachers
Neglecting mother tongue
Fee hike in private schools
Anil Sadgopal I Muchkund Dubey I Shantha Sinha I P M Bhargava I JBG Tilak
Niranjanaradhya VP I Madhu Prasad I Simantini Dhuru I Vrinda Datta I Nalini Juneja I LD Mishra
Minati Panda I L Joshi I Anil Nautiyal I Kumaraswamy I Akshay Kumar I Avinash Jhade I SS Thokchom
COMBAT LAW
MAY - August 2009
VOLUME 8, ISSUE 3&4
Editor
Harsh Dobhal
Senior Associate Editor
Suresh Nautiyal
Assistant Editor
Neha Bhatnagar
Special Contribution
Kiran Jyoti
Research Assistance
Lee MacQueen
Design
Mahendra S Bora
Deputy Manager, Circulation
Hitendra Chauhan
Editorial Office
576, Masjid Road, Jangpura
New Delhi-110014
Phones : +91-11-65908842
Fax:
+91-11-24374502
E-mail your queries and opinions
to: [email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Website: www.combatlaw.org
For subscription & circulation
enquiries email to:
[email protected]
Phone: +91-09899630748
Any written matter that is published in
the magazine can be used freely with
credits to Combat Law and the author.
In case of publication, please write to
us at the above-mentioned address.
The opinions expressed in the articles
are those of the authors.
Printed and published by
Colin Gonsalves for Socio Legal
Information Centre having its office at
576, Masjid Road, Jangpura,
New Delhi-110014
Printed at Shivam Sundaram
E9, Green Park Extension,
New Delhi-110016
Photo courtesy: Websites & others
CUPA'sOlastN
T
E
N
T
S
chance to salvage education
he UPA government is poised at a critical moment of history as far
as the right to education of the masses is concerned. It can go
ahead with the utterly flawed Right of Children to Free and
Compulsory Education Bill, 2008 and obliterate whatever little
chances exist today to change the course of history and make education meaningful and accessible for the poor. Or members of Parliament
can do some serious introspection and consult with experts in the field
and come up with something entirely new and revolutionary.
Revolutionary because education has remained in a rut for such a long
time, education policy making has been dominated by private sector
thinking and public funding has been so low till date that to genuinely introduce a system that will provide good quality education for the
masses will need a radical break with the past.
Make no mistake about it, elections can be won or lost on how we
educate the children of India. There is grave resentment and considerable disenchantment with the way school fees have been hiked in the
country and public education has declined. While the poor can see the
children of the rich getting fancy education, they experience the closure of government schools and the deterioration in standards.
Only 54 MPs out of 250 of the Rajya Sabha were reportedly present
when the RTE Bill was passed and that too by a voice vote without any
debate!
Through entire Europe and the United States the national governments play a dominant role to ensure that all children get free and
compulsory education often up to university. This education system is
oriented towards expanding the child’s mind and imagination so that
in her youth she is creative and critical. This knowledge bank is the
basis of the development of these nations.
The Nehruvian brand of democratic socialism envisaged a society
where all children, rich and poor alike, would be educated and given
a chance to extricate themselves from poverty, superstition and backward thinking. But with the onslaught of globalisation and the
increasingly intrusive role of international agencies, particularly the
World Bank, the thinking of politicians began to change. Educating the
masses of India began to be seen as wasteful expenditure without the
concomitant accrual of benefits. Neo-liberal economists have attacked
the expenditures on elementary education as resulting in spreading
resources too thinly. Thus the children of the upper middle classes,
whose parents could pay substantial fees were seen as engine of
growth assuming that giving them the highest standards in education
would result in economic prosperity. Any resources diverted for mass
education was seen as squandering scarce resources.
Successive governments under the influence of neo-liberal framework and international financial institutions allowed the standards of
government schools to decline to the extent that parents began pulling
their children out of school. The fall in attendance was then used as an
excuse to close down these schools. In big cities these schools were
often situated on prime urban land which were handed over to private establishments once the schools were shut. And the new Bill
intorduces provisions to fund these private schools, ostensibly to
admit poor students!
Educationists and experts in this country have now come to admit
what the working people have known for many decades, that the
Nehruvian commitment to mass education has been jettisoned and
replaced by education as a profit making business. The RTE Bill is the
culmination point of this historical shift away from the people.
Therefore, this is the UPA government's last chance to take back the
Bill, engage in consultations and make necessary changes to salvage
education.
T
Harsh Dobhal
C O N T E N T S
J U D I C I A L C O L LO Q U I U M O N R T E
14
India's education policy:
A historical betrayal
In a game where free market seems
to be the State's main answer to education, corporate capital and privileged sections of society come out as
the only winners of the RTE Bill
–Prof Anil Sadgopal
Judges call for implementation of constitutional mandate to provide education
for all. Academicians and experts hit at the
RTE Bill calling it a betrayal of the children of
India. A report by Colin Gonsalves on two-day
Judicial Colloquium on the Right to Education
4
32
40
48
Implementing Article 21A
–Justice Dalveer Bhandari
54
Don't neglect the foundation
of life
–Justice Mukundkam Sharma
56
Inadequate funding for
elementary education
For comprehensive economic, social
and human development, there is no
alternative to the State fulfilling its duty
towards adequately financing
education
–Prof JBG Tilak
When judiciary gave the
young wings to fly
61
Hidden Apartheid
Right to education is non-negotiable and those who are perceived
as drop-outs from schools are
actually pushed-outs from the system
–Dr Shantha Sinha
–Dr Justice BS Chauhan
64
RTE Bill: bane for
the poor
Discriminatory, lopsided
and myopic, the Right to
Education Bill will further
increase the divide between
the rich and
the poor
–Prof P M Bhargava
74
70
68
Meeting constitutional
obligations
Right to Educational Bill
The Bill can translate into reality with
required funding, good governance
and trained teachers
–Prof Nalini Juneja
–Justice AK Patnaik
Abolish inequality
in school system
Practiced by most developed nations
but hampered by the elite in India, the
CSS should be the most effective measure for building an inclusive society
–Prof Muchkund Dubey
A still born legislation!
This Bill is unconstitutional and inconsitent with the fundamental right to dignified life
–Dr Niranjanaradhya VP
78
Reinforcing colonial legacy
The Bill fails to check inequality and
discriminatory streams in education,
inherently tilting the whole system in
favour of the privileged
–Ms Madhu Prasad
84
Ineffective enforcement
–Justice Jayant Patel
2
C O M B AT L A W M AY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 9
C O N T E N T S
R I G H T T O E D U C AT I O N
88
87
Enforcing RTE Bill:
a Herculean task
Let private actors
also play a role
-–
–Justice Akil A. Kureshi
–Justice C. N. Ramachandran Nair
Education: development,
human capability, freedom
–Justice Biswanath Somadder
92
Urban poor out of schools
A journey through the narrow bylanes
of the Mumbai city that has 60 percent
of its citizens living in sub human
conditions where poverty and malnourishment rob the young ones of their
right to elementary education.
–Simantini Dhuru
98
Emphasis on pre-s
school education
With good quality care in pre-school
stage, the child, parents, family system,
and society as a whole will reap the
benefits
–Prof Vrinda Datta
104
In defence of childhood
Compulsory education of all children in the 6-14 years
age group is the surest and the most effective means of
preventing and prohibiting child labour
–Dr LD Mishra
108
Neglecting the disabled
Children with disabilities are regularly edged out of an education
system that is averse to acknowledge diversity
–Ravi Shankar Bhushan
Tender voices from the margins
111
Distressed, displaced, de-s
schooled
–L Joshi
112
Multitasking teachers
–Anil Nautiyal
114
School development &
monitoring committees
–Kumaraswamy
Goa Children's Act: Here floats the hope
–Desmond D'Costa
Musahar Tribe in Bihar: Aliens
within the marginalised
–Akshay Kumar
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115
116
117
39
A basic right
–Justice Rajiv Bhalla
46
Significance of RTE Bill
–Justice S Muralidhar
47
Tribals: Where a child means
two hands to earn food
–Justice PS Narayana
51
Make it a mass movement
–Justice Chandraiah
59
It is not the failure of the child
–Justice VN Sinha
69
Strengthen primary education first
–Justice Satish K. Agnihotri
82
Dont make it business
–Justice PK Misra
85
Bring govt. schools upto
standards of pvt. schools
–Ms Justice Ranjana P Desai
90
Extra-c
curricular activities
must be incorpated
–Justice Mukul Mudgal
101
Little hope for disabled children
–Anita Ghai
119
Discriminating against mother tongue
–Minati Panda
120
In MP its a double edged sword
for Dalits, Adivasis
–Avinash Jhade
123
Multiple failures in far northeast
–Surjit Singh Thokchom
125
Voices from village panchayats
126
One day in a primary school
in Bhilangna valley
127
3
AN OVERVIEW
THE RIGHT TO EDUCATION
Colin Gonsalves
his publication is an outcome of the Judicial
Colloquium on the Right to Education conducted jointly by the National Commission for
Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and the Human
Rights Law Network (HRLN) at New Delhi on
February 21-22, 2009. Three justices of the Supreme
Court and 24 justices of the High Courts together
with representatives of the National Human Rights
Commission participated in the colloquium.
Part I
T
4
In his keynote speech, Mr Justice Dalveer
Bhandari, Judge of the Supreme Court of India,
made a passionate plea for the implementation
of the Kothari Commission recommendations.
The Commission was opposed to segregation
between the rich and the poor and strongly
emphasised the common school system as a
powerful instrument for national development
and social integration. The Commission argued
for a neighbourhood school system attended by
all children irrespective of caste, creed,
community, religion, economic conditions and
social status.
Reviewing the past performance, Justice
Bhandari found that the overall picture was
very dismal. Referring to an NGO (Pratham)
survey he concluded that millions of children
could hardly read or write. The quality of
education was struggling. Most could not recognise numbers and a large percentage could not
decipher letters or words.
Criticising the government spending which
was less than three percent, the Judge commented that schools were either functioning
without buildings or with only one classroom.
Basic amenities such as drinking water, toilets,
blackboards and furniture were woefully inadequate. Over 10 lakh schools remain in very bad
conditions. He called for the revamping of the
entire elementary education programme.
Lastly, how long it takes to come. Dr Justice
Mukundakam Sharma, Judge of the Supreme
Court, stressed the Preamble of the Indian
Constitution declares the country to be
sovereign, social, secular and democratic meaning thereby should be equal participation of all
persons who enjoy the same status. Despite this,
there continues to be huge disparity and creation of different classes in the society. Poverty
and illiteracy are widespread making development impossible. The dropout rate is high. On
account of poverty India has a huge force of 13
million child labourers which continues despite
legislation enacted to eradicate child labour.
According to Justice Sharma, development is
impossible unless child labour is abolished.
Finding the existing state of education in
India very poor, the Judge was disturbed to
notice that the dropout rate was upwards by 50
percent and concluded that if such a rate continues havoc would be created in society. Citing
example of the national capital Delhi, Sharma
said that while some schools have the best
infrastructure and facilities, the government
schools do not even have toilets. Though
the rate of inflation has increased, spending on
education and health remained at the
declining stage.
Drawing attention to the Right of Children
to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, 2008,
the Judge acknowledged that there were certain
gaps and larger concerns that ought to be taken
into account before the Bill is passed. He specifically drew attention to the disparity between
private schools and government schools and
called for removal of the gaps and for equitable
quality education with special emphasis on government schools and schools in remote areas.
Dr Justice BS Chauhan did a survey of existing legislations and emphasised the decision in
Mohini Jain's case to say that the State was
obliged to provide educational facilities at all
levels to its citizens. Stressing quality education
he referred to the Andhra Kesari Education
Society case where the Supreme Court recognised the importance of B. Ed. teachers even for
the teaching of little children. Citing the Ram
Sukh's case the Supreme Court Judge argued
that untrained teachers should not be permitted
to teach children. He then referred to the Dental
Council of India case where the Court observed
that education is not a consumer service and
cannot be equated with shops. Citing the
Election Commission of India case he pointed
out that private school teachers ought not to be
assigned the duty of preparing electoral roles. In
that case the Supreme Court found the state of
primary education in India deplorable with a
Part I
AN OVERVIEW
heavy dropout rate particularly of girls despite
60 years of Independence.
The Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh
High Court, Mr Justice AK Patnaik, strongly
argued that the State should find all the
resources that are necessary to fulfill the constitutional obligation and that private institutions
also should be subject to the same constitutional and legal scrutiny as the State in matters of
admission and education.
Mr Justice Kureshi of the Gujarat High
Court said that while India could boast of some
of the finest higher educational institutions such
as the IITs and the IIMs, the state of local and
primary education was really poor and
remained largely in a sorry state. Despite 60
years of Independence, there has been no
change. Referring to the decision of the
Supreme Court in Ashok Kumar Thakur's case,
the Judge said that 63,000 schools in the country
did not have school buildings or were operating
in tents or under the trees. About 71,000 primary schools have no classrooms, 95,000 primary
schools have only a single classroom, 8,000 primary schools have no teachers, 1,50,000 primary schools have only a single teacher, and 60,000
schools have a pupil-teacher ratio of more than
100:1. Only 35 percent schools had safe drinking
water, 13 percent had urinals, five percent had
separate urinals for girls and six percent had a
lavatory. Children in the rural areas have to
walk miles to go to their school. And if there is
a school, probably there is no building. If there
is a building then it doesn't have a roof on top.
By God's grace if there is a school nearby with a
building and a roof then there is no teacher. If
there is a teacher then he does not know how to
teach. With this grim situation the Judge could
understand why many social workers,
economists and educationists had great misgivings about the Right to Education Bill. Referring
to the speech made by Justice Ramachandran
Nair of the Kerala High Court at the colloquium, Justice Kureshi differed with due respect
on the commercialisation of education.
Also from the same High Court, Mr Justice
Jayant Patel, referring to the US Supreme Court
decision in Brown vs Board of Education case,
argued, there cannot be two education systems,
one for those who can afford to send their children to a good school and another for poor people who send their children to an under-performing school.
Ms Justice RP Desai of the Bombay High
Court started her presentation, saying that there
are certain areas of conflict in the Right to
Education Bill which needs immediate attention
and redressal. Undoubtedly, the Bill implies
that education should be accessible to every
child, however, much debate is going about the
gaps in it. Education must be made available to
street children, children of migrant labourers,
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children with disabilities and child labourers.
The Judge expressed her doubt as to whether
the State could force parents to send their children to school. She could understand the provision of incentives but cast her doubts about the
implications of force. Referring to the state of
education in Delhi, the Judge found it problematic that children from slums are expected to be
admitted in schools for children of the higher
strata of society. She wondered whether they
would be treated differently and whether that
discrimination would dangerously lead to there
being two classes of students. She emphasised
that the endeavour ought to be to bring the
municipal schools to the standard of the
private schools.
Mr Justice PS Narayana, Judge of the
Andhra Pradesh High Court lamented the conditions of education for tribal communities and
migrant workers. Tribals are reluctant to send
their children to schools. The migrant population travel with their children who ought to be
in school. The Judge, therefore, saw a major
chasm between legislation and practice. He
came out strongly in favour of a uniform system
of education. Regardless of whether one is rich
or poor or from a scheduled tribe or caste, every
child should have an equal opportunity to read
and write and the State has to fulfill this right.
He felt that commercial institutes were flourishing because the State had failed to impart education to all. He did caution, however, that there
are certain private philanthropic trusts which
provide quality education. The Judge was of the
opinion that permission to set up educational
institutions should not be given to businessminded people whose only motive is profit.
According to him, there was no place in education for capitation fees.
Mr Justice PK Mishra, Judge of the Madras
High Court, shared his life experience saying
that when he was a student the attitude of
teachers was that of the Vidya Daan. By the time
his son had reached college, he discovered that
the attitude of teachers was starkly different.
Extra coaching for a fee was the trend whereas
earlier the teachers felt it to be their duty to
advise students free. This proliferation of private paid tuitions is representative not only of
the changing attitudes towards education but
also the cause of the falling standards of
education in our schools. There should not be
any need for extra private tuition outside
school hours.
The Judge believed that the government
schools could still be good schools. As a judge
he tried to improve the conditions of government-aided schools in Tamil Nadu. When he
discovered schools with two teachers for five
classes and 100 students, he decided that the
ratio of 1:40 should apply to each class and not
to each school. He rhetorically asked where do
5
Part I
AN OVERVIEW
6
the children of ministers go? Or, for that matter,
where do the children of the high court judges
and IAS officers go? According to the Judge, the
standards should be equal everywhere and
anyone should be able to go to any school,
college or hospital.
Justice Satish K Agnihotri, Judge of the
Chhattisgarh High Court, felt that contract
teachers have neither talent nor tenure and can
be terminated at any time. Such teachers are
often appointed to serve in two schools
simultaneously, sometimes 50 kilometres apart.
He rhetorically asked why education should not
be made available free and compulsory up to
class XII.
Justice Rajiv Bhalla, Judge of the Punjab
and Haryana High Court, lamented the desensitisation in schools, colleges, universities and
institutes of excellence, saying that these institutions are failing the nation.
Justice CN Ramachandran Nair, Judge of
the Kerala High Court, held a different opinion
indicating that the Kerala education system was
the best in the country with educational institutions sprouting up everywhere. His view was
that the people from the state could afford to
send their children to expensive private institutions and felt that it was not for the judges to
declare that education should not be a business.
He further stated "education is a business only,
nothing else and given the capital being invested in education it is unclear while some individuals deem it not to be so." According to the
Judge, "to get better education we are to pay for
it", since the government has no money to spend
on education and "one cannot expect the
government to divert its funds to education".
Mr Justice Biswanath Somadder, Judge of
the Kolkata High Court, came up with a suggestion that the priority of the moment was to
bridge the rural-urban divide. Education is freedom and leads to the ultimate emancipation of
the individual.
Mr Justice Chandraiah, Judge of Andhra
Pradesh High Court, described his visits to
schools in several districts where he found that
facilities either did not exist or were substandard. Food available to students was of poor
quality and the hostel conditions were
deplorable. There were hundreds of dropouts. It
was only after his visits that the collectors
inspected the schools and corrective steps were
taken. It was important, he said, for the judges
to look outside their courtrooms to see how the
education system in the country can be
improved. He felt that there was a dire need in
the country for a movement on the right to
education. To ensure free and compulsory
education for the uneducated and for those who
do not have schools in their villages.
Justice VN Sinha, Judge of the Patna High
Court, said that the conditions of the institutions
in Bihar were not up to the mark and that there
was a scarcity of good teachers.
Dr Shantha Sinha, Chairperson of the
National Commission for Protection of Child
Rights (NCPCR), shared the experiences of a
team sent by the Commission to Bihar. The findings of the team revealed there was no place in
the school for children and there was no school
available after class V in the vicinity. Dismissing
the view that tribals do not want their children
to be educated, Dr Sinha termed it incorrect and
said she had found tribals everywhere interested in sending their children to school. She spoke
of how in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh,
despite a situation of civil unrest, the local gram
panchayats had mobilised children to go to
school. Even in the relief camps of the displaced
persons in Tripura and Assam there was a
crying demand for education. Had the education system reached out to children they would
not have joined the labour force.
She identified lack of infrastructure as one of
the reasons for dropouts from school and characterised children leaving schools as push-outs
rather than dropouts. Instead of reinforcing
sturdy institutions and strengthening existing
structures the government has set up parallel
systems in the form of ad hoc programmes
through the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. The
Commission was of the view that the children's
right to education was non-negotiable and that
all children up to the age of 18 ought to be
provided access to schools.
Dr Sinha strongly condemned the commercialisation of education and said that it would
reinforce and widen the class divide and operate
as a system of hidden apartheid.
AN OVERVIEW
RIGHT OF CHIDREN TO FREE AND COMPULSORY EDUCATION BILL, 2008
Part II
BETRAYING THE CHILDREN OF INDIA
Professor Anil Sadgopal draws attention to
original Article 45 of the Constitution, which
directed the Indian State to provide within 10
years from the commencement of the
Constitution, free and compulsory education for
all children until they complete the age of 14
years. This timeframe ended in 1960! Presently,
more than 50 percent of the children in the 6-14
age group are being denied elementary education. The neglect and disdain of the State is camouflaged by the use of categories such as "nonenrolled children" and "out-of-school children".
Nothing, however, can hide the huge category of
dropouts for whom the State has failed to provide quality education. Referring to Articles 14
and 15(1) together with Article 45, he argues that
the State is duty-bound to provide education of
equitable quality for all children without any
discrimination.
Though at the time of the commencement of
the Constitution, there might have been some
validity in Article 45 limiting the right to education to the age of 14 years (class VIII). In view of
the radical change undergone in the socio-economic conditions there is no reason why Article
45 should not have been amended at least a
quarter of a century ago to include all children
up to the age of 18 years. Particularly in view of
the Convention on the Rights of the Child to
which India became a signatory in 1992 and a
child was defined as anyone below 18 years, the
right to education should extend up to 18 years.
Prof Sadgopal further argues that the language education discourse has been dominated
and distorted by the increasing demand for the
"English Medium" schools. This policy reinforces the powerful pedagogic role played by
the mother tongue as part of multi-linguality
which may include English as well.
Policymakers have failed to recognise that the
best way to learn any language (including
English) is through the medium of the child's
mother tongue in a multi-lingual ambience. As a
result, the vast majority of Indian children do
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not acquire the capacity to learn and articulate
in the state language or English and, in the
process, lose the capacity to do so in one's
mother tongue.
Tracing developments from the historic
"Unnikrishnan" decision of the Supreme Court
where the Court declared that Article 45 (in Part
IV of the Constitution, the Directive Principle of
the State Policy), had acquired the status of a
fundamental right, Prof Sadgopal outlines the
neo-liberal assault on the Constitution to legitimise the faultlines introduced by the World
Bank policies in India's educational system.
From the mid 1980s the western nations together with the World Bank and the IMF began operating in India. He outlines and criticises the
"non-formal education" provisions in the
National Policy on Education (1986) and the
Programme of Action (1986), the total literacy
campaigns, the UNICEF assisted Bihar
Education Project, the World Bank funded UP
Basic Education Project and the SIDA/DFID
assisted Lok Jumbish in Rajasthan. He also condemns the dilution of quality and standards in
the World Bank sponsored District Primary
Education Programme in 280 districts of India,
and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan which reduced
education to literacy. The two were designed to
co-exist with child labour, apart from promoting
inequality through education. Under-qualified,
untrained and under-paid instructors on shortterm contracts replaced the earlier fulltime
teachers on regular scales. They came to be
called "instructors" and later "para-teachers".
Prof Sadgopal explains how successive governments have continued to claim that the State
lacked resources for mass education while presenting no data to show that there was a
resource crunch. In any case, the rhetoric of lack
of resources was indicative of the unwillingness
of the State to address the critical issues of priorities. It is ironic that when India's economic
growth rate was touching nine percent and
Indian government hoped to be a superpower
7
Part II
AN OVERVIEW
8
by 2020, the State should claim that it had no
resources for mass education.
He explains how the Jomtien Declaration
(1990) and the Dakar Framework (2000) reinforced a powerful capitalist approach where the
UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank
persuaded India among others to progressively
abdicate its constitutional obligation towards
mass education and school-based elementary
education while at the same time making elementary education dependent on external aid.
As a result, in the 90s the vast government education system from schools to universities was
starved of funds and allowed to deteriorate in
quality. Children were either pushed out or they
walked out in protest against the poor quality
and irrelevance of education. This was the alibi
for the State to close down schools and convert
them into commercial ventures.
Instead of education unleashing human
potential and enriching consciousness in all its
dimensions, it became an instrument for
improving productivity, promoting consumerism and establishing market control over
knowledge. The State began abdicating its obligation towards education to let the market
become the unregulated service provider with
students as their consumers paying user
charges. The constitutional goal of education of
equitable quality was abandoned. A common
space for children from culturally diverse and
economically disparate backgrounds to
socialise and grow together is no longer considered desirable or feasible. Using the questionable rate of return theory, only that will be funded by the State which has a market value while
the creation and transaction of knowledge is
undermined, leaving India dependent on the
advanced countries for their knowledge
economies.
Turning his attention to funding issue, Prof
Sadgopal finds that public expenditure on education as percentage of GDP generally declined
since 1990 despite the levying of a two percent
educational cess by the UPA government in
2004-05. The UPA's national common minimum
programme which resolved today's educational
expenditure to at least six percent GDP was
abandoned. Thus the World Bank and other
international agencies managed to dilute and
distort the constitutional vision on education
while providing assistance which was
miniscule.
Criticising the Right of Children to Free and
Compulsory Education Bill, 2008, Prof Sadgopal
says that the Bill fails to guarantee free education even in government schools, legitimises
inequality and discrimination through a multilayered school system, excludes children below
six years, denies the right to secondary and
senior secondary education, shifts public funds
to private schools and continues discrimination
against government school children and teachers, leaves private unaided schools unregulated
to indulge in profiteering, neglects the mothertongue as a medium of education even at the
primary level, contains subtle provision that
exclude disabled children from schools and confining them to special schools or home based
education, fails to provide dignified conditions
of service for teachers and lacks a financial
memorandum to compel the State to provide
adequate funds.
He concludes by outlining an alternative
vision of school education envisaging a publicly
funded common school system based on neighbourhood schools. He calls for conducive environment where classrooms will be heterogeneous representing the diversity and disparity
prevailing in the neighbourhood. Only then will
the rich and powerful have a vested interest in
improving the government school system. All
schools will have a common set of minimum
norms and standards no lower than the Kendriya
Vidyalayas. Governance is not to be state controlled but decentralised, democratic, flexible,
transparent and accountable to the public and
the parents. Though there will be broadly a
common national curriculum framework, there
will also be flexibility to innovate. There will be
a common language education policy. The disabled children will be provided equitable space,
and the private schools can exist as long as they
can act as neighbourhood schools and accept all
the obligations.
Prof PM Bhargava remarked that if, as the
Arjun Sen Gupta Committee has pointed out, 78
percent of the population is living on less than
Rs 20 a day surely they would not be able to pay
for education. If the people's demand for education is not met there would be a revolution. He
argued strongly in favour of the common school
system comparing it with the one in France and
noting that virtually all the leaders of the country have evolved from such a system. He also
cited examples of Britain, Sweden and the
United States driving the point home that
in post independent India majority of the
great leaders were products of government
schools only.
Criticising the Right to Education Bill, he
said that it was not enough to guarantee education only up to class VIII, rather it should be
extended till Class XII. He found the Bill discriminatory as it encourages the division
between the rich and the poor. The government
schools have collapsed because of the commercialisation of education. If State funds are given
to private schools to admit under-privileged
children, they too will be discriminated against.
Prof Bhargava, therefore, suggested that the
State should de-commercialise school education, adopt the common school system and
establish 400,000 schools where education is
Part II
AN OVERVIEW
totally free. This could only be done if the State
allocates six percent of the GDP to education. If
this is not done he predicted a bloody revolution in 15 years.
For Prof Muchkund Dubey, investing in
higher education at the cost of elementary education was like constructing the higher stories of
a building without putting in place its foundation. Universalisation of school education is the
most effective measure for building an inclusive
society. Though there has been some progress in
improving enrolment, the figures are generally
rigged and exaggerated. Moreover, it is not the
enrolment rate but the dropout rate which is
critical. For the entire country the dropout rate
was 61.6 percent and in the state of Bihar it was
75 percent! The dropout rate for scheduled caste
children in the country was estimated to be 70.6
percent and that for scheduled tribe it was 78.5
percent. In Bihar, the figure was close to 90 percent for both categories. If after 60 years of independence private schools have been able to fill
the gap of only 10 percent of enrollment at the
elementary level it is clear that the responsibility for universalising school education cannot be
left to them. Prof Dubey decried the Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan because the scheme never set a
time limit for universalising primary education.
The Common School System Commission,
Bihar and the Prof Tapas Mazumdar Committee
made estimates of the costs of implementing a
common school system in Bihar and the whole
country
respectively.
The
Mazumdar
Committee estimated that Rs 13,700 crores per
annum additionally were required over the 10
years beginning 2004 for universalising elementary education. The non-implementation of the
Mazumdar Committee report resulted in the
cumulative gap further widening so that 10
years from now an astronomically large sum of
resources would be required to universalise elementary education.
Prof Dubey in his remarks also attacked
globalisation for the downgrading effect it had
put on education and where the purpose of
school education today is to merely impart skills
of literacy and numeracy and not to enhance the
capacity of children to comprehend, contest and
transform. The philosophical goals of education
have been replaced by the functional goals of
meeting the demand of the market. He further
laments that trained teachers have been
replaced by para-teachers and the system of at
least one teacher for every class has been
replaced by multi-grade teaching. Training is no
longer regarded as essential for teaching.
Speaking about countries like Brazil,
Thailand, China and Indonesia where the task
of universalising elementary education was
accomplished a long time ago and these countries are now concerned with universalising and
improving the quality of secondary education,
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Prof Dubey said in India, six percent of GDP
must be devoted to education as a whole and
half of that for school education. However, there
is no interest in investing these amounts in setting up a common school system mainly
because the elite manage to send their children
to private schools.
Prof JBG Tilak stepwise highlighted the
financing of elementary education in India. The
government allocations to education sector in
absolute terms in real prices and as a proportion
of national income or total budgetary resources
have been declining or at best reluctantly
increasing during the recent years. Out of the
total government's allocation, union government's allocation is increasing whereas relative
share of state governments is declining and the
role of local bodies is very much negligible.
Second, the household expenditure to elementary education is increasing rapidly, not because
of their willingness to pay, but because of compulsion to pay as the state does not spend
enough. Thirdly, community contributions to
education are also increasing gradually. Fourth,
the private sector's contribution is very negligible both in absolute and relative terms. Fifth, the
contribution of external aid to education sector
is also minimal and showing a declining trend.
Good or bad, the phase of foreign aid to primary education seems to be coming to a close.
Prof Tilak referred to two important national goals on financing education: To allocate six
percent of national income to education, and to
allocate about half of the total to elementary
education. Over the years, actual expenditures
have increased -- from less than one percent in
the beginning in 1951-52 to 3.7 percent at the
current levels. From the level of below two percent or so in 1965-66, had it reached six percent
by 1986 and then continued at the same level,
we would have been in a much better position.
Taking the six percent norm, one can say that
there is a huge deficit in spending on education
in the last 30 years. As we continue to spend
much below the six percent norm, the backlog
in funding is bulging day bay day. According to
Prof Tilak, if we re-estimate now the requirements would be much above six percent of the
national income. We find that the state government has reduced the expenditure in absolute
terms and also in proportions over the years.
This has come down in the last 8-9 years from
3.8 percent to 2.8 percent of the national income.
But one has to note that the central government's contribution is really small. So if the central budget makes a significant increase in their
allocation, as it has made for example, in the
2008-09 budget, it will still be very far away
from the target of six percent national goal,
unless the state governments also raise their
allocations substantially. Both of them put
together would be 3.7 percent presently.
9
Part II
AN OVERVIEW
10
Discussing the intra-sectoral allocation, Prof
Tilak highlights that out of the total allocation
for education in the Tenth Five year plan, about
70 percent was spent on elementary education
and the remaining was spent on other sectors of
education.
In the plan expenditure, the share of the central government is increasing on elementary
education very rapidly, and today nearly threefourth of the total plan expenditure on elementary education comes from the central government while the state governments meet onefourth of the developmental expenditure. The
allocation of the state governments is obviously
coming down.
The picture is different in case of non-plan
expenditure. Nearly 99 percent of the total nonplan expenditure on elementary education is
met by the state governments, and the Centre
doesn't spend much, except on its own schools
like the central schools. In all, taking plan and
non-plan expenditure together, the share of the
union government in elementary education
increased from 11 percent in 2001-02 to 27 percent in 2007-08 and correspondingly the share
of the states declined from 89 percent to 73 percent during the same period.
According to SSA, the central government
met 85 percent and the state government 15 percent of the expenditure on elementary education in the 9th five year plan; the respective
shares changed to 75 and 25 percent in the tenth
plan, which was changed to 65 percent and 35
percent in the 11th five year plan. By the end of
the 11th five Year plan, it was expected to be
shared equally between the Centre and states.
This is the issue on which state governments are
quite unhappy.
The central government has in the recent
years made a very specific effort to raise
resources for elementary education in the form
of education cess. It is important to note that
about three-fourth of the total central government expenditure on elementary education
comes from the cess. It is quite possible that the
educational cess would take care of the total elementary education expenditure of the central
government and the central government would
not allocate any amount out of its general pool
of resources. It has to be examined whether this
is acceptable or not. Most education systems are
largely financed out of general tax and non-tax
revenues, and rarely depend on earmarked
taxes like the education cess.
Prof Tilak questions the ways by which the
total budget allocated to elementary education
is spent on various activities. The relevant figures are static for the last 10 years. Very little
money is spent on direction, inspection etc. and
he finds the whole inspectorate system has collapsed completely since the mid-1990s, raising
questions on quality of education. A bulk of the
expenditure is on the private schools, as a sizeable part of the expenditure goes to the private
schools as aid. Looking at the private aided
schools, 17 percent of the total expenditure on
elementary education went to the private
schools as aid in 1992-93; according to the latest
statistics about one-fifth to one-fourth of the
total expenditure on elementary education goes
to private schools as aid. There is one specific
clause in the Right to Education Bill, according
to which, not only the aided schools but the
unaided schools will also be funded by the
State. The Bill states that private schools will
have to admit at least 25 percent of the students
from whom no fees will be charged. It means
that if more students join private schools, relatively less and fewer amounts of resources will
be available to the government schools including local body schools. The provision is a clear
indication of government's intention to encourage private schools even at elementary level.
According to the NSS data of 1995-96,
household expenditure per student per annum
was quite high; even the poorest households
spent Rs 197 on primary and Rs 426 for middle
school education. The total family expenditure
on education is increasing with nearly 40 percent of the expenditures coming from the
households.
The Tapas Majumdar Committee estimated
that we would need Rs140, 000 crore for the
next 10 years. It meant only Rs 14,000 crore a
year on average, and about 0.7 percent of GNP,
if GNP were to increase at a rate of growth of
five percent per annum.
Ms Madhu Prasad situates the demand for
the right to education firmly in the freedom
movement. The earliest demand for universalising four years of primary education was made
in 1881 by Dadabhai Naoroji and placed before
the Education Commission (also known as
Hunter Commission). The Nagpur Congress
(1920) advocated that children should be withdrawn from existing colonial schools and called
for setting up of nationalised schools and colleges propagating values of patriotism rather
than encouraging empire worship. The Zakir
Hussain Committee's report on "Nai Talim" recommended free and compulsory education in
the mother tongue for all children up to 14
years. At the Haripura Congress in 1938, a resolution was passed to build a national system of
education on a wholly new foundation. In 1964
MC Chawla, then the education minister, made
a statement to the Central Advisory Board of
Education warning that Article 45 was not
meant to set up hovels with untrained teachers.
The Kothari Commission (1964-66) recommended setting up of a national system of public funded compulsory and free education and
did not see private schools as the future of the
national system of education. The recommendaC O M B AT L A W M AY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 9
Part II
AN OVERVIEW
tions of the Kothari Commission were based on
the experiences of China, the erstwhile Soviet
Union, Japan, the United States of America,
France and Cuba which had successfully universalised education.
Despite levying the education cess, a probe
committee found that the quality of education
remained abysmally low for the vast majority of
children in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan
and Uttar Pradesh and that short cut, ad hoc
methods like employing para-teachers who
were under-paid and untrained had exacerbated the problem. Encouraging private schools
had not helped either. In fact, the dependence
on private schools created a new norm for education -- that the quality of education must be
linked to the fee paid. If you pay less, you get
less. This has led to the mushrooming of fee
charging teaching shops which is scandalous.
They lure poor students with the promise of
teaching them in English medium, the hallmark
of elite education which holds out the promise
of economic and social advancement. Whereas
earlier students would be fluent in Hindi or
Urdu and would comprehend and participate in
class discussions and had no difficulty in learning an adequate level of English, today's students have no language. They are inarticulate,
unable to comprehend and cannot adequately
express themselves.
Additionally, caste identity and prejudice
constitute the biggest obstacle to universalisation of education through a formal system of
quality learning. No serious attempt has been
made to combat such biases. As a result, it is not
unusual to see demonstrations by privileged
students against the system of reservation
displaying the most obnoxious form of caste
antagonism.
Ms Prasad criticised the Right to Education
Bill, as it could not be expected to lift the education system out of the confines of the entrenched
privileged. The bill accepted and provided discriminatory streams for the privileged and the
marginalised and would continue to reproduce
existing inequalities throughout the education
system.
Anita Ghai says the primary issue with
regard to education for children with disabilities is access and availability. How does a disabled child reach school? The Right to
Education Bill, 2008 is also just a token literally
adding on the ramps to dilute the fundamental
right of the children to education and nutrition
etc. The Indian education system has always
been dual in nature. Disabled children are
thought of as "special". Why are they special? It
is because somewhere they have been coded as
disabled children, hence, deficient children.
Many people in the department of education
talk about several burning issues that prevail in
the education sector but disability is never iden-
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tified as one of the core issues to be addressed
or redressed.
Ms Nalini Juneja made a defence of the
Right to Education Bill as she traversed the
provisions of the Bill and at the end rhetorically
asked "will this amendment of the Constitution
(referring to Article 21A) make education a
justiciable fundamental right or remain only a
paper exercise?
Dr Niranjanaradhya VP presents a critique
of the Right of Children to Free and
Compulsory Education Bill, 2008. The core
recommendations made by the NCPCR for the
abolition of child labour and realisation of right
to education were not even taken note of leave
alone incorporated into the text of the Bill.
After dilly-dallying for almost 15 years, the
State has introduced a Bill that totally negates
not only the spirit of the Constitution but also
the far-reaching interpretation of the decision of
the Supreme Court that link the right to education with the right to life as an inseparable
concept to ensure not just right to life but right
to a dignified life.
Therefore, there is an urgent need to place
the glaring shortcomings of the Bill in the
public domain to expose the illusions created by
the ruling elite, bureaucracy and a negligible
section of civil society in favour of the Bill that
deprives care and education to a vast section of
the child population and legitimises the existing
inequalities and disparities in the education
system to maintain the status quo.
Ms Simantini Dhuru spoke of the pathetic
state of education in the government schools in
Mumbai where 60 percent of the population
lives in slums adjacent to the international baccalaureate schools charging monthly fees of Rs
50,000 per month. Next in line are the ICSC and
CBSE schools for the upper-middle classes, followed by the government-aided or non-aided
SSC schools charging nominal fees for the middle working class. Municipal Corporation of
Greater Mumbai (MCGM) runs 'free' schools for
the poor and finally non-formal centres (NFA)
are held under a tree or in a makeshift shelter in
a slum under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)
scheme. Dhuru presents figures to show that
one-fourth of the children leave the corporation
schools by the age of 10 and the remaining leave
by the age of 13. Since the corporation schools
cease to exist after class VII the majority of the
children discontinue education. Many are
forced to go for private schools although the
fees are prohibitive. Out of the 2.1 million children the corporation caters to, the state government and the MCGM are unable to account for
the one million children who are not to be
traced in schools!
Dhuru further says that the Mumbai corporation schools are being privatised in the guise
of public-private partnership. NGOs and pri11
Part II
AN OVERVIEW
12
vate trusts and corporate bodies are being
encouraged to take over the functions of the
corporation by running Balwadis, providing
uniforms and study material to children and
even making teachers' availability. Instances of
private trusts grabbing priceless urban land and
then converting the schools into high-fee structure institutions are noticed.
Akshay Kumar finds it a matter of grave
concern that education is inaccessible to the
children of the Musahar tribe in Bihar. Though
pots of money are sanctioned ostensibly for the
welfare of tribes, no information is available as
to whether the education of the tribal children is
taking place at all. The schools are often inaccessible, the teachers are not from the Musahar
tribe and many do not know the local language,
children are not treated with dignity. There is
widespread corruption as a result of which the
conditions of the schools and the facilities therein remain abysmal.
Kumaraswamy shared his experiences in
the school development and monitoring committees. Community participation began after
1998 and gave elective representatives and local
Sarpanchs an opportunity to air their opinions
but not parents. Thereafter, government policy
changed and one parent was given representation. But this too was unsatisfactory and it was
generally observed that upper castes and economically powerful persons were shutting out
ordinary parents.
From 2001, the school development and
monitoring committees were constituted in
each school. A nine-member parents' council
was also formed with appropriate representation of women, SCs, STs and other minorities.
All the members of the council must be parents
of the school-going children. The aim was to
integrate these committees with the panchayat
institutions. A draft model law to encourage
community participation was submitted to the
National Law School, Bangalore, widely disseminated and approved by the state government in 2006. This law was challenged in the
Karnataka High Court and upheld.
Anil Nautiyal spoke of his experience with
the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan which started in
Uttarakhand in year 2000. There is a single
teacher arrangement in 17 percent of the 12,684
state primary schools. Not only is the teacher
required to impart education but also has to
additionally keep records of various government programmes and perform duties during
elections. Under the National Elementary
Education Vision Programme, the teachers are
required to compile all kinds of reports and
maintain proper documentation for presentation to the Cluster Resource Centre coordinator.
They are also subject to evaluation from the village education committee and the school management committees. The non-teaching work is
so extensive that teachers spend approximately
173 days every year in conducting non-teaching
activities, and about 30 days in Seva Shiksha
Prashikshan, five days on Bal Ganana, two days
for the village education committees and in
addition they are required to conduct a census
every year of all children in the age group of
6-14 which can take up to 10 days.
Surjit Singh Thokchom highlighted the
alienation of people in the northeast. Despite a
rich resource pool of over 200 languages,
English has been adopted as the medium of
instruction segregating children from their culture, ethnicity and mother tongue. In Manipur,
the government schools have been converted
into private schools. In Meghalaya, grants for
government-aided schools are being withdrawn intentionally resulting in their closure.
Thokchom strongly argues that children do not
drop out, they are compelled to withdraw by
the inaction of the government or because they
believe there is no reason for them to continue
with education. To be liberated of the colonial
legacy, equal access to quality education regardless of socio-economic, cultural and ethnic
variations is imperative.
Avinash Jhade analysed the functioning of
Madhya Pradesh Shiksha Abhiyan currently
working in 13 districts of the state. The objective
was to improve education of Adivasis, dalits
and the urban poor. It has 408 schools in its control and out of these 117 are covered by the
Universal Education Gaurantee Scheme.
Unfortunately, the standards are very low. An
upgrading process began but only 35 percent of
these schools have been upgraded. In December
2007, there were 76 single teacher schools.
Attempts were made to upgrade all to double
teacher schools by having one teacher on record
and the other as a contract or guest teacher. In
the name of education, children are provided
only basic literacy. There are 62 private schools
in the dalit areas of Madhya Pradesh that are
administered by the non-dalit community
where not a single dalit is enrolled. The government schools are deteriorating while private
schools are expanding. Seventy-two percent of
the schools lack a separate toilet for girls, 83
percent have no boundary walls and 47 percent
do not have a playground. Twenty-six percent
of the students failed and nine percent did not
appear in the class V examination. Adivasi and
dalit families do not have funds to enable their
children, especially girls, to repeat a class.
Hence, they are made to stay back home. The
children ask: "Why should we go to a school
where there are no teachers? Why should we go
to a school where the children do not have separate classes? Why should we go to a school
where there are no separate toilets for girls?
Minati Panda is of the view that a child will
learn more if he/she participates in classroom
Part II
AN OVERVIEW
activities/discourse, which in turn is possible
only when the child understands and relates to
the concepts ingrained in those discourses.
No meaningful and sustainable education
can be imparted without ensuring that a child's
diverse cultural resources, including his/her
language(s), are central to the teaching/learning
processes in the early years of his/her schooling.
The Right to Education Bill, 2008 needs critical
evaluation before its enforcement. Any Bill that
does not accept a child's multi-linguality and
plurality as a resource for classroom learning
and does not address the consequences faced
when these resources are undermined, cannot
be effective.
Disability and poverty is a vicious circle.
Ghai draws concern that we understand disability as not just one single marker but linked with
gender, caste, class and numerous other social,
economic and occupational markers.
Pragya, Vijay, Sandeep, Poonam and
Avinash -- all schoolchildren shared their experiences. Sandeep narrated the horrible situation
in the government schools in the Melghat district of Maharashtra. According to him, children
are class X pass-outs, but they cannot read and
write properly and cannot speak English.
Sandeep studies in class IX at Ghari in a government school. He said that they do not have
concrete school building and during the monsoons everything disintegrates and the children
get drenched in rain. There is no furniture to sit
on nor there are proper drinking water facilities.
A lot of government officials had visited the
school and were informed about the problems
students faced, but to no avail.
Poonam, who hailed from district Jalaun in
Uttar Pradesh, said there is a school till class V
in her village. For the middle level schooling the
children have to go to Padampura village,
which is five kilometres from her village. The
village school does not have any rooms and
children have to sit under a canopy and struggle
with scorching heat as well as rains. She goes on
to narrate her woes of going out in open to urinate as there are no separate toilets for girls in
her school. As a result, girls do not come to
school and sit at home after class V. Moreover,
there is no residential inter college in the entire
district. There are places like Mirzapur where
there are schools, which have been built for the
last five years but have no teachers. There are
some villages where there are no schools. If a
residential girls inter college is opened in the
district then the future of girls like her would
brighten, and her dream to become a doctor will
turn into reality.
Avinash from Bihar talked about lack of
proper drinking water and toilet facilities in his
school.He said there was no concrete roof in his
school and as such it created a lot of problems
during summers. Not many children come to
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school and all the classes are held in one big
hall. There are 106 students in one section.
There are in all 300 students in one class and
there is not enough space for students to sit.
Bheema
Ram,
a
sarpanch
from
Chhattisgarh, was particularly concerned about
education for tribal children in conflict areas.
L Joshi spoke of the distress migration from
Nuapada district of Orissa resulting in high
dropout rates of children from education. The
children work in brick kilns and remain out of
school for seven months of the year. According
to a DPEP survey of Orissa in 2003, about 66
percent of children were out of school in the
district. Joshi described the conditions of the
government schools as abysmal. In one village
the school building had collapsed yet 50 children with their bags on their shoulders were
waiting for the teacher to come. Children, who
had to bear an unhygienic environment in the
school, responded that the teacher never comes
and so one young person from the community
had organised them and taught them for free.
P Ramulu and V Yadaiah proudly
announced that there was not a single child out
of school in their gram panchayats.
Ms Vrinda Datta evaluates the integrated
child development services reports and
research papers and finds that the pre-school
education component for the ICDS programmes
fails to make any significant impact on children.
Free and compulsory education, according
to Dr LD Mishra, phased out child labour in
erstwhile USSR, USA, UK, Japan, North &
South Korea, Taiwan, People's Republic of
China and many countries of European Union.
It is not poverty, which contributes to child
labour but child labour which creates and
perpetuates poverty.
13
EDUCATION POLICY & RTE BILL:
Though an important component that shapes human life
and dignity, elementary education is presently denied to
more than half of the children between the age group of
6-14 years. Arguing that in the present socio-economic
conditions children upto 18 years should get free and
compulsory education viz. upto class 12, this article takes a
historical overview of India's education policy, critiquing
the direction the government has taken over the decades.
This has culminated in the Rights of Children to Free and
Compulsory Education Bill, 2008, prepared in the neoliberal framework. In a game where free market seems to
be the State's main answer to education, corporate capital
and privileged sections of society come out as the only
winners, writes Professor Anil Sadgopal
14
A HISTORICAL BETRAYAL
C
onstitutional vision
of education
The Constitution directs the Indian
State to “provide within a period of
10 years from the commencement of
the Constitution, free and compulsory education for all children until
they complete the age of fourteen
years” (the original Article 451, Part
IV). In Article 46, the State is directed
to “promote with special care the
educational and economic interests
… of the Scheduled Castes and the
Scheduled Tribes …” As per Article
39 (f) in Part IV of the Constitution,
the State shall “direct its policy
towards securing … that children are
given opportunity and facilities to
develop in a healthy manner and in
conditions of freedom and dignity
and that childhood and youth are
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Here is a snapshot emerging from the
dominant reports in the Indian media
Government Schools Under Sale!
Government
Schools
Being
Outsourced!
● Tenders Invited for Setting Up
Schools!
● Education Hubs Being Set Up!
● "ONE TEACHER, SEVERAL CLASSES"
(A Powerful Mobile Company's
Advertisement.)
● Planning
Commission consults
corporate houses on education.
● Parents given further tax exemptions
for private school fees leading
to major revenue losses to the
government.
● Sixth Pay Commission provides
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
special bonus for sending children to
private schools.
Anti-fee hike agitation but the
government unable to regulate fees
in private schools.
Public Funds & Resources Given
to
Companies,
NGOs
&
Religious Bodies for Setting Up
Schools
Under
Public-Private
Partnership!
B.Ed. college in a garage with
admission fee of Rs. 5 lacs/year.
Computer Firms Making Curriculum
for the government!
Policy Making Handed Over to
Corporate Houses!
15
protected
against
exploitation
and against moral and material
abandonment.”
The Article 45 has been interpreted2 to include (a) early childhood
care, nutrition, health and pre-primary education (kindergarten, nursery)
for children below six years of age;
and (b) elementary (not primary) education of eight years (Class I-VIII) for
the 6-14 age group children.
Although the Article 45 was placed
in Part IV3 of the Constitution and,
therefore, not enforceable as a fundamental right, the sense of urgency
attached to its fulfillment “within a
period of ten years from the commencement of the Constitution” is remarkable. This is the only constitutional
provision with a timeframe. The timeframe ended in 1960! The post-independence history stands witness to
the neglect and disdain with which
this critical provision has been treated by the State.
At present, more than half of the
6-14 age group children are denied
elementary education.4 It is noteworthy that, unable to face this harsh
reality, the government falsely
equates the category of “nonenrolled children” with the ambiguous category of “out-of-school children”. Both of these categories do not
include the much larger category of
those children (the so-called ‘dropouts’) whom the State failed to provide elementary education (i.e. up to
Class VIII), as required by the original
Article 45. The data on the provision
of early childhood care, nutrition,
16
health and pre-primary education for
children below six years of age is too
scanty to deserve reference. Here,
too, the limited role of integrated
child development services (ICDS)
through anganwadis in providing
some nutritional supplement is misperceived as being equivalent to the
afore-mentioned holistic vision
emerging out of Article 45 read along
with Article 39 (f), as resolved in
NPE-1986. The status of such provisions in the case of the Scheduled
Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled
Tribes (STs), noted in Article 46 for
‘special care’, is much worse.
aged. This means that education
must be directed to build citizenship
for a democratic, socialist, secular,
egalitarian and just society. Second,
education must be in consonance
with Articles 14, 15(1) and 16 of
Part III which respectively guarantee
equality before law, prohibit the State
from discriminating “against any citizen on grounds only of religion,
race, caste, sex, place of birth or any
of them” and secure equality of
opportunity in matters of public
employment. Both the Articles 14
and 15(1) have far-reaching implications for education. By reading
Article 45 in conjunction with
Articles 14 and 15(1), the right to
education movement inferred more
than 10 years ago that the State is
duty bound to build a system that
provides education of equitable
quality to all children without any
discrimination whatsoever!
At the time of the commencement
of the Constitution, there might have
been some validity in the Article 45
being limited to “all children until
they complete the age of 14 years”.
This limited its scope to education up
to Class VIII, while also covering
early childhood care, nutrition,
health and pre-primary education for
those below six years of age.
However, the socio-economic conditions have undergone a radical
change since then. Under the present
Persistent Violation of Article 45
The shifting goals of elementary education
1.
Constitution of India
2.
National Policy on Education-1968
3.
4.
(Modified in 1992)
5. DPEP+* (18 States, 280 Districts)
6. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (2000)
7. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (2007)
8. UNESCO Global Monitoring Report (2002)*
-
1960
NONE
1995
-
2000
2000/02
2010
NONE
Not even by 2015!
+World Bank-sponsored District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) of the 1990s.
*Limited to only primary education of four or five years (Class I-IV/V), as required under the
World Bank-UN framework in the Jomtien Declaration (1990).
There are at least two significant
dimensions flowing out of the
Constitution that elaborate and
enrich the vision of education. First,
the Preamble to the Constitution provides the overall framework within
which the Article 45 has to be envis-
conditions, education until only
Class VIII leads a child essentially
nowhere since the doors to further
education and employment open
only after Class XII. This implies that
the Article 45 should have been
amended at least a quarter century
ago to include “all children until they
complete the age of 18 years” so that
the State is under obligation to provide equal opportunity to all children to study up to Class XII. Such an
amendment had also become
mandatory as per the international
covenants like the Convention on the
Rights of the Child to which India
became a signatory in 1992 wherein
“a child means every human being
below the age of 18 years.” More
importantly, the lack of this amendment makes a mockery of the fundamental right to social justice under
Article 16 since essentially no public
employment or appointment worth
the name is available without a Class
XII certificate — the minimum eligibility for pursuing all higher education courses. This means that the
benefits of reservations have been
limited since independence to a
small section (not more than 10 percent) of SCs, STs and OBCs. The
exclusion of the majority of poor
Muslims from higher education and
public employment also needs to be
understood in this context as
their social status is broadly equivalent to OBCs (Sachar Committee
Report, 2007).
The misconceived language education policy that we follow has a
serious impact on the attainment of
the fundamental right under Article
19 (a), i.e., the fundamental right to
freedom of speech and expression.
Since 1970s, the language education
discourse has been both dominated
and distorted by the increasing
www.combatlaw.org
demand for “English medium”
schools or sections within a school.
While the official policies and conditions that led to the demand may be
debatable, it is reasonable today to
grant that all children must have
equal opportunity to acquire a reasonable proficiency in English, as part of
their broader right to learn other subjects as well. The question we need to
address, however, is with regard to
the policy framework that is required
to achieve the objective.
The knee-jerk policy response
assumes that learning of ‘good’
English is best achieved through
English medium schools, starting
from nursery or kindergarten stage
upwards to higher education. Apart
from being an unscientific assumption, it fails to take into account the
socio-cultural background of a child.
This policy discourse also ignores the
global research that reinforces the
powerful pedagogic role played by
the mother tongue as part of multilinguality (this may include English
too) of the majority of the children in
plural societies like ours in acquiring
subject knowledge as well as learning languages other than one’s mother tongue.5 Basically, the policymakers have failed to come to terms with
the fact that the most effective way to
learn any language (including
English) is through the medium of
child’s mother tongue as a component of her multi-lingual ambience.
The consequence of this misconception and lack of a sound policy is the
widespread phenomenon of a rapid
attrition of the capacity to articulate
one’s thoughts or ideas. The vast
majority of the Indian children grow
up in the prevailing multi-layered
school system without acquiring the
capacity to learn and articulate in
either the state language or English
and, in the process, losing the capacity to do so in one’s mother tongue as
well. Apart from violation of Article
19(a), this policy failure has far reaching implications for the survival of
India as a nation that creates, transacts and applies knowledge for
human development.
ARTICLE 19(a)
IN JEOPARDY
(Fundamental right to freedom of
speech and expression)
1. Undermining children's languages.
2. Ignoring multi-linguality as a foundation of learning.
3. Destroying mother tongue as a
component of multi-linguality.
4. Equating mother tongue with state
language.

Children without identity.

Children losing capacity to learn,
think and create.

LOSS OF RIGHT TO EXPRESS
& ARTICULATE
A historic judgement by the
Supreme Court of India in 1993 radically transformed the status of
Article 45. In its Unnikrishnan judgement (1993), the Supreme Court
ruled that Article 45 in Part IV has to
be read in ‘harmonious construction’
with Article 21 (right to life) in Part
III of the Constitution, as right to life
loses its significance without education. Hence, the Court declared that
Article 45 has acquired the status of
a fundamental right. The years that
followed have seen how the State
allowed the neo-liberal policies to
dilute and distort the notion of fundamental right emerging from the
Unnikrishnan judgement. We shall
examine the deleterious impact of
these neo-liberal policies on access to
schools and the quality of school
education provided therein. The processes of dilution and distortion were
17
also evident in the Saikia Committee
Report (1997) and the 83rd
Constitutional Amendment Bill
tabled in the Rajya Sabha in July
1997.6 The 86th Constitutional
Amendment Act (2002) is clearly a
result of this neo-liberal assault on
the Constitution and designed to
legitimise the fault lines introduced
by the World Bank policies in India’s
educational system with consent of
the central government.7
The Unnikrishnan Judgement
went a step further. It ruled that the
right to education continues to exist
under Article 41 (Part IV) even beyond
the age of 14 years but is limited by the
State’s “economic capacity and [stage
of] development”. The Constitution
is clearly directing the State to envisage the entire sector of education–
from kindergarten to higher and professional education in a holistic manner. Any policy to limit, distort or fragment this vision of education
amounts to a violation of the
Constitution
of
India
which
represents people’s aspirations from
the freedom struggle against
imperialism!
During the constituent assembly
debate in 1948-49, a member contended that the commitment made in
the draft Article (later to be known as
Article 45) to provide “free and compulsory education” to children upto
14 years of age should be limited to
only 11 years of age as India would not
have the necessary resources. The
dilution would have been made but
for Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’s clarity
of mind that it is at this age of 11
years that a substantial proportion of
children become child labourers. He
forcefully argued that the place for
children at this age in independent
India should be in schools, not in
farms or factories. This is how an
unambiguous commitment to provide free education through regular
full-time schools to all children up to
14 years of age (including children
below six years) became an integral
component of India’s Constitution.
Clearly, the Constitution does not
permit parallel layers such as literacy
classes, non-formal centres and education guarantee centres for children.
This implies that the persistence of
more than half of our children today
in the school-going age group of 6-14
years as out-of-school children8
18
(atleast five crores of them being
child labourers) constitutes a clear
violation of the Constitution.
Likewise, the provision of non-formal education in the national policy
on education–1986 (NPE-1986) as
well as the parallel streams of facilities of varying qualities in the World
Bank-sponsored District Primary
Education Programme (DPEP) of the
1990s and the ongoing Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan (SSA) violate the basic spirit of the Constitution as all these are
designed to co-exist with child
labour, apart from promoting
inequality through education.
The rhetoric of lack of resources
for mass education has continued to
dominate policy formulation since
independence. In August 2005, the
prime minister referred to lack of
resources as being the chief reason
for referring the draft Right to
Education Bill to a high-level group
of ministers. In June 2006, the central
government, claiming lack of
resources, decided not to present the
bill in Parliament in spite of it becoming obligatory under Article
21A introduced through 86th
Constitutional
Amendment
in
December 2002. Instead, the government sent a highly diluted and distorted draft bill to the state/UT governments advising them to get it
approved in their respective legislatures. This amounted to blatant abdication by the Centre of its constitutional obligation to give effect to the
fundamental right accorded to elementary education for children in the
6-14 years age group. Wide protests
by both the state governments and
various people’s groups eventually
persuaded the central government to
withdraw its misconceived step. But
the rhetoric of resource crunch continued to influence policy decisions.
The February 2008 Draft Right to
Education Bill, like its predecessor
drafts, also could not reach
Parliament on the same grounds. The
high-level group of ministers is on
record in not only maintaining this
stance but also in suggesting that the
norms and standards proposed in
the schedule of the draft bill be diluted in order to reduce the financial
requirement of implementing the
bill. There is no evidence of any data
being presented at any of the public
forums, including the CABE, to sub-
stantiate the government’s argument that there is indeed a resource
crunch. Also, the rhetoric of lack of
resources refuses to address the critical issue of lack of priority in the
ruling class agenda for mass education. Ironically, this rhetoric dominated the discourse on right to education when the government was
boasting of touching nine percent
economic growth rate and claiming
to become a superpower by 2020!
Neo-liberal policy trends
The doors of the Indian economy
were formally opened to the neo-liberal agenda with the government’s
declaration of new economic policy
in 1991. However, the global market
forces, led by the superpower USA
and other G-8 countries and represented by the IMF-World Bank
regime, had started operating in
India quietly much earlier. From
mid-1980s onwards, there are definite signs of the presence of their
advocates at the highest echelons of
Indian government and their agenda
having an impact on the formulation
of Indian policies.
In the National Policy on
Education–1986 (NPE-1986) and its
companion
Programme
of
Action–1986 (POA-1986) itself, we
can identify several trends that
reflected World Bank’s thinking.
Education was increasingly viewed
as literacy and numeracy ‘skills’
(often reduced to functional literacy),
rather than a process of unleashing
the human potential and enriching
the consciousness in all its dimensions. This trivialisation went to the
extent that (a) the literacy campaigns
became synonymous with educational campaigns; and (b) the literacy
rate became the dominant (often
the sole) parameter for measuring
or assessing educational progress
(it is like turning the parameter into
the goal itself!). The literacy
campaigns
diverted
political
attention away from both school
and higher education through
the 1990s.
● Advocating a mechanistic view of
curriculum fragmented into numerous market-oriented competencies,
the minimum levels of learning
(MLLs) were introduced by the ministry of HRD9 in 1990 in the most
undemocratic and secretive manner.
This was amongst the earliest
instances, later to become a practice,
of policy changes being introduced
without democratic consultation or
debate at legitimate forums like the
Central Advisory Board of Education
(CABE) or even NCERT10. The MLL
concept was steeped in anti-child
behaviourist approach, de-linking of
the cognitive (related to thinking and
knowing functions) from the noncognitive (related to emotions, values
and psycho-motor skills) domains.11
The advocacy of MLLs by World
Bank’s DPEP from 1993-94 onwards
was endorsed by the European
Commission, DFID and UN-funded
primary education programmes.
MLLs continue to define the framework of curricular planning and testing in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)
as well. The MLL story tells us why
we must not underestimate the
neo-liberal agenda of influencing
the character of knowledge in
school curriculum designed to
undermine critical thinking and
orient public mind in favour of
consumerism.
● The most visible structural distortion of the school system comprised
the introduction of a non-formal
(NFE) stream of educational facilities
(not school!) of inferior quality for
more than half of the nation’s
children below the school system.
●
The most visible
structural distortion of
the school system
comprised introduction
of a non-formal stream
of educational facilities
(not school!) of inferior
quality for more than
half of the nation’s
children below the
school system. The
1986 policy also
introduced a layer of
expensive residential
Navodaya Vidyalayas
above the school system
for a handful of children
(about 80 children per
district per year)
These became evident later in the late
1980s or 1990s when the high profile
total literacy campaigns (under the
National Literacy Mission), UNICEFassisted Bihar Education Project,
World Bank-funded UP Basic
Education Project, SIDA/DFIDassisted Lok Jumbish (Rajasthan),
and finally the World Bank-sponsored District Primary Education
Programme (DPEP) in 18 states
(about 280 districts) became the face
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of the 1986 education policy. These
trends, also served the vested
interests of the Indian ruling class,
apart from being politically and financially convenient to the central
government.
● The education commission (196466), popularly known as the Kothari
Commission, conceived education as
a critical socio-political process for
building citizenship for a democratic,
egalitarian, just and secular society.
With the onset of the neo-liberal
framework, the most significant
impact has been on these goals which
were diluted, distorted or trivialised.
The change of the name of the ministry of education to the ministry of
human resource development in
1985-86 marks the beginning of the
State’s acceptance of the pro-market
agenda in education!
● NPE-1986, along with POA-1986, as
also their modified versions of 1992,
introduced several retrogressive policy measures (e.g. introduction of
non-formal education as an inferior
parallel layer and minimum levels of
learning). These measures paved the
way for the neo-liberal agenda
embedded in the structural adjustments and social safety net and were
later echoed in World Bank’s interventions in 1990s as well. Some of
these ideas also flowed from the
Jomtien Declaration (1990).
19
World Bank-UN framework
of education:
examining its premises
In March 1990, India signed the
‘World Declaration on Education For
All’ and ‘Framework for Action to Meet
Basic Learning Needs’ adopted at the
‘World Conference on Education for
All: Meeting Basic Learning Needs’,
held at Jomtien, Thailand under the
joint sponsorship of three UN agencies (UNDP, UNESCO & UNICEF)
and the World Bank. The twin documents together known as the Jomtien
Declaration have since become the
chief strategic instrument of the neoliberal forces in school education. It
laid the foundation for the World
Bank intervention by advocating
The 1986 policy also introduced a
layer of expensive residential
Navodaya Vidyalayas above the
school system for a handful of children (about 80 children per district
per year). The government sought to
justify the Navodaya Vidyalayas,
among others, on the untenable
ground of acting as ‘pace-setting
schools’ for the ordinary government
schools in its neighbourhood—an
objective that turned out to be entirely misconceived.12 The policy shift
also introduced the under-qualified,
untrained and under-paid ‘instructor’ appointed on short-term contract
in the NFE centres. The ‘instructor’ of
the 1986 policy became the ‘parateacher’ of World Bank’s DPEP in the
1990s, providing the major basis for
fragmenting (and finally almost
demolishing) the cadre of school
teachers.
● The above shift towards institutionalising multiple parallel layers within the school system contradicted the
1986 policy resolve to build a national system of education rooted in the
Constitution. This shift, however,
made a farce of the policy statement
that “effective measures will be taken
in the direction of the common
school system recommended in the
1968 policy (section 3.2).” During the
1990s, the World Bank and its associated UN and other international
funding agencies made strategic use
of this faultline of multiple parallel
layers in the 1986 policy to first
weaken and then to destroy the
credibility of the school system
altogether!
20
Here is a comparative presentation of India's
Constitution and the Jomtien Declaration
with regard to the goals, concept and scope
of education under the two frameworks
CONSTITUTION OF INDIA
(1950)
World Bank-U
UN
JOMTIEN DECLARATION(1990)
Elementary education of 8 years
guaranteed.
Basic education limited to primary
education of 5 or less years.
Children up to 14 years of age have a
fundamental right to education,
including those below six years of
age; the Right continues to exist
under Article 41 even beyond the
age of 14 years but is limited by the
State's "economic capacity . . ."
(Supreme Court's Unnikrishnan
Judgement, 1993). All sectors of education - kindergarten to higher/professional - envisioned holistically.
Only a symbolic reference to fundamental right in the Preamble and
that, too, limited to 6-11 year age
group children; early childhood care
and pre-primary education included
in the scope of basic education,
though not as a universal entitlement
- a myopic and fragmented vision.
Guarantee of free education.
No reference to free education.
Education aimed at building citizenship for a democratic, socialist, egalitarian, just and secular society.
The definition of education as "basic
learning needs" allows its reduction
to literacy-numeracy, life skills and
behaviourism.
The State is obliged to ensure reprioritisation of internal resources in
order to provide for education.
State's obligation substituted by
external assistance and partnership
with NGOs, religious bodies and the
corporate capital.
Equality in and through education in
all its dimensions.
Equality normally limited to "opportunity to achieve and maintain an
acceptable level of learning."
Guarantee of education of equitable
quality - a common school system
based on neighbourhood schools
implied.
No such guarantee - allowing space
for a multi-layered school system of
inferior parallel layers.
international aid for primary (not elementary) education in the developing
countries, making it ‘unnecessary’ for
them to mobilise resources by re-prioritising national economies. The call
for external financing of primary
education was part of the IMF-World
Bank’s structural adjustment programme (SAP) and social safety net.
The social safety net adjustment
credit, however, turned out to be a
minimal compensation against the
substantial withdrawal of state funding under SAP (see Tables 1a,b). A
detailed critique of the Jomtien
Declaration is separately available.13
The pre-condition of SAP meant,
among other things, that the Indian
government was obliged to steadily
reduce its expenditure on the social sector, particularly health and education. This was a rather enigmatic precondition in a country where the vast
majority of the people did not have
access to quality health or education.
In education, it made even less sense
as it was imposed by those powerful
capitalist economies, led by the USA,
who were apparently advocating the
much-proclaimed ‘education for all’
(EFA) programme along with the
move towards the so-called ‘knowledge economy’. One can’t, therefore,
avoid asking the question: What was
the hidden agenda?
The central thesis of the Jomtien
Declaration in the Indian context was
five-fold.
First, the State must ‘progressively’
abdicate its constitutional obligation
towards education of the masses in
general and school-based elementary
education (Class I-VIII) in particular,
become dependent on external aid
even for primary education (Class IV) and work in partnership14 with
NGOs, religious bodies and corporate houses15;
Second, the people neither have a
human right as enshrined in the UN
Charter nor a fundamental right to
receiving free pre-primary and elementary education (from kindergarten to Class VIII) of equitable quality as implied either by the
Constitution under Supreme Court’s
Unnikrishnan Judgement (1993) or
even the much diluted 86th
Constitutional Amendment (2002);16
Third, education is not aimed at
building a conscious citizenship for a
democratic, socialistic, egalitarian
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Table 1 (a)
External Assistance to DPEP
Years
National
Total Exp.
GDP
on Education
(Rs. in
(Rs. in
lakh
crores)
crores)
1999-2000
17.62
74,816
External
Assistance
(Rs. in
crores)
External
Assistance
as percent
of GDP
682.8
0.039
External
Assistance as
percent of
Total Exp. on
Education
0.91
2000-01
2001-02
858.3
1,100.0
0.045
0.053
1.04
1.38
19.18
20.82
82,486
79,866
Table 1 (b)
Assistance to All Externally Aided Education Projects of MHRD*
Years
National
Total Exp.
External
External
GDP
on Education Assistance
Assistance
(Rs. in
(Rs. in
(Rs. in
as percent
lakh
crores)
crores)
of GDP
crores)
1999-2000
17.62
74,816
729.1
0.041
External
Assistance as
percent of
Total Exp. on
Education
0.97
2000-01
19.18
82,486
947.6
0.049
1.15
2001-02
20.82
79,866
1,210.0
0.058
1.52
* ‘All Externally Aided Projects’ of the Ministry of HRD include DPEP, Shiksha Karmi
(Rajasthan), Mahila Samakhya (Gujarat, U.P., Bihar & Karnataka), Lok Jumbish
(Rajasthan) and GoI-UN Programme (Selected Blocks) as well as others.
Source:
(i) Economic Survey 2002-03 to 2004-05, Ministry of Finance, Govt. of India.
(ii) Analysis of Budgeted Expenditure on Education, 1999-2000 to 2001-02 and the next
two years, Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India, Analytical Table Nos. 1.
(iii) Tilak, JBG (2003), A Study on Financing of Education in India with a Focus on
Elementary Education, South Asia EFA Forum, NIEPA, New Delhi, May 2003, Table
31.
and secular society. Instead, it is synonymous with literacy-numeracy and
life skills (mostly confined to sexual
behaviour) required for social
manipulation, mind control and regimentation for advancing the market
economy;
Fourth, the school system may
comprise parallel layers of inferior
quality education for various sections of society, thereby becoming a
multi-layered school system. This conception will directly amount to
denial of quality education to the
under-privileged masses lacking
capacity to pay17; and
Fifth, education is a commodity that
can be traded in the global market
and offered for WTO negotiations.
The Jomtien Declaration dominated policy formulation and educational planning in several developing
countries throughout the 1990s. A
decade later, the Dakar Framework
(2000) further elaborated and reinforced the basic premises of the
Jomtien Declaration. The Indian government kowtowed to continue the
neo-liberal agenda. As the DPEP was
about to end within the next 3-4
years, this implied that the Indian
government was ready to carry forward the DPEP package, along with
its lacunae and failures, into the
then emerging Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan (SSA), thereby ensuring
that the neo-liberal framework will
continue to determine the future
policies.
At
the
September
2000
Millennium Summit, the IMF-World
Bank, along with the Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) and the UN
agencies, devised a set of eight
Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs). In line with the JomtienDakar Framework, one of the eight
goals directly relating to education
reiterates the agenda of “achiev[ing]
universal
primary
education.”
The comparison between the
Constitution and the Jomtien
Declaration equally applies to the
MDGs, if not even more. Yet, the
Indian government has circumscribed educational planning and
financial allocations within the
21
highly diluted norms set by the
MDGs, as indicated below:
“ . . . it is imperative to give good
quality elementary education to all
children in the age group of 6-14
years. Policies and programmes in
this direction are also necessary for
honouring the country’s commitment to the ‘millennium development goals’ and ‘education for
all’ … for increasing public expenditure on education to six percent of
GDP and for universalising elementary education at the national level.
(emphasis added)”18
What is worse is the stance of the
internationally funded and high profile NGOs who are eager to substitute the EFA-MDG framework in place
of the conceptually far more powerful
founding document of the Indian
Republic!
Structural adjustment: The
hidden agenda of privatisation
What the country needed in 1991,
when the new economic policy was
announced, was a firm resolve to first
rapidly fill up the cumulative gap
resulting from continued underinvestment
since
the
Kothari
Commission (1966) and then maintain the investment level of six percent of GDP. To be sure, this was just
about beginning to take place, as is
evident by the steady rise in educational expenditure soon after the
1986 policy, as a result of the public
pressure (see Fig. 1 below). Yet, what
the World Bank persuaded India to
do in the 1990s was precisely the
opposite. The long-awaited agenda
of systemic transformation in edu-
cation in the 1986 policy, though only
partial and hesitant, was given up
after 1991 and replaced by a set of
un-researched, untested and arbitrary schemes or projects assisted
and sponsored by the World Bank,
UN agencies and a host of other
international agencies. The undeclared but operative strategy in such
schemes and projects was to let the
vast government education system (from
schools to universities) starve of funds
and, consequently, deteriorate in quality.
As the school quality would decline,
resulting in low learning levels, the
parents, even the poor among them,
would begin to withdraw their children from the system. A sense of
EDUCATIONAL EXPENDITURE AS % OF GDP
% OF GDP
5
4
3
2
1
0
1985
-86
1989
-90
1 993
-94
19 97
-98
20 01
-02
2005
-06
YEARS
Figure 1
[Source: Analysis of Budgeted Expenditure on Education for Various Years,
Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India]
22
exclusion from the socio-economic
and political space would prevail.
When the children are either
‘pushed out’ of the schools or
decide to ‘walk-out’ in protest
against the poor quality and irrelevance of education (no child ever
drops out, the official or World Bank
claims notwithstanding!), two possibilities would emerge. First, low feecharging unaided private schools
(recognised or unrecognised) would
mushroom to meet the new demand.
Second, the government would have
an alibi for closing down its own
schools. The consequent low enrolment in government schools would
be claimed as the ground for declaring them ‘unviable’. The school campuses could then be converted into
commercial ventures such as the feecharging elite private schools or the
shopping malls, especially in urban
areas, as is the emerging phenomenon all over the country. Yet,
closure of government schools would
be unabashedly termed “rationalisation” of the school system in the official reports19.
Let us summarise the hidden
agenda of privatisation. The World
Bank-UN strategy essentially comprised three sub-strategies, viz.,
i) convert the school system into a
multi-layered system with several
inferior quality parallel layers; ii)
dilute norms and standards in the
government schools pertaining to
infrastructure and other such essentials of quality education (see Table
2); and iii) close government schools
under the pretext of ‘rationalisation’.
World Bank’s DPEP: The assault
Although claiming to be located in
the 1986 policy, the District Primary
Education Programme (DPEP) was,
in fact, embedded in the Jomtien
Declaration. Beginning in 1993-94
with 42 districts in seven states in
Phase I, the DPEP had steadily
spread its coverage to almost half of
India’s districts in 18 states (about
280 districts) by the time its third and
the last phase was initiated in
2002-03.
During this short period, the programme was able to inflict a major
damage to the school system. The
following is a list of the outstanding
damages that can be identified:
● Reduced the holistic goals of education to literacy-numeracy and questionable life skills;
● Diluted the commitment of the
Constitution as well as the 1986 policy for early childhood care, pre-primary education and eight years of
elementary education (kindergarten
to Class VIII) to five (or less) years of
primary education (Class I-IV in several states or I-V in others), with a
major adverse impact on the policy
norms of locating an elementary
school in proximity to a habitation20;
● Dissociated curricular and pedagogic planning of the lower primary
education from that of the upper primary, secondary and senior secondary education, thereby leading to
fragmentation of school education
and its knowledge framework;
● De-linked, both conceptually and
operationally, the issue of access to
education from quality of education,
thus distorting educational planning;
● Introduced parallel layers (parallel
to the mainstream formal schools) of
relatively inferior quality such as the
alternative school, education guarantee centres and a variety of non-formal ‘facilities’. This resulted in a
multi-layered primary education
system wherein each layer was
meant for a separate social segment;
● Systematically replaced the regular
teacher with an under-qualified,
untrained and underpaid person
appointed for short-term contract a
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Table 2
Dilution of Norms and Standards in Elementary Education
the neo-Liberal strategy for demolition of the government school system
No. Norms
Expert Group
SSA
1.
Pupil:Teacher Ratio
1:30
1:40
2.
Av. Monthly Salary of Teachers
Primary – Rs. 5,000
Rs. 3,000
Upper Primary – Rs.
6,000
3.
Enrolment in Private Schools
NIL
15 percent
4.
Parallel Layers of Inferior Quality NIL
A major role for
Schools
Alternative Schools
& EGS Centres
5.
No. of Additional Teachers
35.6 lakh
11.5 lakh
Required
(minimum of 3
(minimum of 2
teachers in each
teachers in each
primary school)
primary school)
6.
Total No. of Classrooms Required 43 lakh
11 lakh
(minimum of 3 rooms (minimum of 2
in each primary
rooms in each
school)
primary school)
7.
Free Uniforms, Scholarships,
Provision made
Not provided
DIETs
8.
Integrated Education
Rs. 3,000
Rs. 1,200
Development: Cost per Disabled
Child
9.
a) Grant per School
Primary – Rs. 3,000
Rs. 2,000
5,000
10. b) Grant per Teacher
Primary – Rs. 500
Rs. 500
700
11. (a) + (b): Financial Implication
Rs. 670 crores
Rs. 395 crores
12. c) Teaching-Learning Equipment: Rs. 1,029 crores
Rs. 402 crores
Source: Tilak, JBG (2003), A Study on Financing of Education in India with a Focus on
Elementary Education, South Asia EFA Forum, NIEPA, New Delhi, May 2003,
Appendix A.1 and A.2.
para-teacher. This led to fragmentation of the teacher cadre, lowering of
status and weakening of teachers’
democratic movements (now being
substituted by ICT-based NGO-managed and internationally funded
teachers’ networks!);
● Violated the 1986 policy Operation
Blackboard norms of ‘at least three
teachers and three classrooms per
primary school’ (along with a verandah and separate toilets for girls and
boys) by introducing the dubious
notion of multi-grade teaching
wherein one teacher is trained to perform the ‘miracle’ of teaching five classes
simultaneously in one classroom!
● Diluted the infrastructural, teacherrelated, curricular and other norms
and standards, approved under the
1986 policy, pertaining to quality of
education (see Table 2);
● Institutionalised discrimination
against the SCs, STs, most OBCs
(Other Backward Classes) and
Muslims21, particularly the girls
among them, since the introduction
of parallel layers, para-teachers and
multi-grade teaching adversely
affected these sections of society;
● Promoted a money-oriented culture,
quite alien and also undesirable to
the education system, by lavishly
paying hefty honoraria and consultation fees to all and sundry, including
the questionable joint review missions (JRMs); this has caused irrevocable damage since all such academic contributions were invariably
made during the pre-DPEP phase
either on official duty or on an entirely voluntary basis (with reimbursement of only travel and contingent
expenses); it would be quite difficult,
if not impossible, to reverse this malpractice, once the project-based
external assistance is withdrawn;
● Rendered the departments of education in state governments superfluous by setting up parallel NGO-type
structures for channeling finance and
governance of DPEP (and later SSA)
and diverting political and administrative attention away from not only
23
the publicly-mandated departments
but also SCERTs, DIETs and other
state-level institutions of educational
research, curricular planning and
textbook development, teacher training and innovation. This has caused
much confusion in governance, planning, budgeting, assigning personnel
and public accountability;
● Undermined the in-built systems of
accountability, monitoring and evaluation of the programmes and projects. A farce of high profile and
expensive joint review missions
(JRMs), with participation of foreign
experts22, was built up during DPEP
whose cost was also charged to the
loan account, payable by India, but
whose methodology and reports
have never been subjected to public
scrutiny.23 Several Indian experts in
JRMs have reported that their reports
were ‘doctored’ by the ‘debriefing’
authorities in the state capitals,
ignoring their protests. At the end of
the project duration, both the World
Bank and the governments (Centre
and/or state) would quietly move on
to the next project (in this case, SSA)
without ever publicly assessing how
far the original targets have been
achieved and, in case of failure, without objectively analysing the causes
thereof.
24
The above story of DPEP is hard
to believe. An independent academic
assessment of DPEP by a collective of
university-based academics led them
to make the following observation:
“Behind the smokescreen then is
a vivid story of the rollback by the
state, of contracting commitments for
formal education, of the dismantling
of the existing structures of formal
education, proliferation of ‘teach
anyhow’ strategies, a thrust on publicity management, and a neo-conservative reliance on community.”24
This story did not end with DPEP
but continues to date, by being internalised in the government’s flagship
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme.
The common link between DPEP and
SSA is ofcourse the World Bank and
its allies such as DFID, European
Commission and others, which
together contribute 35-40 percent of
the SSA plan.
Impact of WB policies
on education system
The following retrogressive policy
changes relating to the entire education system (including secondary
and higher and technical/professional education) under the influence of
the World Bank-UN intervention
may be listed:
A. General and conceptual impact
i) The goal of education excludes
building a democratic, egalitarian,
just, secular and enlightened society.
Instead, education has become an
instrument for only improving productivity, promoting consumerism
and establishing market control over
knowledge and the public mind such
that every human being becomes
a ‘useful’ resource for the global
capital.25
ii) Knowledge is not a heritage of
humankind meant for optimising
human welfare but a saleable commodity for profit, subjugation and
hegemony in the hands of the capitalist class. Educational development
is not guided by the framework of
either universal human rights or fundamental rights under the Indian
Constitution but by the global market framework. Democratic structures of policy formulation and decision-making are either being bypassed or dismantled altogether.26
The State is steadily abdicating its
constitutional obligation towards
education and letting market become
the unregulated “service provider”
of education from pre-primary to
higher and technical/ professional
levels. Schools, colleges and universities
are
becoming
“service
providers” and students their “consumers”. In this “provider-consumer” relationship, every student
must eventually pay “user charges”
which implies payment of the full
cost of the “educational service”.
In
contradiction
to
the
Constitution, education of equitable
quality is no more the objective of
educational planning. Instead, the
quality of education shall be determined by the paying capacity of
the student.
A common space for children
from culturally diverse and economically disparate backgrounds to
socialise and grow together is no
more considered either desirable or
feasible. This shift violates the logical
foundation of publicly funded free
and quality education system that
has been the basis of capitalist development of the advanced countries.
Using the questionable rate of
return theory, primary (or elementary) education is juxtaposed against
higher education while allocating
public funds. This undervalues as
well as negates the critical role of
higher education in creation and
transaction of knowledge, thereby
making developing countries dependent on the advanced countries for
their ‘knowledge economies’.
In higher education, only those
disciplines will be supported
through public funding which, at
present, do not have any market
value. The disciplines which have a
market value shall receive no public
support whatsoever as the market
is expected to promote such
disciplines. This implies that profit
will determine the character of
knowledge.
Jomtien Declaration’s insistence
on developing only “observable and
measurable targets” have been used
to trivialise the goals of education
and distort the curriculum, pedagogy and testing in violation of the
spirit of the Constitution. This
behaviourist prescription reflected in
the MLLs is what has adversely
impacted upon DPEP and SSA.
In the name of social participation, the Jomtien Declaration has provided for the State to ‘devolve’
responsibility to NGOs, private companies and even religious bodies.27
Keeping in mind the fund-driven
nature of NGOs, profit-motivation of
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corporate houses and rising religious
fundamentalism, this stance of the
Jomtien Declaration has dangerous
implications.
B. Specific impact on school education
i) A multi-layered school system is
being built-up through a series of
arbitrary and short-lived schemes
and projects instead of building a
publicly funded common school system functioning through neighbourhood schools.28
ii) The public expenditure on education as percent of GDP has been
declining steadily since 1990, except
for a two-year period from 1999-2001
(Fig. 1). The level of expenditure as
percent of GDP in 2005-06 was as low
as it was before the 1986 policy. This
decline took place despite the levying
of two percent educational cess29 by the
UPA government and almost one-third
of funds for SSA coming from international agencies, including the World
Bank. Clearly, the SAP displaced both
the 1986 policy and UPA’s national
common minimum programme
which had resolved to raise educational expenditure to at least six percent of GDP.
iii) In Fig. 1, attention is drawn to the
rise of educational expenditure as
percent of GDP during the two-year
period of 2006-08, i.e., from 3.5 percent of GDP to 3.7 percent. This rise
is definitely not due to any rise in
expenditure on SSA (i.e. elementary
education) as during 2007-09 the central government’s allocation for SSA
declined in absolute terms, a trend that
is also evident successively in the
third year (2009-10 interim union
budget presented before the general
elections). The rise noted above during 2006-08 period can be explained
on the following three grounds:
(a) Increasing the number of seats
(along with all the contingent facilities including faculty) for the upper
castes in professional institutions as a
compensatory measure for the reservations provided to OBCs in these
institutions;
(b) Providing for a set of high profile central universities, IIT, IIMs,
IIITs and IISERs for the selected elite
to serve the global market while the
majority of higher educational institutions shall continue to be in poor
shape due to paucity of funds; and
(c) Opening 6,000 model higher
secondary schools (2,500 of which
shall be in PPP mode) for the selected
few at the Block-level (a continuation
of the Navodaya Vidyalaya model)
without ensuring education of equitable quality for all at the secondary
level.
Interestingly, the afore-mentioned rise exposes the so-called
‘inclusive’ agenda of the XI Plan
wherein only those will be included
whose inclusion will be in the interest of the neo-liberal capital and the
global market.
A common space for
children from culturally
diverse and
economically disparate
backgrounds to
socialise and grow
together is no more
considered either
desirable or feasible.
This shift violates the
logical foundation of
publicly funded free
and quality education
system that has been
the basis of capitalist
development of the
advanced countries
iv) Declining public expenditure in
school education implies gradual
deterioration of infrastructure, poor
pupil: teacher ratio, attrition of curriculum, lack of textbooks and teaching aids and also fall in the standards
of teacher training institutions. This
will predictably result in low learning levels which the World Bank and
internationally
funded
NGOs
(PRATHAM’s
ASER
Report,
Mumbai, January 2006) have
promptly documented as if they
were waiting for the evidence of
poorly functioning government
schools to appear.30 This deterioration in the quality of government
schools provides the essential
groundwork
for
privatisation
and commercialisation of school
education.
25
v) In order to promote privatisation,
the government resists public pressure for legislative action to set minimum norms and standards or for
instituting credible systemic reforms
in the government schools. This must
be the logic behind the central
government’s considerable delay in
passing the law for implementing
fundamental right to education as
required under Supreme Court’s
Unnikrishnan Judgement (1993) or
even the diluted Article 21A of the
86th Constitutional Amendment
(2002). The norms and standards
proposed in the schedule of ‘The
Right of Children to Free and
Compulsory Education Bill, 2008’
(passed in Rajya Sabha in July 2009)
are a major compromise with the
quality of education – not an unsurprising consequence of World Bank’s
neo-liberal assault.31
vi) The existing school regulation
laws are being gradually diluted or
withdrawn all together, as also
implied in the aforesaid bill wherein
the duties of the State do not include
regulation of the fee structure and
other aspects of the functioning of
private schools.
vii) In the case of urban government
schools, located on land carrying
high market value, a policy of publicprivate partnership is already in
place in order to transfer their assets
to the private capital, even without
waiting for the pretext of deterioration of their quality and consequent
fall in enrolment.
viii) Primary education of five years
or less is increasingly being viewed
as the desired end objective for the
children of the masses and this
should replace elementary education
26
of eight years, guaranteed under the
Constitution, to be followed by skill
development courses for serving the
global market.
ix) Only those children who are
either high ‘performers’ or ‘achievers’ in competencies needed by the
market or those whose families can
afford the cost of education shall be
allowed to proceed beyond primary
education. For the rest, access will be
confined to vocational skills so that
they can serve the needs of a hierarchically controlled market-driven
economy. The XI Plan proposal of
setting up 6,000 model schools is precisely in fulfillment of this purpose,
so that the high ‘performers’ or
‘achievers’ from among the poor
could be identified by screening and
then honed for the global market.32
x) Parallel layers of education of
varying quality shall be the only educational facilities provided to more
than half of India’s children. SSA,
patterned after World Bank’s DPEP,
is designed to achieve this purpose.
xi) Public-funded teacher training
institutions are being allowed to
deteriorate and be replaced by private institutions. Well-trained teachers shall be available only for private
schools. Regular trained teachers in
government schools shall be replaced
by ‘para-teachers’. This, too, is the
guiding theme of SSA. The financial
estimates for implementing ‘The
'Dirty Dozens' of the Free and Compulsory
Education Bill, 2008 in Rajya Sabha
Fails to guarantee entirely FREE education even in government schools; those
compelled to go to private schools due to lack of good quality government
schools will also be denied FREE education.
● Legitimises inequality and discrimination through a multi-layered school system.
● Excludes children below six years from their Fundamental Right to nutrition,
health and pre-primary education.
● Denies right to secondary and senior secondary education.
● Shifts public funds to private unaided fee-charging schools to exacerbate commercialisation, exclusion and inequality.
● Misperceives the 'neighbourhood' principle by replacing the Neighbourhood
School by the neighbourhood of the child; permits violation of the 'neighbourhood' principle by the government-run elite and private schools, allowing them
to charge fees and exclude children.
● Continues discrimination against government school children as their teachers
will still be deployed for census, elections and disaster relief duties, apart from
being assigned tasks other than teaching children.
● Does not include the regulation of private unaided schools among the duties of
the state/UT governments, leaving such schools free to indulge in arbitrary fee
hikes, profiteering, anti-child practices and other violations.
● Does not guarantee child's mother tongue as medium of education, even at primary stage (for children of linguistic minority groups, this violates Article
350A.)
● Contains subtle provisions that exclude disabled children from schools, thereby
confining them to either special schools or 'home-based' education.
● Lacks guarantee of dignified salaries, professional development, promotional
avenues and social security for teachers and prevention of fragmentation of
teachers' cadre; allows the state/UT governments to continue to appoint parateachers.
● Lacks Financial Memorandum to compel the State to provide adequate funds.
●
Compulsory Education Bill, 2008’ are
also based on this logic.33
xii) Programmes like bridge courses
and ‘back-to-school camps’, as provided for in SSA, shall be encouraged
for the present as sops for the masses, even though they hardly provide
access to functioning schools.
xiii) In the name of ‘English-medium’
schools, the majority of the children
will be deprived of the power to
articulate their thoughts in either
their mother tongue or English,
thereby resulting in lack of subject
knowledge,
critical
thinking,
creativity and, therefore, also general
democratic consciousness. Given the
inferior quality education, the only
option for them will be to acquire
some marketable vocational skills
and join the hierarchically exploited
skilled workforce in the global
market.
xiv) Those who manage to cross the
barrier of senior secondary education
will be able to access higher and technical/professional education in private institutions only with bank
loans subsidised through public
funds. This is yet another camouflaged form of public-private partnership. In order to be able to return
the loan following completion of
education, these specially selected
‘high achievers’, too, will be compelled to mechanically contribute to
corporate growth without ever being
able to reflect upon the contribution
they would be making to enhance the
capacity of the neo-liberal capital to
further exploit the global resources.
The market objective of having an
‘intellectually vibrant, creative and
technologically competent’ elite segment of society but entirely subservient, regimented and ideologically co-opted could not have been better achieved!
xv) Parallel institutional structures
for financing and managing education are being created outside the government such that the State’s role
may be made superfluous.34
xvi) Using the rhetoric of decentralisation and ‘community’ participation, the legitimate functions of the
government are being hurriedly
‘devolved’ to the Panchayati Raj institutions and other local bodies without ensuring that (a) the government’s obligation for adequate
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financing of education is fulfilled; (b)
the local bodies have the necessary
vision, administrative acumen or the
legal powers to meet even the minimum challenges; and, more importantly, (c) the caste-ridden, patriarchal and generally retrogressive
character of these bodies will not be
counter-productive. While resisting
legislation to guarantee fundamental
right to education of equitable quality and to institute a common school
system, the State shall have no hesitation whatsoever to legislate to
transfer its constitutional obligations
to the local bodies for which World
Bank shall make available both direct
and indirect funding. The real agenda behind all this is to dilute the role
of the State and to enable the local
bodies to directly negotiate and sign
MoUs with World Bank. An identical
process has already begun in several
states by paving the way for privatisation of natural resources like land,
forest and water. The next is the turn
of about 1.2 million government
schools when the local bodies in
urban/rural areas shall be persuaded
by the World Bank to transfer their
assets for privatisation.
Miniscule investments
and Disproportionate influence
In spite of the high profile character
of the externally assisted projects
such as DPEP, the finance provided
by them is miniscule, if not just outright ridiculous. From 1999-2000 to
2001-02, for example, when external
assistance to DPEP was at its peak,
the external assistance ranged
between 0.039 percent and 0.053 percent of GDP respectively. For all
externally assisted educational projects put together, it was only
marginally higher (see Tables 1a,b).
Even as percentage of the total
expenditure incurred on education
by the Centre and the states together,
the external assistance ranged
between 0.9 percent and 1.5 percent.
Yet, we have seen in the preceding
sections how the World Bank and
other international agencies managed to dilute and distort both the
constitutional vision of education
and the 1986 policy passed by
Parliament.35 What further evidence
is required for the steady attrition of
India’s sovereignty that has been
taking place since 1991?
In the name of
‘English-medium’
schools, the
majority of the
children will be
deprived of the
power to articulate
their thoughts in
either their mother
tongue or English,
thereby resulting in
lack of subject
knowledge, critical
thinking, creativity
and, therefore, also
general democratic
consciousness.
Given the inferior
quality education,
the only option for
them will be to
acquire some
marketable
vocational skills
and join the
hierarchically
exploited skilled
workforce in the
global market
27
The disproportionate influence
exercised by the World Bank and its
allied agencies required a two-fold
strategy. First, the quality of school
education was made to deteriorate
by diluting the norms relating to various critical parameters. The comparison of the norms, as per the 1986
policy, recommended by the government of India’s expert group (1999)
and the SSA norms (one-third of SSA
funds come from World Bank and
allied agencies) shows how SAP
conditionalities were dictating terms
for educational planning and
allocations.
The second strategy emerged out
of the ‘knowledge agenda’ of the
global market. For this purpose, the
World Bank has carefully funded
research, project evaluation and
appraisal, consultancy, publications
and international exchange of
academia in order to co-opt intellectuals in its neo-liberal project, prevent generation of counter-knowledge and thereby subtly modulate
the political economy of knowledge. The market control over generation, character, content and distribution of knowledge is certainly
the most powerful method of
manipulation and regimentation of
the public mind, policies and critique, thereby maintaining the
hegemony of the global capital over
world’s natural and human
resources. The people’s movements
need to decipher this epistemic challenge of the global market forces and
28
imperialist globalisation with a view
to not only resist it but also to build
a political programme of emancipative knowledge dedicated to human
welfare and peace.
Alternative vision
The only known option for the people of India is to struggle for establishing a fully publicly funded common school system based on neighbourhood schools (CSS-NS). Such a
system exists in several of the
advanced economies of the world,
including the G-8 countries.
However, while envisioning such a
system, we have to be careful that the
Indian version is not a poor carbon
copy of what exists in the advanced
economies. For this, one has to
ensure that it is conceived in consonance with the socio-economic, cultural
and historical conditions of each geo-cultural region of the country, while sharing a broadly common vision of education rooted in the Constitution.
The CSS-NS implies a heterogeneous classroom representing the
diversity (along with disparity) prevailing in the neighbourhood. Only
then, all sections of society, including
the most powerful, will have a vested
interest in improving the government school system. The neighbourhood school needs to be envisioned
as a common public space where children
of diverse backgrounds can study and
socialise together. This is a pre-condition in a society like ours for forging a
sense of common citizenship. Therefore,
the CSS-NS has the potential of
becoming a powerful means of promoting solidarity in the working
class for undertaking democratic
struggles for social transformation.
Also, can there be a fundamental
right to unequal and inferior quality
education? Does the Constitution
permit a fundamental right to education that violates the principles of
equality and social justice enshrined
in Articles 14, 15(1) and 16?
Naturally, do not. Given this, do we
have any option other than the CSSNS that will be in conformity with
the vision of education emerging
from the Constitution?
Some of the salient features of the
CSS-NS could be spelt out as follows:
a) The entire school system is to
be conceived such as to guarantee
through an unambiguous legislation
entirely free education of equitable
quality from kindergarten to
Class XII.
b) All schools shall have a common set of minimum norms and
standards pertaining to infrastructure, quality of teachers, teacher
recruitment, pupil: teacher ratio,
educational aids, ICT facilities,
libraries and laboratories, facilities
for music, fine and performing arts
and sports; in the present circumstances, for want of a better model,
we can say that no school shall have
norms and standards lower than
those of Kendriya Vidyalayas, while
striving for even better norms.
c) Each school, state-funded or
otherwise, shall be required by law
to act as a genuine neighbourhood
school such that all children residing
in its neighbourhood, irrespective of
class, caste, religion, gender, language or disability (mental or otherwise), shall be admitted therein and
study and socialise together without
any discrimination whatsoever.
While delimiting the neighbourhood, the inviolable guiding principle for the prescribed authority
shall be to optimise socio-cultural
diversity.
d) Although CSS-NS shall be
entirely state-funded, the governance
shall not be state-controlled. The role
of the State shall be limited to policymaking, legislating, guaranteeing
adequate funding and monitoring.
e) CSS-NS shall have a system of
governance that will be decen-
tralised, democratic, flexible, transparent and accountable to the public,
particularly to the parents. A carefully balanced and incremental devolution of powers will have to be undertaken while keeping in mind the role
of the local bodies under the 73rd
and 74th constitutional amendments.
A structured space for adequate participation in decision-making will
have to be ensured through legislation for women, SCs, STs, OBCs and
other sections in proportion to their
representation in the body of parents
as well as the community.
Within a broadly common national curriculum framework, clusters of
schools at the level of a district/block
or even sub-block level shall have a
structured and negotiated space for
flexibility to innovate at the level of
curriculum, texts, pedagogy and
evaluation parameters, as long as this
is periodically reviewed in a democratic manner.
All schools shall follow a common language education policy
based on a set of linguistically and
pedagogically sound principles and
aimed at optimising the child’s
capacity to think, learn and articulate. The CSS-NS shall recognise the
powerful pedagogic role of mother
tongue as part of multi-linguality of
the Indian child in acquiring knowledge and learning languages other
than one’s mother tongue. This, of
course, includes learning of the state
language at an appropriate stage but
does not permit the prevailing
assumption that the state language is
the mother tongue of every child living in the concerned state (Article
350A must also be respected). Equal
opportunity for learning good quality English and ability to use it as a
means for acquiring higher knowledge will certainly have a legitimate
space within this framework but not
for imposition, discrimination or
substitution of the child’s cultural
identity and historical ethos.
All schools shall provide equitable infrastructural and pedagogic
space for the disabled children to
study and socialise in common classrooms, irrespective of the nature of
disability. All necessary support systems and educational aids will have
to be guaranteed in each and every
school as a fundamental right of all
disabled children. Capacity to fulfill
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this objective is to be viewed as a test
of the pedagogic and cultural
sensitivity of the CSS-NS. Special
classes/ schools or home-based
education will be sought as only the
last options.
The entire epistemological (related to the genesis, sources and character of knowledge), cultural and pedagogic framework of teacher education needs to be critically reviewed,
radically restructured and creatively
re-synthesised in order to meet the
challenge of building the CSS-NS. A
new vision of teacher and teacher
education is long overdue. This
indeed is to be envisaged as a precondition for moving towards CSSNS and, therefore, allows no compromise whatsoever.
Private schools can exist as long
as they act as neighbourhood schools
and accept all other aforesaid obligations, in the same manner, as do the
state-funded schools. In CSS-NS,
there is adequate space for philanthropy, flexibility and creativity but
not for hegemony (cultural or otherwise), subjugation or profiteering.
Critical pedagogy to guide the
transformation of the present multilayered hierarchical school system
into CSS-NS, since it implies much
more than structural change; it
implies an education that liberates
the child’s mind, enabling her to resist
injustice, deconstruct capitalism and
neo-liberalism and struggle for social
transformation.
Concluding remarks
There is an adequate ground for contending that the fundamental right to
education can be gained only
through a publicly funded common
school system based on neighbourhood schools as envisaged above.
Resisting commoditisation of education and its inherent knowledge is
integral to the agenda for moving
towards this goal. Further, changes
in school education are envisaged
organically as part of changes in the
entire education system, including
higher, vocational and professional.
In this sense, the struggle for building the common school system is
simultaneously a struggle for epistemic and social transformation as
well. To be sure, this struggle is also
a part of the growing movement in
the country against imperialist glob-
alisation and for redeeming India’s
democracy, sovereignty and role of
productive labour and knowledge in
creating an egalitarian and just
society.
–The author is former Dean,
University of Delhi and a
leading national activist on
Right to Education
Footnotes
1. Although amended through the 86th
Constitutional Amendment (December
2002), the original Article 45 still holds since
the aforesaid Amendment has not been notified as yet (i.e. as of February 2009).
2. See Report of the Committee for Review
of NPE-1986 (1990), Govt. of India,
Sections 5.1.1 to 5.1.6 and 6.1.1 to 6.1.3
along with the related recommendations.
3. The Part IV of the Constitution comprises
the Directive Principles of State Policy that
are not “enforceable by any court” but are
“nevertheless fundamental in the governance
of the country” and the State is duty bound
to “apply these principles in making laws”
(Article 37). In contrast, the Part III comprises Fundamental Rights that are enforceable
in the courts. However, underlining the criticality of Part IV, the Supreme Court ruled in
29
its Unnikrishnan Judgment (1993) that
whereas the Part IV provides the goals of the
Constitution, the Part III provides the means
to achieve these goals.
4. This estimate is arrived at by adding the
government-reported number of children in
the “non-enrolled” category to the number of
the so-called ‘drop-outs’ by Class VIII
(Selected Educational Statistics, MHRD,
Govt. of India, 2004-05).
5. The global research on language education, including research in India, is documented in NCERT’s National Focus Group
Position Paper on ‘Teaching of Indian
Languages’ (NCERT, New Delhi, November
2006) which also makes profound recommendations on how to incorporate multi-linguality as a guiding principle for a coherent
and pedagogically sound language education
policy in India.
6. This phase of the Right to Education discourse has been documented in the background paper presented at the ‘Convention
on Education as a Fundamental Right’, organized by the Department of Education,
University of Delhi, Delhi, December 18,
1997 (Dr. Manmohan Singh represented the
Congress Party in this Convention along
with the senior leaders of other political parties as well).
7. For detailed analysis, see this author’s
papers entitled, ‘Political Economy of the
Ninety-third Amendment Bill’, MAINSTREAM, December 22, 2001, New Delhi,
pp. 43-50; ‘C for Commerce’, TEHELKA,
June 14, 2008, pp. 44-45, http://www.tehelka.com/story_main39.asp?filename=cr14060
8cforcommerce.asp
8. See Footnote 5.
9. This exercise was pushed by a retired
Director (an NRI) of the UNESCO Institute
of Education, Hamburg, Germany.
10. Although the NCERT was made to publish the Ministry’s report on MLLs, it did not
advocate this idea until the National
Curriculum Framework was re-written in
2000 under the NDA government. By this
time, the neo-liberal agenda had started dominating the thinking of the India Inc.
11. DPEP Guidelines, Ministry of HRD,
Govt. of India, Ch. III, p. 21, May 1995;
Dhankar, Rohit, Seeking Quality Education:
In the Arena of Fun and Rhetoric, in Seeking
Quality Education for All: Experiences from
the District Primary Education Programme,
Occasional Papers, The European
Commission, June 2002 and Lessons to
Learn, Seminar, No. 436, December 1995.
12. See Report of the NPE-1986 Review
Committee (i.e. Acharya Ramamurti
Committee), Ministry of HRD, Govt. of
India, Ch. IV, Section E, p. 100, 1990.
30
13. Sadgopal, Anil, A Post-Jomtien
Reflection on the Education Policy: Dilution,
Distortion and Diversion, in The Crisis of
Elementary Education in India (Ed. Ravi
Kumar), SAGE Publications, New Delhi,
pp. 92-136, 2006.
14. The agenda of privatization and commercialization of education inherent in this
innocuous looking notion of ‘partnership’
has after the passage of 17 years appeared in
India’s XI Five Year Plan in the form of
‘Public-Private Partnership’ (PPP) wherein
the Indian State will transfer public funds
and other critical resources (e.g. land), apart
from legitimacy and credibility, to the private
capital for commoditization of education.
This is now the central theme of the XI Plan.
In a subtle endorsement of PPP, a suggestion
has even been made to set up “10 IIT-IIM
level national institutes of teacher education”
in PPP mode (Krishna Kumar, Partners in
Education?, EPW, 19 January 2008, p. 11).
See this author’s detailed interview in Hindi
entitled, Sarvajanik-Niji‘Saajhedaari’ Ya
Loot, SHIKSHA-VIMARSH, Jaipur,
Rajasthan, January-April, 2008, pp. 68-96.
See also Footnote 27.
15. For instance, the Karnataka state government has constituted a World Bank-assisted
body under Wipro’s Azim Premji Foundation
chairpersonship to advise on policy matters
and also invited the same corporate group in
2007 to set up SIEMAT, a formal institutional structure for policy formulation relating to
educational governance and teacher training
- a move presently stalled due to public
protests. See also Footnote 28.
16. In contrast, USA provides entirely free
education from kindergarten to class XII
which includes free textbooks, stationery,
teaching aids (including computers), tests,
co-curricular activities, games and sports,
bus transport and lunch. Several other G-8
countries also provide free education.
17. The ‘alternative modes of finance’ for
primary education suggested by the World
Bank-UN collective in its Background Paper
(Annexure 2, p. 146) on the Jomtien
Declaration include private schools and user
charges;
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0009/0009
75/097552e.pdf
18. Economic Survey 2007-08, Ministry of
Finance, Government of India, Section
10.25, p. 249.
19. In 1999, the District Collector of Indore
(Madhya Pradesh) in his report to the state’s
Chief Minister used the term ‘rationalisation’
to justify the closure of 30 government
schools in the Indore city which were later
turned into commercial ventures or police
stations. Neither the Collector nor the Chief
Minister expressed any concern about where
had the children gone who had either entered
low fee-charging private schools in the
neighbourhood or given up on education
altogether!
20. The 1986 policy norm for elementary
school (Class I-VIII) would require this to be
established within three km of each habitation, while also ensuring that every habitation would have access to a lower primary
school within one km. More than half a
dozen states like Maharashtra, Gujarat,
Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Meghalaya and
Assam have primary schools ending at Class
IV, thereby denying rural children access to
Class V within one km of their habitation.
This critical issue of school mapping was
entirely ignored by the DPEP. In contrast, the
Report of Bihar’s Common School System
Commission (2007) examined this issue and
worked out its implications in terms of the
size of the elementary schools, the primary:
middle school ratio and the consequent
increased financial allocations in order to
ensure Fundamental Right to elementary
education. This policy gap in Bihar noted in
the Commission’s report in 2007 is despite
the implementation of the UN-assisted Bihar
Education Project since 1990 and the World
Bank-assisted DPEP since 1997.
21. Considered as being largely equivalent to
the poorer sections among OBCs, as per the
Sachar Committee Report (2007).
22. The basis of selection of foreign experts
for the JRMs and their academic credentials
have been solely in the domain of the World
Bank or their allied international funding
agencies. Even more importantly, the value
of the contribution made by the foreign
experts to JRMs is highly questionable in
light of their rushed visits, absence of scientific planning, unfamiliarity with the complex local conditions and lack of transparency of their findings or reports.
23. Even the MoU signed between the World
Bank and Govt. of India has never been
made public.
24. Krishna Kumar et al, 2001, Economic
and Political Weekly, 36 (7), 560-568.
25. In this instrumentalist paradigm, in the
case of women, education is primarily
expected to lower infant and child mortality
rates, reduce fertility rates and improve
household nutrition and health (see Primary
Education in India, World Bank, Allied
Publishers Limited, New Delhi, 1997,
pp. 30-31, 39).
26. The proposal of school vouchers and
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Public-Private Partnership in education
entered the XI Five Year Plan without such
recommendation by either the CABE or any
of its seven sub-committee reports in July
2005, in spite of the CABE being the highest
democratic consultative structure (with representation of all state/UT education ministers, central educational authorities, academicians, writers, artists and social activists) for
policy advice in education. See also
Footnote 15.
27. In June 2007, the HRD Ministry engaged
the Global E-schools & Communities
Initiative (GeSCI), a conglomerate of
Ireland, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland and
Finland, to prepare the draft ICT policy for
schools. In turn, GeSCI roped in the Centre
for Science, Development & Media Studies
(CSDMS), a Delhi-based NGO which works
in collaboration with Microsoft and others
corporations (Outlook, 24 November 2008).
See also Footnote 16.
28. A publicly funded school system, similar
to the proposed Common School System,
exists in USA and other G-8 countries.
29. The education cess, introduced in 200405, is a special cess or surcharge levied at
the rate of two percent on all major central
taxes viz. income tax, corporation tax, excise
duties, customs duties and service tax. The
revenue from this cess is meant for elementary education. While the overall budgetary
support is the source of funding for most
developmental sectors, this is not the case
with elementary education which receives
substantial resources through this earmarked
educational cess. From 2007-08 onwards,
one percent additional cess is being levied to
raise funds for secondary and higher education as well.
30. None of these reports analyse the systemic issues, documented in this paper, that
are responsible for such deterioration of
quality, lest the neo-liberal framework is
deconstructed. This is also true for the World
Bank-sponsored research on teacher absenteeism and James Tooley’s study of
Shahadara’s low fee-charging private schools
in Delhi which tend to present privatization
as a panacea for educational backwardness.
31. See Sadgopal, Anil, C for Commerce,
TEHELKA, June 14, 2008, pp. 44-45.
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main39.asp?fil
ename=cr140608cforcommerce.asp;
Education Bill: Dismantling Rights, THE
FINANCIAL EXPRESS, November 9, 2008,
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/education-bill-dismantling-rights/383177/
32. See Sadgopal, Anil, The ‘Trickle Down’
Trick, TEHELKA, September 29, 2007,
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main34.asp?fil
ename=Ws290907The_Trickle.asp
33. See Sadgopal, Anil,
Education Bill: Dismantling Rights, THE
FINANCIAL EXPRESS, 09 November
2008,
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/education-bill-dismantling-rights/383177/
34. The central government went to the
extent of even setting up a private company
called Ed.CIL in mid-1990s to manage
certain key aspects of the World Bank and
other internationally funded programmes
in education.
Likewise, SSA depends upon a host of
ad-hoc schemes introduced by corporate
houses, NGOs and religious bodies.
35. Since 1991, more than a dozen policies,
measures and/or schemes of education
(including DPEP and SSA) have been
instituted in the country which violate either
the Constitution or contradict the 1986 policy or both. Yet, such programmes/ projects
and their violative elements have not been
formally and explicitly debated and approved
by the Parliament. It is part of the neo-liberal
agenda promoted by the World Bank to
either weaken, bypass or demolish democratic structures and processes in order to allow
the neo-liberal capital unregulated and
unquestioned space for profiteering.
31
Implementing
Article 21A
Justice Dalveer Bhandari
Supreme Court of India
ducation is a universal human
right ratified in almost all the
important conventions. Besides
being an important driver for economic growth and productivity, education plays an influential role in
social reconstruction and reducing
poverty, narrowing extreme inequalities and improving public health.
Professor John Kennith Galbraith
in a lecture delivered in New Delhi in
November 1992 remarked: (P.34)
“…. Education is the first requirement for economic progress. That
essential fact was forgotten: impressive steel mills, great hydroelectric
dams, glistening airports, were too
often sited amid ignorant people. I
have previously made the point: in
this world there is no literate population that is poor, no illiterate population that is other than poor.”
E
Historical viewpoint
Tracing the long, rich and impressive
history of educational system in
India, the Gurukul system of education is one of the oldest on earth but
before that the Guru Shishya system
was in existence in which students
were taught orally and the data
would be passed from one generation to the next generation. At the
Gurukuls, the teachers imparted
knowledge of religion, philosophy,
literature,
scriptures,
warfare,
statecraft, mathematics, medicine,
32
astrology and history, to students
from Brahmin and Kshatriya
communities.
The advent of Buddhism and
Jainism in the Indian subcontinent
brought fundamental changes in
access to education with their democratic character. They spread the
message that education should not
be restricted only to certain sections
of the society. The first millennium
and the few centuries preceding this
period saw the establishment and
flourishing of higher educational
institutions at Nalanda, Takshila,
Ujjain and Vikramshila universities.
Takshila specialised in the study of
medicine while Ujjain laid emphasis
on astronomy. Nalanda being the
biggest centre of higher/professional
education handled all branches of
knowledge and housed up to 10,000
students at its peak. These universities attracted foreign scholars too.
Apart from these world-renowned
centres of excellence, monastic
orders of education under the supervision of a guru were a favoured
form of education for India’s noble
castes. The Brahmins were imparted
knowledge of religion and philosophy and the Kshatriyas were trained
in various aspects of warfare. The
Vaishya community was taught techniques of trade and business while
the lower castes of Shudra sect were
kept outside the purview of the educational advantages. By the time of
visit of the Islamic scholar Alberuni
to India, the country’s educational set
up already had a substantial system
of mathematics and science in place
and had made a number of inventions and discoveries.
The colonial attitude
Focusing on the educational system
in the pre-independence period,
Mahatma Jotirao Phule initiated the
debate of right to education over 125
years ago when a substantial part of
the memorandum presented by him
to the Indian education commission
(the Hunter Commission) in 1882
dwelt upon how the British government’s funding of education tended
to benefit “Brahmins and the higher
classes while leaving the masses wallowing in ignorance and poverty”.
Mahatma Phule drew attention to the
irony that this happens when most of
the revenue collected by the British
government is generated from the
output of the labour of the masses
themselves.
The East India Company, which
originally came with trade relations
in mind and eventually became a real
political power, made the administration and education of India its
legal responsibility but unfortunately
the company sadly neglected its
responsibility for providing mass
education to the people of undivided
India.
A distinguished member of parliament, Wilberforce, in the House of
Commons in 1793, pleaded to insert
a clause in the Company’s charter
supporting the cause of the missionaries in the field of education in
India. The proposal was rejected.
Randle Jackson, member of parliament frankly pointed out:
“We have lost America by our
folly, in having allowed the establishment of schools and colleges, and it
of education. This gave greater powers to provincial legislature and ministers to draw up various programmes of educational reconstruction, but the British government
failed to create a national system of
education in India.
The quality of education is equally troubling.
For classes I and II, only 78.3 percent of students
surveyed could recognise letters and read words or
more in their own language. In 2006, it was even
worse — only 73.1 percent could do so. It is
disheartening to peruse the statistics for classes III to
V, where only 66.4 percent could read class I
text or more in their own language in 2007
will not do good for us to repeat the
same act of folly in regard to India. If
the natives require anything in the
way of education they must come to
England for it.”
This remark largely replicates the
larger British colonial attitude
towards the education of the masses
in India.
Educational policy
under British, 1854-1900
In 1837, English was made the
language of administration and a
government resolution of 1844 threw
subordinate positions open to
Indians. Therefore, a large number of
Indians started studying in English
schools. The indigenous systems of
education were neglected and even
suppressed.
The educational policy was made
to provide higher education to those
fortunate with leisure and money in
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the hope that western knowledge
and culture would filter down to the
masses. This policy came to be
known as the “downward filtration
theory”. However, for a variety of
reasons, its aims were never fulfilled.
From 1900 to 1947
In 1902, the Indian universities commission was constituted. The nationalist movement had brought the
question of mass education to the
forefront. Shri Gopal Krishan
Gokhale introduced a bill concerning
enforcement of free and compulsory
elementary education in 1911 but it
was rejected by the imperial legislative assembly. Though Gokhale
failed to move the government, he
was successful in obtaining the support of Indians working for spreading mass education.
The Government of India Act,
1935 introduced the provincialisation
Gandhi’s idea of
basic education
Mahatma Gandhi placed the concept
of basic education before the country
in 1937 stating, “by education, I
mean an all-round drawing out of
the best in child and man - body,
mind and spirit”. Mahatma Gandhi
is said to have described the traditional educational system as a beautiful tree that was destroyed during
the British rule.
On October 22-23, 1937, at a conference of educational and national
workers at Wardha, under the chairmanship of Mahatma Gandhi, certain resolutions were passed like:
a) Free and compulsory education be
provided for seven years on a nationwide scale; b) The medium of
instruction be the mother tongue; c)
The process of education should
revolve around some form of manual
productive work and all the other
abilities to be developed or training
to be given should, as far as possible,
be integrally related to the central
handicraft chosen with due regard to
the environment of the child; and
d) The conference expects that this
system of education will be gradually able to cover the remuneration of
the teachers.
After the Wardha conference, a
small committee was appointed
under the chairmanship of Dr. Zakir
Hussain to prepare a draft syllabus.
This committee submitted its report
on December 2, 1937.
Educational policy
after independence
The biggest task after independence
was one of remodeling the system of
education in the national interest.
The ministry of education, government of India on November 4, 1948
set up the university education commission under the chairmanship of
Dr S Radhakrishnan which consisted
of 10 most eminent educationists of
the country. But the emphasis of this
commission was predominantly on
higher education. The commission
33
has noted that education, according
to the Indian tradition, is not merely
a means to earn a living; nor it is only
a nursery of thought or a school for
citizenship. It is initiation into the lift
of spirit, training of human souls in
the pursuit of truth and the practice
of virtue. It is divitiyam janma
(second birth).
According
to
Dr
S
Radhakrishnan, the process of education is the slow conquering of
darkness of faults in our inward
being. “To lead us from darkness to
light, to free us from every kind of
domination except that of reason, is
the aim of education”.1
Kothari education commission
In 1964, the government of India set
up an education commission under
the chairmanship of Dr DS Kothari.
The commission, consisting of 16
Indian and foreign scholars, gave a
formidable report on education and
advocated the principle of free and
compulsory education from age six
to the age of 14 years. The commission proposed that the task of free
and compulsory education must be
completed before 1986.
Besides, free elementary education, the Kothari Commission also
laid great emphasis on common
school system. The panel noted the
state of the school system in the early
1960s in the following words:
“There is thus segregation in education - the minority of private, feecharging, better schools meeting the
needs of the upper classes and the
vast bulk of free, publicly maintained, but poor schools being
utilised by the rest. What is worse,
this segregation is increasing and
tending to widen the gulf between
the classes and the masses.”
Elaborating upon its concern for
the lack of access to quality education for the masses, the Commission
stated:
“Good education, instead of
being available to all children, or at
least to all the able children from
every stratum of society, is available
only to a small minority which is
usually selected not on the basis of
talent but on the basis of its capacity
to pay fees. The identification and
development of the total national
pool of ability is greatly hampered.
The position is thus undemocratic
34
and inconsistent with the idea of an
egalitarian society.”
In a critical stance on the prevailing
system,
the
commission
remarked, “this is bad not only for
the children of the poor but also for
the children of the rich and the privileged groups.” While, in the shortrun, it may enable the latter groups
to “perpetuate and consolidate their
position”, in the long run, “by segregating their children, such privileged
parents prevent them from sharing
the life and experiences of the children of the poor and coming into
contact with the realities of life”, and
consequently also render the
education of their own wards anemic
and incomplete. The commission
was further persuaded to recommend that:
“If these evils are to be eliminated
and the educational system is to
become a powerful instrument of
national development in general, and
social and national integration in
particular, we must move towards
the goal of a common school system
of public education which will cover
all parts of the country and all stages
of education and strive to provide
equality of access to all children.”
The Kothari Commission’s concept of the neighbourhood school
“implies that each school should be
attended by all children in the neighbourhood irrespective of caste, creed,
community, religion, economic condition or social status, so that there
would be no segregation in schools.”
In support of the neighbourhood
school recommendation, the commission advanced two other important arguments, other than its contribution to social and national integration in the following words:
“In the first place, a neighbourhood school will provide ‘good’ education to children because sharing
life with common people is an essential ingredient of good education.
Secondly, the establishment of such
schools will compel the rich, privileged and powerful classes to take
interest in the system of public education and thereby bring about its
early improvement.”
The most important recommendation of the Kothari Commission
worked towards a larger unity in the
country. However, unfortunately,
this has not been implemented and
by not executing it, we are creating
great disparity in the society where
on one hand, some of our institutions
are comparable to the best in the
world and on the other hand in most
of our institutions, particularly the
government schools, even basic
instructions are not imparted. In a
country like India, disparities among
various sections of the society have
grown to a large extent. For instance,
the financial capital of India,
Mumbai has Asia’s largest Dharavi
slum. At the same time, three out of
ten richest people of the world live in
the same city. The same city has all
conceivable luxuries and affluence.
Emergence of
world-class schools
and universities is a
great phenomenon
but at the same time
it is also creating
class within a class
and vast division in
the society which
was very strongly
articulated by the
Kothari Commission
report
The state of Maharashtra also has
five tribal districts where the conditions are so appalling that people are
dying of hunger and malnutrition.
All these issues are interconnected
aspects and have to be dealt with
comprehensively on a priority basis.
In the Oscar-winner film Slumdog
Millionaire, conditions prevalent in
our slums were portrayed vividly.
On the contrary, when one witnesses
the conditions of some of the elite
private schools that insist on air conditioning of bathrooms and worldclass teaching and instruction aid
etc., this reflects the stark disparity
prevalent in our society.
Compulsory
cannot wait till
poverty is totally
eliminated. It is a
child’s constitutional
right and the duty of
the State to provide it.
State intervention to
remove children from
the labour force has
always been politically
contentious
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Emergence of world-class schools
and universities is a great phenomenon but at the same time it is
also creating class within a class and
vast division in the society which
was very strongly articulated by the
Kothari Commission report. The
government should have taken this
report more seriously and implemented it completely.
Education and Constitution
In the Indian Constitution, education
found a prominent place. Article 45
under the Directive Principles of
State Policy incorporated “the State
shall endeavour to provide, within a
period of ten years from the commencement of this Constitution, for
free and compulsory education for
all children until they complete the
age
of
fourteen
years.”
Unfortunately, that dream of founding fathers of the Constitution has
not been accomplished yet. The kind
of impetus that was imperative was
not given to the Indian educational
policy even after independence.
The first five-year plan
The First five year plan (1951-56)
declared basic education as the
national system at the elementary
stage. The plan undertook the task of
improving the teaching and development of methods, providing financial
assistance to the states, conversion of
primary schools into basic schools
and increasing facilities for the training of teachers. Similarly, in the subsequent five years plans though mentioning of education did appear but
the kind of impetus it deserved was
never given.
When we objectively evaluate the
11th five year plan (2007-2012), we
find greater thrust on access to education and health. The plan has been
aptly described by Prime Minister
Dr. Manmohan Singh as a national
education plan. The five year plan
strengthens the elementary education and proposes to provide necessary infrastructure to the schools
across the country for providing
effective quality education.
National policy
for children, 1974
The Indian government enunciated
the national policy for children on
August 22, 1974. It was felt that
nation’s children are supreme important asset. Their nurturing and solicitude
are
our
responsibility.
Children’s programme should find a
prominent part in our national plans
for the development of human
resources.
The Law Commission of India in
its 165th report on free and compulsory education for children observed
that education is critical for economic and social development. It is crucial for building human capabilities
and for opening new vistas.
Education is the true essence of
human development. Without education, development can be neither
broad-based nor sustained.
Brown vs board of education
In a celebrated case of American
Supreme Court in Brown vs Board of
Education (1953) 98 Law Ed. 873,
Earl Warren, Chief Justice, speaking
for the Court emphasised the right to
education in the following words:
“Today, education is perhaps the
most important function of State and
local governments. Compulsory
school attendance laws and the great
expenditures on education both
demonstrate our recognition of the
importance of education to our
democratic society. It is the very
foundation of good citizenship.
Today it is the principal instrument
in awakening a child to cultural values, in preparing him for future professional training, and in helping him
to adjust to his environment. In these
days, it is doubtful any child will reasonably be expected to succeed in life
if he is denied the opportunity of
education.” (p.6)
Abolition of child labour
Some people in India feel that society
cannot afford to do without the
labour of children while the real
question is whether we can afford to
have child labour, illiterate children
and still talk of tomorrow’s citizens?
It is clear that compulsory elementary education cannot wait till poverty is totally eliminated. It is a child’s
constitutional right and the duty of
the State to provide it. State intervention to remove children from the
labour force and ensure that they
attend school has always been politically contentious. Education is
empowerment for socio-economic
35
mobility, an instrument for reducing
socio-economic inequalities and an
equipment to trigger growth and
development.
In Mohini Jain vs State of
Karnataka (1992) 3 SCC 666, right to
education has been held to flow
directly from right to life. The Apex
Court in the said case observed:
“The right to education flows
directly from right to life. The right to
life under Article 21 and the dignity
of an individual cannot be assured
unless they are accompanied by the
right to education. The state government is under an obligation to make
an endeavour to provide educational
facilities at all levels to its citizens.”
Interpreting the aforesaid provision along with Article 21, in
Unnikrishnan, JP & Others etc. vs
State of Andhra Pradesh & Others
etc. (1993) 1 SCC 645, the Supreme
Court observed thus:
“166. … Right to education is
implicit in and flows from the right
to life guaranteed by Article 21. That
the right to education has been
36
treated as one of the transcendental
importance in the life of an individual and has been recognised not only
in this country since thousands of
years, but all over the world. … without education being provided to citizens of this country, the objective set
forth in the Preamble to the
Constitution cannot be achieved.
The Constitution would fail.”
Finally, the government was
encouraged to insert Article 21A into
Part-III of the Constitution, which
reads thus:
“The State shall provide free and
compulsory education to all children
of the age of six to 14 years in such a
manner as the State may, by law,
determine.”
The Pratham survey
Now Article 21A is part of the fundamental rights but when we critically
examine, it gives us a dismal picture
as far as its implementation is concerned.
Though an improvement over
past performance, the overall educa-
tion picture leaves much to be
desired. Even where we have seen
improvement, there is still failure. A
survey by Pratham, an NGO, fleshes
out the acute problems found in rural
schools.2 The survey covered 16,000
villages and as Pratham indicates,
there are an estimated 140 million
children in the age group 6 to 14
years in primary schools. Of these 30
million cannot read, 40 million can
recognise a few alphabets, 40 million
can read some words, and 30 million
can read paragraphs. Over 55 million
of these children will not complete
four years of school, eventually
adding to the illiterate population of
India. According to the figure collected in 2001, the national literacy rate is
65 percent.
The quality of education is equally troubling. For classes I and II, only
78.3 percent of students surveyed
could recognise letters and read
words or more in their own language. In 2006, it was even worse —
only 73.1 percent could do so. It is
disheartening to peruse the statistics
for classes III to V, where only 66.4
percent could read class I text or
more in their own language in 2007.
As Pratham stated:
“What should be more worrying
though, is the fact that in class II,
only nine percent children can read
the text appropriate to them, and 60
percent cannot even recognise numbers between 10 and 99.”
Public education spending
As against the pledge of the government to “raise public education
spending to at least six percent of
GDP, with at least half this amount
being spent on primary and secondary sectors”, the government’s
own economic surveys showed that
it was less than three percent
throughout 2000-07, with health
receiving 1.4 percent. No wonder a
large number of state-run schools
still function without buildings,
while over one lakh schools have
only one classroom. Basic amenities
continue to be inadequate in most
schools. The picture at the crucial
entry-level is particularly bleak in the
rural areas and the worst affected are
the poor. The overall scene in the 10.4
lakh schools remains as dismal as
ever.
According to the India-specific
survey findings of UNESCO, whereas 76 percent of schools in towns and
villages have toilets for girls. The
implications of the urban-rural
divide are significant, given especially that India is one of the three Asian
countries where more than half of the
enrolment is in villages and less than
17 percent in cities with more than
100,000 inhabitants.
In classes III-V, 40 percent of students surveyed could not subtract.
The latest figures indicate that 58.3
percent children in class V read at the
level appropriate for second standard students. In both 2005 and 2007,
only 74.1 percent of enrolled children
were in attendance.
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
The government’s national programme Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
(SSA) goal is to universalise elementary education in India. It supplements governmental spending on
education. It was founded on the
idea that education for those between
the ages of six to 14 is a fundamental
right. In this way, SSA seeks to fulfill
the government’s obligation under
Article 21A to provide free and compulsory education to this age group.
Some of the SSA’s accomplishments
merit mention. Though statistics
published by the Ministry of human
resource department published in
The Times of India, February 13, 2009
gives a very rosy picture:
Outcome Indicators of Sarva Shksha Abhiyan
Items
Construction of school
buildings
Cumulative
Achievements
Targets
(upto 31.3.2008)
including 200708
210406
Completed and in
progress
Construction of additional
classrooms
Drinking water facilities
814061
Construction of toilets
244297
Supply of free textbooks
6.91 crore
Completed and in
progress
Completed and in
progress
Completed and in
progress
Supplied
Teacher appointment
11.20 lakh
Recruited
Teacher’s training
4257218
Trained
Opening of new schools.
275121
Opened
188827
cities have electricity, a mere 27 percent in villages have the facility.
Fewer than half the schools in
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195959
(92.13 percent)
778531
(95.63 percent)
180314
(95.49 percent)
230493
(94.35 percent)
6.88 crore
(99.5 percent)
9.09 lakh
(81.16 percent)
3025405
(71.07 percent)
240750
(87.50 percent)
According to the
India-specific survey
findings of UNESCO,
whereas 76 percent
of schools in towns
and cities have
electricity, a mere 27
percent in villages
have the facility.
Fewer than half the
schools in villages
have toilets for girls.
The implications of
the urban-rural divide
are significant, given
especially that India
is one of the three
Asian countries
where more than half
of the enrolment is in
villages and less than
17 percent in cities
with more than
100,000 inhabitants.
In classes III-V, 40
percent of students
surveyed could not
subtract. The latest
figures indicate that
58.3 percent children
in class V read at the
level appropriate for
second standard
students. In both
2005 and 2007,
only 74.1 percent of
enrolled children
were in attendance
While the government is on the
right track with regard to improving
the infrastructure of our system,
37
books and buildings only go so far.
They are necessary but not sufficient
for achieving the ultimate goals of:
(1) Keeping children in school;
(2) Ensuring that they learn how
to think critically; and
(3) Ensuring that they learn skills
that will help them secure gainful
employment.
The quality of education provided in the majority of primary schools
is woeful. There is an urgent need to
revamp entire elementary educational programme without any delay.
The Supreme Court in the case of
Ashoka Kumar Thakur vs Union of
India & Others3 dealt with the aspect
of elementary education in great
detail.
In order to effectively implement
programme of free and compulsory
education, Parliament should make
laws to criminally penalise those parents who receive financial benefits
oversee the government spending on
free and compulsory education.
from the present 10 percent to
15 percent by the end of the plan.
Carrot and stick policy
A carrot-and-stick approach appears
to be the best way to implement
Article 21A. Financial incentive programmes have worked well in other
countries and we should follow their
lead. Once that is done, the government should strictly enforce effective
compulsory education laws as such a
policy is bound to pay off.
Current situation in the education
sector indicates that much improvement needs to be done before we
qualify “education” with “quality”.
Of course, for children who are out of
school, even the best education
would be irrelevant. With the passage of time, the literacy rate in India
has always increased. A bare perusal
of the following data makes it
amply clear:
Higher education
The priority is primary education but
at the same time the concept of higher education cannot be ignored altogether. Regarding revamp of the
higher education the recommendations of the Knowledge Commission
recently submitted are important
and need to be implemented.
I would like to mention some
broad aspects relating to higher education in brief which need urgent
attention and consideration:
1) Emphasis on original research;
2) Set up a code for university teachers, say in regard to attendance,
number of teaching hours and the
teacher-student ratio. The most
famous and the best-known members of the faculty should teach
undergraduates as is customary
around the world. Abrogate existing
system of time-bound promotions.
3) Link career prospects for the staff
of academic institutions. All promotions be based on research work and
classroom performance of teachers.
4) Institute a new stringent, objective
and fair system of appointment of
university teachers. All university
appointments should be open to all
citizens of the country and some
(designated) proportion even to people from other countries. Introduce
transparency and accountability in
this regard. Increase proportion of
non-tenure, contract appointments.
5) Make retirement age flexible for
outstanding academicians that satisfy specifically laid-down stringent
criteria.
6) Encourage multiple appointments
for outstanding academicians (e.g. in
a university and a research laboratory or an Indian university and a foreign university, or a university and
an industry) and university teachers.
Frame appropriate rules that would
encourage consultancy.
7) Revise procedure for selection of
vice-chancellors so that the decision
is made by the academic community/chancellor without political interference of any kind.
8) It should be recognised that in a
university some people are excellent
teachers but have not done any significant research work while there
are others who have done outstand-
Literacy Scenario (1951-2001)
Year
1951
1961
1971
1981
Persons
Male
Female
18.33
27.16
8.86
28.31
40.40
15.34
34.45
45.95
21.97
43.56
56.37
29.75
(41.42)
(53.45)
(28.46)
1991
52.21
64.13
39.29
2001
65.38
75.85
54.16
Note: 1951 – Excluding the population of J&K, Pondicherry and the then NEFA, Dadar
& Nagar Haveli and Goa, Daman & Diu.
1961: Excluding Goa, Daman & Diu and the then NEFA.
1971: Paper 2 of 1983 Series I.
1981: Excluding Assam.
1991: Excluding J&K
2001: Census of India – 2001.
and, despite such payments, send
their children to work and also fine
those employers who preclude children from attending school or completing homework. It has become
necessary that the government set a
realistic target within which it must
fully implement Article 21A regarding free and compulsory education
for the entire country. The govt.
should suitably revise budget allocations for education so as to set the
priorities correctly. Article 21A,
which, in the larger interest of the
nation, must be fully implemented
since without its enforcement the
other fundamental rights are effectively rendered meaningless. This is
precisely why the judiciary must
38
In the 11th five year plan, the following have been recognised as one
of the objectives:
● Reduce dropout rates of children
from elementary school from 52.2
percent in 2003-04 to 20 percent by
2011-12;
● Develop minimum standards of
educational attainment in elementary school, and by regular checks
monitor effectiveness of education to
ensure quality;
● Increase literacy rate for children
of age seven years or more to
85 percent;
● Lower gender gap in literacy to 10
percent points;
● Increase the percentage of each
cohort going to higher education
ing research work but not good
teachers. This should be kept in mind
when distributing teaching load to
teachers in a university.
9) Make provision for regular
part-time employment. Thus encourage multi-institutional affiliation of
academics
(including
publicprivate mix).
Vision for future
In the present era of globalisation,
liberalisation and privatisation, education is viewed not only as an input
to empowerment and social justice,
but as being basic to the very survival of individuals and nations. It
was this perception that necessitated
the review of the National Education
Policy (NEP) in 1986 followed by the
programme of action, 1992 which
was designed to face the challenges
associated with global developments, emerging technology and
cross-cultural complexities.
From the aforementioned facts, it
is crystal clear that we have to travel
a long journey in the field of education. At this stage, we cannot say that
we have achieved the constitutional
goal or we have done our commitment to our fellow countrymen. In
fact, we have yet to achieve a lot. Still
the journey to achieve the goal of
complete literacy is far away. We
have to continue to march ahead till
we accomplish the goal.
In conclusion, I would reiterate
what I had said in a recently delivered judgement in Ashoka Kumar
Thakur's case:
“The current patchwork of laws
on compulsory education is insufficient. Monetary fines do not go far
Education: development, human capability, freedom
ducation is the means by
A right given to a citiwhich an individual
zen is for a purpose and in
achieves a desired level of
the case of education, this
literacy whereby, he develis to bring out the best in an
ops an ability to make
individual.
informed choices. Perhaps,
Linked to the right to
that is the reason why Prof
education is the responsiAmartya Sen said that edubility to utilise productivecation is developly the knowledge
Justice Biswanath Somadder gained through such
ment; education is
Kolkata High Court
human capability;
education. A key
and education is freedom. It responsibility at the moment is to
should lead to the ultimate emanci- bridge the rural and the urban
pation of an individual by a process divide. This can be achieved
of transformation, which allows through the productive utilisation
him to develop and evolve of the empowerment which educaconstantly.
tion brings to an individual.
E
enough to ensure that Article 21A is
implemented. The central government should enact legislation that:
a) provides low-income parents/guardians with financial incentives such that they may afford to
send their children to schools;
b) criminally penalises those who
receive financial incentives and
despite such payment send their children to work;
c) penalises employers who preclude children from attending
schools;
d) the penalty should include
imprisonment; the aforementioned
bill would serve as an example. The
State is obligated under Article 21A
to implement free and compulsory
education in toto.
e) until we have accomplished the
object of free and compulsory education for children from six to 14 years,
the government should continue to
increase the education budget and
make earnest efforts to ensure that
children go to schools and receive
quality education;
f) Parliament should fix a deadline by which timeframe free and
compulsory education will have
reached every child. This must be
done within six months as the right
to free and compulsory education is
perhaps the most important of all the
fundamental rights for without education it becomes extremely difficult
to exercise other fundamental rights.
In my opinion, to improve the
whole educational system there has
to be a well considered consistent
and long term educational policy.
The implementation of the education
policy must be carefully monitored.
The primary education must get
proper impetus with the idea of
bringing every child under the
umbrella of free and compulsory
education. All serious endeavours
should be made to effectively implement Article 21A in letter and spirit
because without execution of this
right, other fundamental rights
are absurd.
Footnotes
1. Report of the University Education
Commission 1948 cited in TMA Pai
Foundation vs State of Karnataka,
AIR 2003 SC 355.
2. See: ASER 2007 – Rural Annual Status of
Education Report for 2007, published on
January 16, 2008.
3. (2008) 6 SCC 1
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39
Public financing of
education is a State
responsibility and the
contribution of external
aid or private sector is
negligible as also not
desirable. The attention
education sector has
received in recent years
is clearly reflected in
sheer decline in
financial allocations in
proportion of national
income or total
budgetary resources.
Professor JBG Tilak
analyses this sorry state
of affairs while
emphasising that for
comprehensive
economic, social and
human development
there is no alternative to
State fulfilling its duty
towards adequately
financing education
40
Inadequate funding
for elementary
education
Efficiency and equity
Elementary education is a public
good -- a pure public good and a
merit good of high order, which produces huge externalities also widely
known as benefits -- economic,
social, political and cultural -- that
accrue to the whole society. Secondly,
education is a basic need, a 'minimum need' in the Indian development planning framework, like food,
clothing and shelter. Third, elementary education is a constitutional
mandate for the State to provide it to
all in the age group of 6-14, free and
compulsory. Elementary education is
also considered now under the
Constitution, a fundamental right, a
justiciable right, provision of which
cannot be avoided on any count.
Further, thanks to pioneers like Prof.
Amartya Sen and Mahabub Ul Haq,
now it is realised that education is
development in itself rather than
merely an instrument for develop-
ment. The role of education can be
constitutive as well as instrumental
in enhancing human capability. Also
education is both efficient and equitable. In fact, efficiency in education
should necessarily be inclusive of
equity. Public finance of education
helps to make it equitable and at the
same time efficient. Market mechanism fails in the efficient operation of
education sector due to the presence
of positive externalities -- public
nature, imperfect competition, asymmetric information etc. These features are too important to be ignored
while discussing the role of the state
of education in India and specifically
the Right to Education Bill.
Let me state at the very outset
that finances are important, but I also
note that finances are not a sufficient
condition for educational development. They are a necessary, a critically necessary catalyst for development. I will briefly describe the over-
all trends in allocation of resources
for elementary education.
First, government grants to education in absolute terms and real
prices and as a proportion of national income or total budgetary
resources have been declining or at
best reluctantly increasing during the
recent years. Union government's
allocation is increasing whereas relative share of state governments is
dropping and the role of local bodies
is very much negligible. Second, the
household expenditure to elementary education is increasing rapidly
not because of the parents' willingness to pay, but because of compulsion to pay, as the state does not
spend enough. Third, there is no systematic information on community
contributions to education and the
little and scattered information
shows that they are also increasing
gradually. Fourth, the private sector's
contribution, excluding households,
is very negligible both in absolute
and relative terms. A few years ago it
was estimated that the private sector's non-fee contribution amounted
to six percent of the total government
expenditure on secondary education
in the country. In absolute terms it is
very microscopic. Fifth, the contribution of external aid to education sector is insignificant and shows a
declining trend. We have taken external foreign aid for education, specifi-
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cally primary education for over a
decade. There has been a significant
increase from very small amounts to
very big amounts during the period.
Even though the overall amounts are
small in size, the effects are sizeable
but not necessarily desirable. And in
fact, there are many which are not
desirable. Good or bad, the phase of
foreign aid to primary education
seems to be coming to a close.
Gradually there
is a shift in the
responsibilities at
different levels of the
government under
the name of
decentralisation from
the central government
to the state
government, state to
local bodies to civil
societies and finally to
the individuals. We
tend to forget that the
individual choice has
no place at all in the
discussion on public
goods and merit goods
Budgetary allocations
Total government expenditure on
education in 2007-08 was of the order
of Rs 1,59,000 crore, which formed
5.7 percent of the total expenditure
on all sectors. Education in the union
budget accounted for 5.8 percent and
5.7 percent in the budget of the
states/union territories (revenue and
capital together). In the capital budget, education's share is almost zero
while in the revenue budget it was
7.1 percent in the union budget and
19 percent in the states budget.
The trends in government expenditure on education in revenue budget from 1967-68 to 2006-07 show
that while the share of education in
the union budget is slowly increasing
to 7.1 percent in 2006-07, the share of
education in the states' budget is
either declining marginally or at best
stable around 19 percent.
Not only the department of education but other concerned departments also spend on education. The
education department is, of course,
responsible for a major share in
expenditure on education, while
other departments also chip in with
significant amount of resources.
Among the other ministries, department of health and family welfare,
agriculture, youth affairs, and culture are important contributors.
The distribution between plan
and non-plan expenditure on education is also important. Plan expenditure is meant for new/additional
developmental programmes, whereas non-plan expenditure is essentially maintenance expenditure. Most
plan expenditure items become nonplan expenditure items by the end of
the five-year plan. Plan expenditure
on education formed about 30 percent of the total in 2005-06; the rest
was non-plan expenditure.
There are two important national
goals on financing education: to allocate six percent of national income to
education and to allocate about half
of the total to elementary education.
For a very long period we have the
first goal, viz., that out of the national income, however you measure,
whether GNP or GDP, it was agreed
that six percent will be spent on education. The second important goal
that was also well stated by the government in the recent years repeatedly stated that half of the total expen41
diture would go to the elementary
education and the remaining half
will go to secondary and higher
education.
Let us see what has been the performance particularly with respect to
the six percent goal. This was a recommendation made by the Kothari
Commission long back in 1966, to be
realised in the next 20-year period,
i.e., by 1986. This is not merely a recommendation from one of the commissions, but it is also a resolution
approved by our Parliament in 1968,
when it approved the first National
Policy
on
Education
1968.
Unfortunately, not much significance
was attached nor any seriousness
was shown regarding this norm.
Since, we did not achieve the goal
from 1986 till now, it has been repeatedly reiterated every time in every
five year plan, every annual plan,
every policy statement, and every
political party also mentions it in its
manifesto, that we will get six percent of the national income for education during our term. Over the
years, this has increased: from less
42
than one percent in the beginning in
1951-52 to 3.7 percent at the current
levels. This is a very slow increase, a
reluctant increase, occasionally
falling down in between. Not only
that, had we been serious with
respect to the six percent national
goal, which was planned in 1966 to
be realised by 1986, our growth
would have been of a different kind.
From the level of below two percent
or so in 1965-66, had it reached six
percent by 1986, and then continued
at the same level, we would have
been in a much better position.
Taking the six percent norm, one can
say that there is a huge deficit in
spending on education in the last 30
years. As we continue to spend much
below the proposed norm, the backlog in funding is bulging day by day.
It is very important to note that the
current level is of course, not only
much lower than the recommendations made by the commission and
the commitment by the government
but also much less than the actual
needs. If we re-estimate now, and
there have been estimates recently
made, the requirements would be
much above six percent of the national income.
If this percentage of national
income is split between the central
and the state governments then it is
estimated that the states have
reduced the expenditure in absolute
terms and also in proportions over
the years. This has come down in the
last 8-9 years from 3.8 percent to 2.8
percent of the national income, while
it has increased from 0.5 percent to
0.9 percent in the central government
meaning the centre's contribution is
really small. So if the union budget
makes a significant increase in their
allocation, as it has made, for example, in the 2008-09 budget, it will still
be very far away from the target of
six percent national goal, unless the
state governments also raise their
allocations substantially. Both of
them put together would be 3.7 percent presently while it was four percent in 2001. But again, we were not
able to maintain that level eight years
ago. So, the present level of 3.7 percent is way below the six percent
norm, less than the required requirements and also importantly, is less
than what many developing countries spend. Forget about the rich
countries, even the poorer countries
are spending much more than what
we are spending today on education.
I will say that this is a goal that has
been least discussed critically but
widely accepted by every political
party and this is also the goal that is
least cared for.
If you look at the over all allocation in the annual five year plans for
the total education sector, there has
been a very steady fall from 7.9 percent in the First five year plan to
2.7 percent in the Sixth five year plan.
Since then, there have been some
increases, thanks to the National
Policy on Education, 1986 and the
launching pads like the Operation
Blackboard. In the tenth five-year
plan, for the first time, we allocated a
proportion higher than what was
allocated in the first plan. It formed
nearly 10 percent.
Balancing intrasectoral allocation
In the total allocation for education
in the Tenth five year plan, about 70
percent was spent on elementary
education and the remaining was
spent on other sectors of education. It
is important that we recognise the
simple truth that increase in allocation to elementary education, may in
relative terms, would result in cuts
on other levels of education. As the
share of elementary education
increased, the relative share of higher
education suffered most. In the
Tenth plan hardly eight percent of
the total was allocated to higher education. Well, all this is with respect to
the plan expenditure.
Reviewing the figures of the plan
and the non-plan expenditures put
together, on average, they are more
or less static for the last seven-eight
years. Elementary education got a little more with 55 percent of the total
educational expenditure, and the
remaining 45percent goes to the secondary, higher and other layers of
education.
Spending on
Expenditure on elementary education as a proportion of national
income has increased from 1.3 percent to 1.7 percent and then came
down to 1.6 percent recently. Again
you will find that this is a small
increase even though this is the period in which we repeatedly reiterated
the commitment for universalisation
of elementary education.
In the plan expenditure, the share
of the central government is increasing on elementary education very
rapidly and today, nearly threefourth of the total plan expenditure
on elementary education comes from
the central government and the state
governments meet one-fourth of the
total expense. The allocation of the
state governments is obviously seeing a slowdown posing a very serious implication for the Right to
Education Bill and the context in
which we are discussing it. All the
additional expenditures we are referring to in the context of elementary
education, the Right to Education Bill
in particular, will be put under the
plan expenditure and then in this
case one has to see as to which level
of the government has to share the
total financial bill, the centre or the
state governments. The picture is different in case of non-plan expenditure. Nearly 99 percent of the total
non-plan expenditure on elementary
education is met by the state governments and the centre spends only on
its own schools like the central
schools. In all, taking plan and nonplan expenditure together, the share
of the union government in elementary education increased from 11 percent in 2001-02 to 27 percent in 200708 and correspondingly the share of
the states declined from 89 percent to
73 percent during the same period.
SSA, mid-day meal and others
The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, which
was the flagship programme started
by the NDA regime in 2001, is perhaps the only one that has defined in
quantitative terms the centre-state
relationships with respect to the
financing of education and financing
of elementary education in particular. According to SSA, the central
government met 85 percent and the
state government 15 percent of the
expenditure on elementary education in the Ninth five year plan; the
respective shares changed to 75 percent and 25 percent in the Tenth plan.
The figures settled at 65 percent and
35 percent in the 11th five year plan.
By the end of this plan, it was expected to be shared equally between the
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centre and states. This is the issue on
which state governments are quite
unhappy. Some feel that the 50-50
responsibilities would put serious
constraints on the state governments
which don't have sufficient funds of
their own to spend on elementary
education and as a result, the goals
may remain unaccomplished.
The central government has in the
recent years made a very specific
effort to raise resources for elementary education in the form of education cess. But whether this is a supplement or a substitute to the total
general budgetary allocation is a
question mark. There has been a significant increase in educational cess
revenues and whole money is being
spent on elementary education and
particularly on the Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan (SSA) and the mid-day meal
programmes. Another scheme called
the Prathamika Shiksha Kosh, which is
a non-relapsable fund for financing
elementary education, is created
essentially with the revenues
received from education cess. It is
important to note that about threefourth of the total central government expenditure on elementary
education comes from the cess from
the general pool of resources. The
union government's non-cess spending on elementary education is quite
marginal. Eventually, if this continues then it is quite possible that the
educational cess would take care of
the total elementary education
expenditure of the central government and there is no need for the
government to allocate any amount
out of its general pool of resources.
We have to examine whether this is
acceptable or not. Most education
systems are largely financed out of
general tax and non-tax revenues
and rarely depend on earmarked
taxes like the education cess.
There are three components of
the elementary education in the budget, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the
mid-day meal and 'others', the last
one of which used to be quite sizeable in the beginning of 2001 or so.
More than 50 percent of expenditure
was on others. Now, the others have
been trickled down and everything is
put under the SSA. So, the SSA and
the mid-day meal accounts for 97
percent of the total expenditure.
Other remaining items include very
specific programmes like the Mahila
Samakhya, strengthening of the
teacher training institutions, and
Nehru Bal Bhawan.
An important query arises that
out of the total financial plan that is
allocated to elementary education,
how is it being spent on various
activities? The relevant figures are
static for the last ten years. Very little
money is spent on direction, inspection etc and sad but the whole
inspectorate system has collapsed
completely since the mid-1990s, raising questions on quality of education. The expenditure on the government schools account for 40 percent
of the total expenditure on elementary education. The grants to private
schools account for more than 20 percent; grants to local body schools
account for one-fourth of the total
expenditure and others are very
insignificant. However, quality
improvement related items like textbooks, teacher training and scholarships get less than one percent of the
total elementary expenditure of the
state and central governments put
43
One-fifth to onefourth of the total
expenditure on
goes to private
schools as aid. There
is one specific clause
in the Right to
Education Bill,
according to which
private schools will
have to admit at least
25 percent of the
students from whom
no fees will be
charged. They have to
be provided free
education by the
schools but the
expenditure will be
reimbursed by the
state and if they
admit more than 25
percent, the
government will
reimburse the
expenditure on those
students too. It means
that if more students
join private schools
relatively lesser
amount of resources
will be available to the
government schools.
The provision is a
clear indication of
government's
intention to
encourage private
schools even at
elementary level
44
together. So, bulk of the expenditure
is on the private schools as a sizeable
part of the spending goes to the private schools as aid. Now if you look
at the private-aided schools for
which we have latest statistics, about
one-fifth to one-fourth of the total
expenditure on elementary education goes to private schools as aid.
This can be noted as a big increase.
Now, there is one specific clause in
the Right to Education Bill, according
to which not only the aided schools
but also the unaided schools will also
be funded by the State. The bill states
that private schools will have to
admit at least 25 percent of the students from whom no fees will be
charged. They have to be provided
free education by the schools but the
expenditure will be reimbursed by
the State. If private schools admit
more than 25 percent, the government will reimburse the expenditure
on those students too. It means that if
more students join private schools
relatively lesser amount of resources
will be available to the government
schools including local body schools.
The provision is a clear indication of
government's intention to encourage
private schools even at elementary
level.
Elementary education is not free
though it is expected to be free
according to the Constitution.
Besides the tuition fee in schools,
including the government schools
and local body schools, there are a
variety of other kinds of fees that are
being charged at the primary level.
Further, there is other expenditure
that families have to meet in terms of
purchase of the uniforms, books and
transportation, which is quite sizeable. According to the NSS data of
1995-96, household expenditure per
student per annum was quite high;
even the poorest households spent
Rs 197 on primary and Rs 426 for
middle school education.
Economic analysis would also
include opportunity cost of children's education. But even if you
ignore the opportunity cost, still we
find that the total household cost
including the fees that is paid to the
school accounts for one-third to the
two-fifth of the total cost of elementary education. After all, elementary
education is supposed to be free.
Gross estimates at the national level
show that total family expenditure
on education is increasing relative to
the government expenditures. So
today, nearly 40 percent of the expenditures come from the families and
the remaining 60 percent comes from
the government, which used to be
much higher earlier.
Revolving myths
Now, let me make a few statementlike observations, which are quite
important and relevant in the context
of Right to Education Bill. First, as I
said in the beginning, if someone
argues that money is important and
that it will solve all the problems, it is
not true. But if somebody says that
money is not important at all for education that is also not true. We need
money and without money nothing
can be done. So we really need to
give serious attention to the public
funding of education.
Second, it is being often strongly
stated by many that we don't need to
provide elementary education free to
all. There are many people who
believe that free education is bad,
question the wisdom of the constitutional makers in providing free education, even argue that the constitutional promise of providing free and
compulsory education should be
ignored. They ask why education
should be free at all when the people
are willing to pay and have the ability to pay; it is better to tap the ability
of the people to pay and increase our
resources. This is also based on a
wrong assumption that in many of
the rich countries governments do
not spend much on education and
people spend on their own. This is a
wrong assumption in the sense that
in most countries that have evolved,
not only the elementary education
but total school education of 12 years
is nearly free and provided compulsorily also, in addition to higher education in a few countries. Further,
free education is something that
UNESCO/United Nations have stated and what our Constitution has
mentioned very clearly. The critics
also ignore while arguing in favour
of fee in elementary education the
huge externalities that elementary
education produces, particularly the
valuable equity effects it contributes.
Further, some also argue that the
government need not necessarily
provide free elementary education,
the private sectors will be able to do
it and that the private sector and
NGOs could do the miracles and the
state government could significantly
reduce its efforts towards elementary
education. This again is wrong
because at least given the experience,
no country could be found to have
universalised elementary education
relying upon the private sector.
Private sector is a very small component, in fact non-existent in quite a
few good number of societies with
respect to school education. Even in
those societies where higher education is highly privatised, school education is completely dominated by
the State. Apart from this factor, private sector produces more importantly inequalities of various kinds
between the rich and the poor and
different sections of the society. Even
the very strong proponents of private
education admit that inequality is
one issue which the private sector
will not be able to resolve. Obviously,
the interests of the private sector
are much different from those of
the State.
It is also being said nowadays
that we can do with lesser number of
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teachers and high pupil teacher
ratios because the RTE bill says that
there will be no examination and no
student will be detained or failed in a
class. There is no mechanism of monitoring the teaching and learning outcomes in the draft bill. Some even
argue that we can have non-formal
education, education guarantee
schools, distance education and all
kinds of things, and that they could
be really good substitutes for public
school system. It is further argued
that we don't need qualified and
trained teachers and can do with
para-teachers. Para teachers and education guarantee scheme have been
'nationalised' and they have become
an important phenomenon in the
system across the whole country. All
these guidelines can be money saving mechanisms in the short run but
we should recognise that in the long
run, the cost of these practices could
be very severe because they affect not
only the quality but also the participation of children in the school activities and in raising educational levels
of population, thereby taking us farther away from reaching the modest
goals that we have set for ourselves
in elementary education.
Use & abuse of decentralisation
Another issue is about decentralisation, which is being considered the
mantra for development that can do
everything. But what is actually happening in the name of decentralisation is the abdication of responsibilities by the central and the state governments. Decentralisation is also
being essentially used to raise more
and more resources from the people
in the community. This is certainly
not good for provision of free and
compulsory elementary education.
While community participation in
general could be desirable, reliance
on community financing for elementary education is really not desirable.
Gradually there is a shift in the
responsibilities at different levels of
the government under the name of
decentralisation from the central
government to the state government,
state to local bodies to civil societies
and finally to the individuals, assuming that education can be treated as
an individual or a private good and
that individuals are the best judges
for themselves. We tend to forget that
the individual choice has no place at
all in the discussion on public goods
and merit goods. It is a compulsory
45
choice on the parents and children
and that the government has to provide for it. So principles of the individual choice or the ability to pay
have no meaning at all when we are
discussing elementary education. As
a result of the kind of decentralisation that we are following, we are
actually contributing to the loss of
public good character of education.
The governments in developed
countries do not spend on education.
Private sector and NGOs can take
care of education and hence the role
of the State should be reduced. Para
teacher system is fine; trained and
qualified teachers are not important.
Quality education for all is unaffordable for India. All these are myths,
unfortunately strongly believed to be
true by many. Any careful examination can help in exploding these
myths.
Let me return to the specific
aspect of financing of elementary
education. It is quite often stated the
quality education means a hell lot of
money. That is the reason why, it is
argued, we have to have para teachers, education guarantee schools and
the like or we should not be serious
about the universalisation of elementary education at all. It is also stated
that India is a developing country
and we don't have resources for
everything; the government has to
spend on many sectors and they are
competing sectors. This is taken
almost as given that we cannot afford
good education at all. But there were
A basic right
t is the schools, universiproducing the labour that
ties and colleges which
work in our houses, in our
have made us what we are.
factories? These questions
Therefore, to deprive a large
require quick answers.
section of this country's
I had an experience of
population of the fundalifetime in Uttar Pradesh
mental and basic right to
where there is a famous
education across borders is
clan which rule a particular
a crime against the
belt in the Hindi
Justice Rajiv Bhalla
society. The usage of Punjab & Haryana High Court heartland,
people
the expression may
who rule the politibe too strong but the time has come cians and hold muscle power in the
when one needs to use such strong area. One of them is a product of the
expressions and empty platitudes to prestigious Doon school. He got two
voluminous policies and rules and children, one was sent to the Doon
regulations that we all have seen school, the other to a village. So
so far.
when he was asked about the disArticle 21 is there on paper but crimination between his own chilmore than being that it is an article dren, he said that the fellow I sent to
of faith, an article of faith that we all the Doon school was afraid of law
owe, not merely to ourselves or to while the one who was brought up
anybody but to entire nation. The in the village turned into a muscle
unfortunate part is that neither we man. So this is what the concept of
are part of the mechanism which education is misunderstood in
implements it, nor part of the sys- many parts of our country, either to
tem that eventually ensures its dis- make law or to break it. So once the
pensation. This, in turn, indicates right to education becomes a fundathat there has been certain desensiti- mental right by the way of a judgesation as it is our system, schools, ment, then it is not for the courts to
colleges and universities, and the do any public interest litigation, not
so-called institutes of excellence, even for the government to do a
which are failing us.
public interest litigation. Well, the
For a large productive section of government is the favourite tipping
the society, right to education is not point of every activist, every educajust a means in itself, it is a goal of tionist, and everybody, my question
every human being, otherwise what to all the educationists is that where
is being produced? Are we simply have they been all these years?
I
46
quite a few evidences to say that we
can afford really very good quality
education for all. The most important
finding that the Tapas Majumdar
Committee has given us is that good
quality education costs, but it is
affordable and is worth. Before the
Tapas Majumdar Committee, we had
a committee of the ministers appointed by the government that estimated
that we would need Rs 40,000 crore
for five years. In fact, the committee
itself admitted that it was a very
crude estimate and that an expert
panel might look at it. Hence the
Tapas Majumdar Committee came
into existence. This committee's figures were very frightening to many.
It estimated that we would need Rs
140,000 crore for the next 10-year
period. While this may be a frightening figure, it can be noted that it
meant only Rs 14,000 crore a year on
average, and about 0.7 of GNP, if
GNP were to increase at a rate of
growth of five percent per annum.
The latter was affordable. But government agencies thought other way
and they made different estimates.
The Tenth five year plan estimated
that we would need not more than Rs
55,000-60,000 crore for the next five
years. It was further estimated under
SSA that we would require Rs 98,000
crore for the next ten years.
In 2005, the CABE Committee
made a very detailed estimate.
According to the committee estimates, we would need at least Rs
320,000 crore in current prices. The
estimate is based upon certain
assumptions of pupil teacher ratio
and if you are more concerned with
the quality of education and the
pupil teacher ratio, then the figure
will rise to Rs 436,000 crore. This
means something like Rs 64,00087,000 crore per year will be
required. Now, these figures need to
be compared with what is being allocated nowadays. The allocation of Rs
10,000-13,000 crore for elementary
education in the last three budgets
including the 2009-10 regular budget
of the Union government, are generally hailed as marking big increases.
But the allocations have to be contrasted with the requirements that
we have. For instance, critics of the
2009-10 budget have remarked that
the increase in budgetary allocation
for elementary education is less than
Significance of RTE Bill
he significance of the
er and asking does he has a
right to be admitted to a
should not be undermined.
municipal school? Will the
Although the right to educourt then issue a mancation appears as a fundadamus that he should be
mental
right
in
the
admitted into the municiConstitution, merely having
pal school? The Supreme
a position in the charter
Court did not have a
actually amount to Justice S Muralidhar straight answer to that
very little. The RTE
question. The answer
Delhi High Court
Bill is a statutory
to this question must
mechanism to operationalise this be in the Right to Education Bill.
fundamental right; it is necessary to
Children live with the memory
elucidate and ensure the rights of a of discrimination for many years
child.
and this must be addressed in the
However, it would be more Right to Education Bill. The bill
unproblematic not to have any such must meet the constitutional
bill that actually informs a child promise for equality. Being told
whether he has any rights. The repeatedly that this bill is simply
Unnikrishnan Judgement was a not up to the expectation and cannot
landmark decision but it was a deliver the constitutional promise is
declaratory judgement; it did not insufficient. There is now an opporhave a mandamus. A passage in the tunity for the critics to come forUnnikrishnan Judgement, which ward, discuss this bill and provide
contemplates
this
distinction, an alternative. This is the opportune
addresses a situation a court is like- time to create the most effective bill
ly to face: approach of a child with a that recognises all fundamental
petition saying that he is a rag pick- rights.
T
Rs 200 crore and that the funds
required to implement the right to
education is shockingly absent in the
budget.
Dilemmas in education
Quite often people feel that quantity,
quality and equity are three different
dimensions and if you want to
improve access to education, all the
children to be put into schools, you
have to sacrifice the quality of education. But quality, quantity and equity
are three important dimensions of
the same problem. Long ago, J P Naik
has referred to this as an 'elusive triangle' in education. It is important to
note that all the three quadrants of
the triangle are important and interrelated; there cannot be trade-offs
between the three. Universalisation
of elementary education means universalisation of quality education,
equitable quality education. Another
dilemma is which level of education
is important. There is a very powerful argument that as we have to
spend scarce resources on primary
education, secondary education and
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higher education, and if we spend on
primary education we will not be
able to spend on higher education
and vice versa. When we argue so,
we tend to forget that we cannot
develop primary education at the
cost of higher education or higher
education at the cost of primary and
secondary education systems. They
are closely interdependent upon
each other, feeding to each other's
development and hence, all the three
sectors of education need to be adequately funded, not putting one level
against another.
Final thoughts
To conclude, what we need is liberal
funding of education, recognising
that education is very important and
public funding has to be made. If we
spend six percent of our national
income on education then most of
our financial problems relating to
education could be solved and of the
total money to be spent on education,
three percent or half the money has
to be spent on elementary education.
These goals are the same the govern-
ment has accepted for a long period,
but has never been serious at all.
Lastly, with respect to the Right to
Education Bill it is important that it
provides for free, truly free education, the term being comprehensively
defined, and also clearly defining
good quality formal public education. It should provide for mitigation
of household costs of acquiring elementary education by all sections of
the society, including the richest. The
bill should provide for creation of an
attractive teaching and learning environment with trained and qualified
teachers, good infrastructure and
reasonably low pupil-teacher ratios.
There should be no place for non-formal education of any type and kind,
and even private education, when it
comes to universalisation of elementary education.
Money is not a problem in India
because if there is a political will then
money can be found easily. After all,
our economy is growing at around 78 percent growth rate per annum, it
is projected to grow at the same rate,
despite the global recession, there is
public sector disinvestment taking
place at a rapid rate, foreign
exchange reserves are bulging, community resources like cess are
mobilised and so on. Even marginal
fiscal reforms might yield huge
resources. So if there is will,
resources can be generated. We
should realise that it is education that
makes the difference between the
rich and the poor, there is no substitute to good public formal education,
costs of under investment in education could be colossal, and lastly and
most importantly, that there is no
choice but to invest in education of
the children of the nation. Wise
nations realised all this and prospered.
Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has
said eloquently:
"To say that India does not have
the money for education [and health
care] is absolute, utter unmitigated
nonsense."
This should put a full stop on all
doubts on the availability of funds
for education in India."
The choice is clear.
–The author is the Head,
Department of Educational
Finance, NUEPA
47
Abolish inequality by a
Common School System
Replacing the philosophical goals of
education by functional goals, the
process of globalisation has reduced the
education system to merely imparting
skills suitable for the market place, thus
compromising the capacity of children
to comprehend, contest and transform.
Adequate financial allocations,
universalisation of quality education
and common school system, as
practiced by most developed nations
but hampered by the elite section that
influences India’s education policy,
should be the most effective measure
for building an inclusive society, writes
Professor Muchkund Dubey
48
he distinction between elementary and secondary education
may be valid from the pedagogic point of view, but this distinction becomes arbitrary if looked at
from the point of view of universalising school education, and ensuring
its quality, equity in its provision and
the right to education.
School education is the foundation on which the structure of higher
education is built. In a hearing in the
Supreme Court on the provision of
school education, the Judges who
heard the case had remarked that to
invest in higher education at the cost
of elementary education is like constructing the higher stories of a
building without putting in place its
foundation. School education also
determines the over-all size and the
quality of the knowledge pool in a
country, which is essential for
enhancing productivity and the competitiveness of the economy as a
whole. Universalisation of school
education is the most effective measure for building an inclusive society
T
Interpreting maladies
The school education system in India
is plagued with systemic glitches. It
is not the question of teachers not
attending schools, curriculum and
syllabus being deficient, and parents
not taking interest. Each of these
problems are rooted in the system as
a whole. Therefore, until there is a
systemic change, working at micro
levels in some schools for introducing new pedagogy and instituting
special schemes are not going to bear
any fruit.
Of all, the foremost problem is
that of access. School education is
simply unavailable to the vast number of children in the relevant age
group in the country. During the last
few decades, there has been some
progress in improving enrolment.
Gross enrolment ratio from Class I to
VIII was 94.9 percent and from Class
I to XII 77 percent (Educational
Statistics at a Glance 2005-06, the
Ministry of HRD, 2008).1 The
Government primarily relies on
these data to project its claim for the
progress that has been made in
expanding school education in India.
But enrolment hardly provides the
basis for assessing the degree of
access to school education. Firstly,
enrolment figures are generally
rigged and exaggerated for various
administrative and political purposes. Moreover, in order to assess the
progress in expanding school education, it is important to take into
account not only the figures for
attendance but also for dropout from
among those who are enrolled. The
dropout rates are very high indeed.
For the country as a whole, the dropout rate from Class I to X was 61.6
percent;2 and in a state like Bihar it
was above 75 percent.3 Among those
who drop out, the percentage of
Scheduled Caste children in the
country as a whole was 70.6 and of
Scheduled Tribes 78.5.4 In Bihar, the
figure was close to 90 percent for
both the categories.5 The net result is
that about 30 percent of the children
in India are out of school; the percentage is as high as 50 in Bihar (1.5
crores out of three crores children in
the school going age group).6
The glaring statistics of out-ofschool children means the exclusion
of a vast population of them from
school education and thus a colossal
waste of human resources. No education is the worst form of exclusion
because it excludes from other walks
of life and areas of activities. Besides,
exclusion from school education,
particularly at the primary level, is a
denial of human rights both in accordance with the provision in the
Indian Constitution and the relevant
provision
of
the
Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.
The second systemic problem of
school education in India is the rampant discrimination characterising it.
Children of the rich and the elite
have access to good quality private
and special types of public schools,
whereas children of the vast majority
of the poor, including the minorities
and marginalised groups, go to government schools which are in shambles. About 89.1 percent of the primary schools in India were in the public
sector (government and local body)
and only 10.9 percent in the private
sector. For upper primary schools the
percentages were 72 and 28 respectively.7 The enrolment ratio from
Class I-VII/VIII was 72.23 percent in
government schools and 27.61 percent in private schools.8 This shows
that universalisation of school education cannot be left to the private sector. If after 60 years of independence,
private schools have been able to fill
in the gap of only 10 percent of enrolment at the elementary level and
only four to five percent of the
requirement for building new
schools at that level, there can be no
assurance that they will be able to fill
in the remaining gap in the next 50 to
60 years if the responsibility for universalising school education is left to
them. Because at that rate, we may
have to wait for a whole century for
universalising school education
in India.
The existence of a hierarchy of
schools perpetuates and accentuates
social inequality. It also makes for
bad education. For, empirical studies
have demonstrated that schools
which bring in children from different communities and classes, provide
better education and even the children of the rich and the elite stand to
benefit from such a school system.
The Common School
System Commission,
Bihar estimated that in
order to universalise free
and compulsory education
for children in the age
group six to 14 in five
years, for children from
Class IX to X in eight years
and for those in Class XI to
XII in nine years, 25,900
additional primary schools,
15,500 middle schools
and 19,100 secondary
schools had to be built
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49
The third systemic problem is the
abysmally poor quality of school
education in India. This has been
attributed to a variety of factors,
including poor curriculum and syllabus, deficient pedagogy, negligent
teachers and parents who are unconcerned. But the real reason is the
gross under-funding of school education in India. If the required magnitude of funding is available, many
of the factors allegedly accountable
for the poor quality of school education, would disappear. For example,
it is unfair to blame teachers who are
In most of the
advanced developing
countries like Brazil,
Thailand, China, and
Indonesia, the task of
universalising
was accomplished a
long time ago and the
current preoccupation
of the educational
planners and policy
makers of these
countries is with
universalising and
improving the quality
of secondary
education
compelled to teach in a school which
does not have blackboards, teaching
aids, laboratories and adequate
space, and which do not provide
facilities or incentives for improving
their skills and environment and for
pedagogic innovation. The members
of the Common School System
Commission, Bihar, during their visits to schools, did not find any school
which had a functioning laboratory.
There is a rule in physics according
to which if quantity is taken to a critical level, it brings about qualitative
change. Similarly, in India the quality
of school education is decisively
influenced by quantity, that is, the
magnitude of funding.
50
The Common School System
Commission, Bihar, in its report estimated that in order to universalise
free and compulsory education for
children in the age group six to 14 in
five years, for children from Class IX
to X in eight years and for those in
Class XI to XII in nine years, 25,900
additional primary schools, 15,500
middle schools and 19,100 secondary
schools had to be built. The number
of additional teachers to be recruited
for meeting the norms would be 2.55
lakh at the primary level, 3.24 lakh at
the middle level and 4.29 lakh at the
secondary level. These are not merely quantitative targets, these have a
decisive bearing on quality. Of
course, other pre-requisites to be fulfilled for ensuring quality cannot be
ignored. These have been elaborately
provided for in the norms and standards laid down by the Commission.
In India, the State has never
adopted a time-bound programme
for the universalisation of school
education. As far as elementary education is concerned, the vehicle
adopted for universalisation has
been the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan. It
needs to be emphasised that the SSA
is not a plan but a scheme. Apart
from its numerous other deficiencies,
it never set time limit for universalising primary education. The objective
for enhancing access was announced
from time to time. These were like
moving targets; each time the target
is sought to be hit, it moves further.
India's national education policy
(1992) laid down the goal of setting
aside at least six percent of the GDP
for expenditure on education. This
target has also found place in the
manifestos of almost all major political parties. But the maximum share
of GDP devoted to education in India
has been close to four percent and on
most occasions it has hovered round
three percent. A principal reason
why school education in India has
remained grossly under-funded is
that it has had no political lobby. The
children themselves do not constitute
a lobby nor do the poor parents.
Two expert groups set up by the
Government of India and the
Common
School
System
Commission, Bihar laid down norms
and standards for providing quality
education, put price tags on these
norms and standards, and calculated
the additional cost to be incurred for
universalising school education
within a time-bound framework.
The expert groups set up by the government confined themselves to universalising education for the children
in age group six to 14, whereas the
Bihar Commission Report provided
for universalising school education
from the age five to 16, i.e. including
a year of pre-primary education and
two years of secondary education.
The expert group under the chairmanship
of
Professor
Tapas
Mazumdar
set
up
by
the
Government of India in 1999, estimated an additional cost of Rs 13,700
crores per annum over the next 10
years for universalising elementary
education according to the norms
prescribed by it. The expert group
set up by a Committee of the
Consultative Advisory Board on
Education (CABE) which submitted
its report in 2004, estimated a total
cost of approximately Rs 73,000
crores per annum over the next six
years for achieving the same goal.
Setting the objective of universalising
education for children in the age
group five to 14 within five years,
secondary education within eight
years and higher secondary education within nine years, the Bihar
Commission report estimated an
additional expenditure of Rs 9,950
crores over nine years. The nonimplementation of the recommendation of the expert group led by
Professor Tapas Mazumdar resulted
in a cumulative gap, reflected in a
manifold increase in the additional
expenditure to be incurred for broadly the same purpose in 2004. If the
recommendation of the latter expert
group also remains un-implemented,
as has been the case until now, then
the cumulative gap will grow further
and in 10 years from now we would
need an astronomically large sum of
resources for universalising elementary education. Perhaps at that time
the government in power will raise
its hand in despair and drop the
whole idea of universalisation, and
India will continue to stagnate for
years to come at a low level of school
education, both quantitatively as
well as qualitatively.
Another systemic malady which
has afflicted school education in
India is the transformation of the
very nature and meaning of school
education, brought about by the
forces of globalisation and liberalisation in which international agencies
have played no small a role. In most
developing countries including
India, education has to a large extent
been replaced by literacy for which it
is strictly not necessary to go to
schools. According to the new
paradigm, education is defined in
functional terms i.e. making the
recipient qualified for the market
place. In this sense, educational system as a whole has been commodified. Today, the purpose of school
education is merely imparting skills
of literacy and numeracy and not to
enhance the capacity of the children
to comprehend, contest and transform. The basic philosophical purpose of education is to enhance the
capacity of the children to comprehend, to discern, to contest what,
according to them, is wrong, and to
develop the urge to transform what
is wrong and unjust. These philosophical goals have been set aside
and replaced by the functional goal
of meeting the demand of the market. Under the globalisation/liberalisation paradigm, schools have to a
large extent been replaced by literacy
and informal centres, trained teachers have been replaced by parateachers, and the system of at least
one teacher for every class and for
every important subject has been
replaced by multi-grade teaching.
Training is no longer regarded as
essential
for
teaching.
The
Government of Bihar officially notified in 1991 that training was no
longer necessary as a qualification
for appointment as a teacher. This
whole process of distortion of the
meaning and purpose of education
started systematically since the mid1980s and has by now been completed. Reversing this is going to be a
colossal task.
This transformation of the nature
of education has seriously affected its
quality and has relegated to the background the concept of schooling as a
means of socialisation, nation-building and formation of social capital,
which has been practised for centuries by important developed countries. It has also been used to rationalise non-universalisation of school
education and its under-funding.
www.combatlaw.org
Tribals: Where a child means
two hands to earn food
crucial aspect relating to
in recent years given the
primary education that
context of Article 21, the
needs attention is that in
knowledgeable judges have
many of the tribal areas peotaken a different view and
ple are reluctant to allow
the liberty of decisions is
their children to have an
being well protected. The
education. Despite repeated
next important step is to
requests and asking them to
ensure that the judgements
send their wards to
of the courts are
Justice PS Narayana
attend schools, parimplemented and
ents and the public Andhra Pradesh High Court disseminated to the
are
unwilling.
public.
Research conducted by social
With regards to the degeneration
activists and researchers in the tribal of the education system, commerbelts of both Khammam and cialisation is a major factor. There
Visakhapatnam, disclosed at a gath- should be a uniform system of eduering on tribal advancement in cation. Regardless of whether one is
Hyderabad, revealed that these trib- rich or poor, an SC or an ST or not,
al communities are simply not inter- every child must have an equal
ested in sending children to have an
education. We are trying our best to
educate them. We emphasise upon
the importance of education; but we
are unable to draw them into the
mainstream.
A related aspect is that of migration. In Mehbubnagar district in
Andhra Pradesh, for six to seven
months of the year the majority of
the population is not resident in the
district. With the exception of the old
and the disabled, the rest of the population migrates for work, including
children who should be in school.
The interest in education for children
just does not exist in many areas
despite repeated attempts to educate
them and make them aware of the opportunity to read and write. It is
right to education.
the duty of the State to provide this
The difficulty is that there is a right. Commercial institutes are
major chasm between legislation in flourishing because of the failure on
theory and legislation in practice. the part of the State in imparting
Several of the legislations, though education to all. Not all private instithey are on the statute book, are tutions, however, are commercial
unknown to the general public. profit-making ventures. Private
Many measures have been adopted institutions administered by charitato ensure that the public is well edu- ble trusts, religious trusts and public
cated but not much success has been trusts have a place in India in progained. The courts must be utilised viding quality education. Permission
to further public interest and the to supply education should be given
judiciary must rise up to the expecta- to such institutions but not to busition of the general public. The judi- ness-minded people whose only
ciary has failed in the past, most motive is profit. There is no place in
notably during the Emergency, but education for capitation fees.
A
51
Transforming school
education system
It is high time that the concerned
authorities and departments wake
up to the call of the crumbling school
education system and decide remedial measures to be taken to bring
about a systemic change in school
education in India:
(a) For the nation as a whole and
for each state, we must draw up a
plan for achieving universalisation
within a time bound framework.
Given the fact that school education
from the age group six to 14 is now a
fundamental right and that education even in the age group 15 to 18 is
increasingly coming to be so recognised, the time period for universalisation should not exceed five years
for education up to the age of 14. If
this time limit is not met, then this
would mean further delay in ensuring right to education.
(b) Education has to be free and
compulsory up to the age of 14
according to Article 21A. There is a
strong reason for its becoming so for
at least one year of education at the
pre-primary level and for the children in the age group 15 to 16 also. In
most of the advanced developing
countries like Brazil, Thailand,
China, and Indonesia, the task of universalising elementary education
was accomplished a long time ago
and the current preoccupation of the
educational planners and policy
makers of these countries is with universalising and improving the quality of secondary education.
(c) We should establish norms
and standards to ensure both quality
and equity in school education. The
norms should relate to space, furnishing, equipment, teaching aid,
number of schools to be renovated
and built, number of teachers to be
recruited and trained, curricula, pedagogy etc. It is not difficult to establish and apply such norms and standards. These are done in all developed countries. In India, two national-level committees and one state
level commission have laid down
detailed guidelines for school education. The norms included in the Right
to Education Bill, 2008 are inadequate and skimpy. Majority of very
important norms are not specified
and against them it is only stated:
"As the Government may decide to
52
determine". This makes the norms
unjustifiable, and hardly a basis for
accountability.
(d) An annual plan should be prepared and implemented for building
schools, recruiting teachers, providing teacher training and applying
other norms and standards.
(e) A price tag should be put on
each norm, which should be the basis
for calculating the additional expenditure to be incurred on school education. In the case of Bihar, the objectives to be realised through the additional expenditure are more ambitious. They include one year of preprimary education and two years of
secondary education, and a complete
overhauling of education going up to
the level of universities imparting
teacher training. The additional
expenditure estimated by the
Common
School
System
Commission, Bihar is not unaffordable. For example, if six percent of
GNP is devoted to expenditure on
education in India as a whole and if
half of that were for school education, and if eight percent of this is
made available to Bihar (which is the
proportion of Bihar's population to
the total population of India), then
the additional cost to be incurred by
the state would come to approximately Rs 1,748 crores per annum
which is affordable. A part of the
additional
resources
can
be
mobilised by raising the percentage
The existence of a
hierarchy of schools
perpetuates and
accentuates social
inequality. It also makes
for bad education.
Empirical studies have
demonstrated that
schools which bring in
children from different
communities and
classes, provide better
education and even the
children of the rich and
the elite stand to benefit
from such a
school system
of budget expenditure of Bihar
devoted to school education from the
current rate of nearly 13 percent to 20
percent which is the average for
Indian states as a whole. In that case,
the additional expenditure to be
mobilised will come down by Rs
2,731 crores. Besides, there is a considerable amount of expenditure
incurred for running and opening
new special types of schools for the
children of the privileged class. Even
if the existing schools in this category
are allowed to continue and if there
is an embargo on opening such new
schools, there will be savings which
can be devoted to education for the
children of the poor. Moreover, the
State can also borrow from NABARD
and banks which have a window for
social lending. Such borrowings will
be for a limited period, that is, the
period stipulated for universalising
school education at different levels.
After that, the system will be selfsustaining and the only expenditure
needed would be that for maintaining and further improving it. Thus,
there is a variety of ways in which
the estimated additional resources
can be mobilised. They are also
affordable if the suggestions made
above are implemented in a right
manner. In any case, they are indispensable for complying with the
basic provision of the Constitution
on social equality and right to life
which now includes right to education, for sustaining growth in India
and for ensuring its rightful place in
the comity of nations.
(f) School education should be
ing the resources for this purpose.
These should be one of the first
charges on the budget of the Centre
and state governments on par with
expenditures for the implementation
of other fundamental rights.
(h) A high-level mechanism in the
form of a commission should be set
up which should be vested with the
over-all responsibility for overseeing
progress in school education, for
being the last court of appeal, for
adjudicating where called upon to do
so and for improving, through
research and public discussion, the
norms and standards, and suggesting innovations. Such a mechanism
exists in most major developed countries.
based on the concept of neighbourhood schools whereby the State
should declare the neighbourbood
for each school, which should be
required by law to admit and educate till completion all the children in
the required age group residing in
the neighbourhood. In India, we
have advocates of freedom of choice
and freedom of profession who
argue that the concept of neighbourhood school is against the exercise of
these freedoms. They forget that this
concept has been applied for
decades, if not centuries, in countries
where democracy has taken firm
roots and where freedom is valued
much more than in our country. Here
I share a personal experience. When I
was posted in New York, I had to
send my two children to a public
school there. Since I stayed on 89th
Street & 1st Avenue in the city, I was
told that my children could go only
to the nearest public school, which
was on the 96th Street & 2nd Avenue.
This location is on the fringe of
Harlem, which was known for its
high incidence of crime and drug
addiction. But I had no choice but to
send my children to this school. This
was according to the law of the city
and nobody complained that it was
in violation of his/her fundamental
rights. Apparently, individual rights
cannot take precedence over the public purpose enshrined in the
Constitution, of ensuring social
equality.
(g) There should be a legal
requirement for applying both the
norms and standards and for providwww.combatlaw.org
Conclusion
A school system based on the above
parameters is called the common
school system. It has been practised
by almost all developed nations
around the globe. In India, there has
been no interest in building such a
school system, mainly because of the
influence in policy making of elitist
class which manages to send its children to special category of schools.
A deliberate attempt is being
made, mainly by the private school
lobbies, to spread the canard that
such a system does not permit the
running of private schools and,
therefore, imposes uniformity and
prevents experimentation and innovation so far as curriculum, syllabus
and pedagogy are concerned. This is
farthest from the truth. The fact is
that there is full scope for the existence and even expansion of private
schools in a common school system,
subject to the condition that they, like
government schools, must also apply
the norms and standards legally laid
down and subject themselves to
inspection by the agents of the highlevel commission on education. The
private schools have to provide free
and compulsory education at least to
the children in the age group six to
14, that their function essentially is to
provide good education which does
not leave scope for making profit and
that in the ultimate analysis, the
responsibility for universalising
equitable and quality education rests
squarely on the State.
Seen in the light of the above, several of the measures adopted or
announced by the government
recently for improving access to and
quality of school education are
redundant and designed to serve
mainly political purpose. They are
also devices to distract attention
from the systemic problems. For
example, if the norm to build a primary school at a distance of a kilometer from the habitation of children, a middle school at a distance of
three kilometers and a secondary
school at a distance of five kilometers
is applied, there is no need to build
hostels, including for children of the
minority and the marginalised
groups.
If school education is provided
free of cost in the comprehensive
sense of the term, there is no need to
provide scholarships. If the principle
of neighbourhood is applied, reservation of a particular percentage of
seats for the children of the poor
households in private schools is not
necessary because the private schools
will have to admit all the children
from the neighbourhood and provide free and compulsory education
according to the legal provisions
made by the State. It is for the state to
work out in consultation with the
private schools the basis of burden
sharing. Similarly, if the norms and
standards are strictly applied with
the provision of adequate resources
for this purpose, it will no longer be
necessary to establish model schools
on a selective basis for all the nearly
12 lakh schools in the system would
become model schools and not only
6,000, that is one model school for
each block, as proposed by the prime
minister.
—The author is former chairperson,
Common School System Commission,
Government of Bihar
Footnotes
1. Educational Statistics at a Glance 200506, the Ministry of HRD, 2008
2. Ibid.
3. Report of the Common School System
Commission, Govt. of Bihar, June 8, 2007
4. Educational Statistics at a Glance 2005-06
5. Report of the Common School System
Commission, Govt. of Bihar
6. Ibid.
7. (Educational Statistics at a Glance 200506, the Ministry of HRD, 2008).
8. (DISE data; NUEPA, 2007-08).
53
Dr. Justice
Mukundakam Sharma
he subject that is being discussed is very relevant as the
concept of right to education is
gaining momentum across the country with the Right of Children to Free
and Compulsory Education Bill, 2008
being debated in the current session
of Parliament. We have our
Constitution which declares: "We'll
have a country, which is Sovereign,
Socialist, Secular and Democratic".
When we speak of these ideas to
have a socialist, democratic country,
we mean that there is a country with
participation of its all citizens. By
socialist country, we also mean that
each one of us will have the same status and same responsibility. We also
speak of the Constitution for providing justice and equality -- justice that
is political, economic, and social.
Now that is another question how far
we have been able to achieve the
goals that have been promised to us
in our Constitution? If we look at this
concept of justice, as far as political
justice is concerned, I believe that we
have made efforts to achieve at least
some advances for we have a viable
democracy with us where the government is elected every five years.
There could be some differences of
T
54
Don't neglect
the foundation of life
perceptions but still we believe that
we have made certain policies in taking the country towards progress. As
far as social justice is concerned, we
find that we have to make laws with
regard to protection of rights of children and women such as the
Domestic Violence Act and the PreConception, Pre-Natal Diagnostic
Techniques (Regulation & Prevention
of Misuse) Act. But why do we have
to do that if we have achieved social
justice by now? This means that we
have not yet been able to achieve
the goal so far, as was expected of us
by now.
Globalisation is the larger context
in which all nation states function.
India as a country has also attained
globalisation. There is a change in the
global scenario and international
boundaries are getting blurred.
However, in India's context, the ideas
that we had accepted at one point of
time, the promise that was made was
on the lines of socialism. As a socialist country, planned economy was
chosen over any other form of economy. India was earlier not visualised
as a free market economy but with
the passage of time and adaptation to
the context and situation, things have
changed. The State has taken upon
itself the directive principles in the
Constitution, which promises education for all. It is the judiciary which
has to endeavour to play a positive
role in terms of realisation of the provision of free and compulsory education to children as being realised
through
the
decision
of
Unnikrishnan Judgement in 1993.
Several international covenants and
conventions have championed the
cause of children. In consonance with
the terms of these covenants and conventions and Article 45 in the
Directive Principles, the government
decided for an Article to provide free
and compulsory education to all chil-
dren. Subsequently, Article 21A was
incorporated into the Constitution.
Nevertheless, the 2005 amendment
in the Constitution in the form of
Article 21A is yet to be implemented
even after four years!
The Right to Education Bill was
drafted in the year 2005. After three
years of amendment in the
Constitution the Bill could not be
passed. The new draft bill that came
in the year 2008 is still being considered by Parliament.
Despite the declaration of social
justice and democratic government
in the Constitution, there continues
to be huge economic and social disparity amongst people with creation
of different classes, castes and subcastes. Poverty and illiteracy will
remain major challenges before the
governments. The dropout phenomenon will continue to be high in
schools even if there are provisions
available. Therefore, a necessary requisite is to root out poverty or get it
to the minimum level as much as
possible and for that the positive
effects of globalisation will have to be
infiltrated down to the grassroots
level. It has to be taken to the villages
and remote areas where there are no
signs of globalisation at all.
Poverty and illiteracy besides
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social ostracisation of different communities result in an abstinence of
children from schools. Consequently
there is a huge force of child labour
growing in our country. Children
work as labourers in unorganised
sector. There are several Acts and legislations to combat this menace of
child labour such as the Child
Labour (Prevention & Regulation)
Act, 1986, the Bonded Labour System
(Abolition) Act, 1976, the Juvenile
Justice (Care & Protection of
Children) Act, 2000 and the
Commission for Protection of Child
Rights Act in 2005. Unless child
labour is banned in totality there
shall be no development and a
majority of children in India will
remain deprived of their fundamental right to elementary education.
According to 2001 census, 13 million children are engaged as child
labourers in the country. Education is
the basis for all round development.
The Child Labour (Prohibition &
Regulation) Act, 1986, lacks any rehabilitative measure, except the sole
provision of Rs 20,000 to be made by
the person who has kept a child as a
bonded labour. Comparatively, the
Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection
of Children) Act, 2000, is still more
rehabilitative in nature since it aims
at mainstreaming the children in
conflict with law and the society.
Despite these provisions and legislations the ground realities remain
stark. Hence, some changes are
imperative to mould our approach to
these issues and statutes that can better be reconsidered by the judges,
lawyers and the academicians for
their effective implementation.
The existing state of education in
India is deplorable as the census
report of 2001 revealed the literacy
rate of the country then to be 64.8
percent, with female literacy rate to
be 53.7 percent and the male literacy
rate was 73 percent. This juxtaposed
with the growing dropout rate
makes the situation terrible. The 2001
census stated that the dropout rate
between class I and class VIII was
50.4 percent and 50.1 percent for the
males and females, respectively. This
is the phase of child's elementary
education. Hence, this dropout rate,
if allowed to continue, will create
havoc in the society and thus
requires serious steps to restrain it.
If we take a look at the facilities
available in schools, both in urban
and rural areas, the infrastructural
position is found to be perceivably
awful. In national capital Delhi, one
can find schools having the best of
infrastructure and all facilities while
some of the government schools do
not even have toilet facilities. Why is
this disparity?
Now, so far as spending on the
education sector is concerned, the
latest interim budget that was presented for 2009-2010 showed no
increase proposed in spending on
education and health although inflation rate has gone high. So the mindset has to be changed as far as the
judiciary and the government is concerned. There are certain discrepancies in the recent education bill of
2008 and I believe, because of concern over the bill, political parties
would take note of those disparities
and gaps. The first such discrepancy
is between the private schools and
the government schools. There must
be provisions for equitable quality
education along with the maintenance of minimum standard of quality and the minimum student teachers ratio in the government schools.
There also needs to be a provision for
inclusion of all classes of society, particularly the people from remote
areas such as the hill tribes and other
isolated regions. They are also to be
included within the parameter. The
poor children must be provided extra
facilities to see that they come to the
schools regularly and minimum
incentives are to be ensured to the
parents to enable them to send their
children to schools. Government programmes in the form of mid-day
meal and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
need to be mobilised into a mass
campaign so that these schemes
reach the beneficiaries efficiently and
within the prescribed time frame.
I conclude with a quote that
Gabriel Mistral in her novel Laureate
said: "We are guilty of many errors
and faults but our worst crime is
abandoning the children, neglecting
the foundation of life. Many of the
things we need can wait, a child cannot. Right now is the time. His goals
are being formed, his blood is being
made and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer,
tomorrow, his name is today". ■
55
When Judiciary gave
the young wings to fly
he term 'child' stands for a
young person of either sex
especially one between infancy
and youth and hence one who
exhibits characteristics as innocence,
obedience, trustfulness, limited
understanding etc. The children need
special protection because of their
tender age, mental immaturity and
incapacity to look after themselves.
When we talk of justice, it is the
result of law. However, it means
equal and impartial justice. It means
quality of being just, of being morally just or righteous; the principle of
just dealing; just conduct; integrity;
rectitude; conformity of an action or
thing to moral right, or to reason,
truth, or fact; rightfulness; fairness;
correctness; propriety.
Unfortunately, in our society
from the times immemorial, though
girl child is the future of our country,
but by traditions, customs and social
practices we have bestowed greater
value on sons than on daughters and
they are often viewed as an economic burden. In a cosmopolitan city one
can see an ever increasing number of
street children. In our country there
are multiple reasons for this rise
ranging from poverty to family break
ups, conflicts, natural and man-made
disasters, lack of employment opportunities and migration to big cities
from rural areas.
T
Dr Justice B S Chauhan
Children supreme assets
The League of Nations adopted declaration of the rights of children
advocating, "mankind owes to the
child the best it has to give".
Subsequent thereto, Declaration of
Rights of the Child, 1959 and the
Convention of Rights of the Child,
1989 by the United Nations have
been ratified by India also. Thus, it
maintains that legal standards are
necessary for granting social, economic and cultural rights for children.
In Rosy Jacob vs Jacob A
Chakramakkal, AIR 1973 SC 2090;
the Supreme Court observed: "The
56
children are not mere chattels: nor
are they mere playthings for their
parents. Absolute right of parents
over the destinies and the lives of
their children has, in the changed
social conditions, yielded to the considerations of their welfare as human
beings so that they may grow up in a
normal balanced manner to be useful
members of the society…"
Therefore, every child in the
country has a legitimate claim and is
entitled to his/her share in the
finances of the republic for harmonious and comprehensive development of his/her personality. Like a
sapling, a child requires proper protection, promotion, nourishment and
proper environment to grow into a
sensible and responsible citizen to
serve the nation. Therefore, children
have been described as a supreme
asset of any nation and being the
greatest gift to humanity. Children
are the potential and useful human
resources for the progress of the
country.
But at the same time, they are the
most vulnerable lot and particularly
those who come from the lower strata of the society, their poverty exposes them to risk. It enhances their insecurity. Poverty breeds many negative
facets such as illiteracy, superstition,
ill health, social bias, injustice,
dependency, outsized families and
migration. Exploitation of the poor
for organ removal, womb hiring, sale
of dead bodies, sale of children, sale
of foetus, DNA sampling, clinical
research and experimentation is a
common phenomenon today. If a
person is abused in childhood, it may
lead to total and irreversible loss of
his "capabilities". The children are
kidnapped and killed to keep the
organ trade ring flourishing. Most of
the children are subjected to sexual
abuse by someone known to them
and also by their family members.
This humiliation makes them lose
self-confidence, they are unable to
trust people and feel anguish against
the society as a whole and at times,
become drug addicts. The neglect of
children may be physical as well as
emotional too. It may so happen
because of the parents' inability to
look after the needs of their child in
face of poverty.
Laws in place
There are several enactments to protect the children, particularly,
Prohibition of Child Marriage Act,
2007, Child Labour (Prohibition and
Regulation) Act, 1986, Immoral
Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1986,
Juvenile (Justice, Care and Protection
of Children) Act, 2000, Preconception
and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques
(Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act,
1994 etc.
Section 125 of the CrPC deals
with the maintenance of children.
Hindu Marriage Act, Hindu
Minority and Guardianship Act,
Hindu Adoption and Maintenance
Act also provides for the protection
and welfare of the children.
The Indian government has also
evolved and adopted the National
Policy for children in the year 1947
(by Resolution No. 1-14/74-CDD
dated August, 22, 1947). In 1974, the
government made a national policy
regarding children that "the State
shall provide adequate care to children both before and after birth, to
ensure their full physical, mental and
social development". A systematic
approach to juvenile justice requires
that each of its components should
have a clear understanding of the
objectives of the system and it should
take coordinated action for achieving
the aim of the legislation.
In 1989, General Assembly of
United Nations has adopted the
Convention on the rights of child and
it had prescribed a set of standards to
be adhered to by all the nations in
securing the best interest of the child.
It also emphasised social rehabilitation of child victims to the possible
without resorting to judicial precedent.
The General Assembly of the
United Nations in the Declaration of
the Right of Child dated 20/11/1950
in its preamble quotes thus "the child
by reason of his physical and mental
immaturities, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as
after birth" and that "mankind owes
www.combatlaw.org
to the child the best it has to give".
The constitutional founders with
a foresighted vision had enacted the
benevolent provisions for child welfare:
● Article 15 (3) of the Constitution
empowers the State to make special
provisions inter alia for children.
● Article 24 prohibits employment/engagement of a child below
the age of 14 years in any factory,
mine or in any other hazardous
employment.
● Article 39(f) of the Constitution
provides that, the State shall direct its
policy towards securing that children
are given opportunities and facilities
to develop in a healthy manner and
in conditions of freedom and dignity
and that childhood and youth are
protected against exploitation and
moral and material abandonment.
Articles 45 and 47 impose on the
state primary responsibility of ensuring that all the needs of children are
met and that their basic human rights
are fully protected.
These objectives reflect the great
anxiety of the Constitution makers to
protect and safeguard the interests
and welfare of the children of our
country.
In view to have greater emphasis
the 86th Amendment in the
Constitution of India was made in
2002, introducing the provision of
Article 21A, declaring the right to
free and compulsory education of the
children between the age of six to 14
years as a fundamental right.
Correspondingly, the provisions of
Article 45 have been amended making it an obligation on the part of the
State to impart free education to the
children. Amendment in Article 51A
of the Constitution inserting the
clause 'k' has also been made making
it obligatory on the part of the parents to provide opportunities for
education to their children between
the age of six to 14 years.
Juvenile justice Act
Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection
of Children) Act, 2000 repealed the
Juvenile Justice Act, 1986 and a striking distinction between the two Acts
is that under the 1986 Act, a juvenile
means a male juvenile who has not
attained the age of 16 years and a
female juvenile who has not attained
the age of 18 years. While in the 2000
Unfortunately, in our
society from the
times immemorial,
though girl child is the
future of our country,
but by traditions,
customs and social
practices we have
bestowed greater
value on sons than on
daughters and they
are often viewed as
an economic burden.
In a cosmopolitan city
one can see an ever
increasing number of
street children
57
Act, a juvenile or child means who
has not completed 18 years of age.
In Bhola Bhagat vs State of Bihar
(1997) 8 SCC 720; Gopinath Ghosh vs
State of West Bengal, AIR 1984 SC
237; Bhoop Ram vs State of UP, AIR
1989 SC 1329; Pradeep Kumar vs
State of UP, AIR 1994 SC 104; Pratap
Singh vs State of Jharkhand & Anr.,
AIR 2005 SC 2731; and Upendra
Kumar vs State of Bihar, (2005) 3 SCC
592, the provisions of the Juvenile
Justice Act, 2000 have been considered and it has been held that relevant date for determination of age of
the juvenile for the purpose of the
Act is the date of commission of the
offence and not the date when the
In Andhra Kesari
Education Society vs
Director of School
Education & Ors., AIR
1989 SC 183, the
Supreme Court recognised
the importance of
education for B.Ed,
pointing out that, as those
people have to handle tiny
tots, therefore the
teacher alone could bring
out their skills and
intellectual activities
offender is produced before the competent authority or court. The
Supreme Court considered the case
of Umesh Chandra vs State of
Rajasthan, AIR 1982 SC 1057 and
Arnit Das vs State of Bihar, AIR 2000
SC 2264, and held that the view taken
by the Court in Arnit Das case that
the relevant date is the date on which
he was produced in court does not
lay down a good law. The apex Court
has insisted that the juveniles cannot
be detained and the benefits of the
provisions of the Act must be given
to them.
In older days, a child used to get
proper protection, education and
care at his home and was properly
looked after. The atmosphere at
homes, schools and in the society
was conducive for overall development of children and their character
building.
58
It was said:
"Mata Satruh Pita Bairi, Yena Balon
Na Pathitah;
Na Sovate Sabha Madhye, Hansa
Madhye Bako yatha."
(The parents, who do not send
their children for education are their
enemies.)
Gradually, with the growth of
population and industrialisation, the
children are ignored everywhere. On
account of immature mind, lack of
proper care, training and discipline,
they easily fall prey to evil elements
of the society. Many of them, who are
charged as criminals, are themselves
victims of the abuse and untoward
circumstances prevailing in society.
However, no civilisation can now
afford to ignore the neglected and
delinquent juvenile as it may have a
far-reaching effect on the society as a
whole.
The entire object of the Juvenile
Justice Act is to give a separate treatment to the juvenile offenders so that
they will not be allowed to mix with
hardened criminals in a jail fearing
that instead of reforming themselves
they will develop an attitude to be
criminals. The Juvenile Justice Act is
a reformative measure to deal with
the juvenile delinquents so that they
will not become hardened criminals
by remaining inside jail.
The Indian government had
adopted a National Charter for
Children in order to see that no child
remains hungry, illiterate or sick. The
charter affirms that the best interest
of children must be protected and
served through combined action of
the State, society, communities and
families in their obligations in fulfilling children's basic needs. It further
asserts that while State, society, community and family have obligations
towards children, these must be
viewed in the context of intrinsic and
attendant duties of children and
inculcating in them a sound sense of
values directed towards preserving
and strengthening the family, society
and the nation. It recommends that
by respecting the child, society is
respecting itself. Every child has an
inherent right to enjoy a healthy and
happy childhood and to awaken the
conscience of the community in the
wider societal context so as to protect
children from all forms of abuse. The
resolution provides for promoting
high standards of health and nutrition, assuring basic minimum needs
and security, play and leisure, free
and compulsory primary education,
protection from economic exploitation and other forms of child abuse,
special protection to the girl child,
empowering adolescents, equality,
freedom of expression, freedom to
seek and receive information, freedom of association and peaceful
assembly for children, protection of
children with disabilities, care, welfare of children of marginalised and
disadvantaged communities and for
ensuring child-friendly procedures.
Case studies
In Bandhua Mukti Morcha vs Union
of India & Ors., AIR 1984 SC 802, the
Supreme Court held that Article 21
read with Articles 39, 41 and 42 provide for protection and preservation
of the health and strength also of tender age children against abuse and
further provides for imparting educational facilities.
In Ms Mohini Jain vs State of
Karnataka & Ors., AIR 1992 SC 1858,
the apex Court while dealing with
this issue held that without making
"right to education" under Article 41
of the Constitution a reality the fundamental rights under chapter III
shall remain beyond the reach of the
large majority which are illiterate
and poor. The State is under an obligation to make an endeavour to provide educational facilities at all levels
to its citizens. The right to education,
therefore, is concomitant to the fundamental rights enshrined under
part III of the Constitution to provide
educational institutions at all levels
for the benefit of the citizens and
they must function to the best advantage of the masses.
In Unnikrishnan, JP & Ors. vs
State of Andhra Pradesh & Ors., AIR
1993 SC 2178, the Supreme Court
considered large number of judgements on this issue and came to the
conclusion that the right to education
is contained in as many as three
Articles in part IV, viz., Articles 41, 45
and 46, which shows the importance
attached to it by the founding
fathers. Even some of the Articles in
part III, viz, Articles 29 and 30 speak
of education. The Court further held
that right to compulsory and free
education up to the age of 14 years is
a fundamental right of every child.
This emphasis on providing compulsory education at the primary
stage also involves the question of
providing quality education. This
necessarily requires the preference of
well-qualified teachers. The need for
such teachers has time and again
been emphasised in several decisions.
In Andhra Kesari Education
Society vs Director of School
Education & Ors., AIR 1989 SC 183,
the Supreme Court recognised the
importance of education for B.Ed,
pointing out that, as those people
have to handle tiny tots, therefore the
teacher alone could bring out their
skills and intellectual activities. He is
the engine of the educational system.
He is a superb instrument in awakening the children to cultural values.
He must possess potentiality to
deliver enlightened service to the
society. He is not to perform in wooden and unimaginative way, rather he
must eliminate unwarranted tendencies and attitudes and infuse novel
and national ideas in younger gener-
ation, and his involvement in national integration is more important,
indeed indispensable.
In Ram Sukh & Ors. vs State of
Rajasthan & Ors., AIR 1990 SC 592,
the Supreme Court did not permit
the untrained teachers to teach the
children, observing that they require
proper handling by well-trained
teachers. The primary school teachers are of much importance in development of a child's personality in the
formative years. They must be able to
understand a child's psychology and
attitude. Therefore, only trained
teachers could lead children properly. This becomes more important in
respect of girls students and female
teachers who teach not only the students but also educate the entire family.
In Dental Council of India vs
Subharti KKB Charitable Trust &
Anr., AIR 2001 SC 2151, the apex
Court explaining the importance of
education, observed:
"…. that unless there are proper
educational facilities in the society, it
would be difficult to meet with the
requirements of younger generation
who have keen desire to acquire
knowledge and education to compete in the global market........ Since
ages our culture and civilisation have
recognised that education is one of
the pious obligation of the society............. It is for us to preserve that
rich heritage of our culture of transcending the education continuously
unpolluted."
The Court further observed that
education is not a consumer service,
nor the educational institution can be
equated with shops, therefore "there
are statutory prohibitions for establishing and administering educational institution without prior permission or approval by the authority
concerned."
In Rohit Singhal & Ors. vs
Principal, Jawahar N Vidyalaya &
Ors., (2003) 1 SCC 687, the Supreme
Court expressed its great concern
regarding the children's education,
observing "children are not only the
future citizens but also the future of
the earth. Elders in general, and parents and teachers in particular, owe a
responsibility for taking care of the
well being and welfare of the chil-
Make it a mass movement
n my capacity as a judge of a high
court I travel all over India. This
has given me an opportunity to visit,
unannounced, many of the schools
in several districts. On one such
occasion, I visited a residential
school, which had two hundred students enrolled but I could found
only 15 in the hostel. Assisted by one
of the junior civil judges I interacted
with the students and asked them
"Where have the students gone?"
They replied that the students had
gone for dinner nearby. "Where is
your warden?" was my next question
to which they told me that the warden does not come to the hostel. I
asked them whether they have any
facilities in this hostel and got a
response to undertake the tour of the
entire building. There were no facilities and everything was substandard. I asked if they were being provided with proper food and they
responded in the negative. A public
relations officer arrived and proceeded to follow us so we decided to
I
www.combatlaw.org
Justice Chandraiah
Andhra Pradesh High Court
visit another hostel but found that
too in a deplorable condition. The
following day my visit appeared in a
newspaper. Within one week the district collector started visiting all the
schools in the district and discovered
the same issues I had voiced -- hundreds of dropouts and a lack of proper amenities in the schools. The collector inspected and instructed all
the institutions to enforce correctives
immediately and about a month
later almost seven to eight hundred
dropouts joined the schools back. It
is important for us judges to look
outside our courtrooms and see how
we can help in our capacity to pro-
mote education and improve the
system.
There is a need in this country for
a movement on the right to education. One of the central tenets of this
movement should be education for
whom -- education for the uneducated or for those who do not have any
schools in their villages. We are talking about education for those people
who do not have access to it. The
country as a whole should be educated. Only then we can have a good
and decent democracy which is the
ultimate object of our Constitution.
The right to education should
become a movement and every citizen in this country, regardless of the
level of their education, should feel
involved in this initiative. Only then
we will see this country as a developed nation. This will be possible
only when each one of us realises
our social responsibility to propagate the slogan of right to free and
compulsory education for all the
children.
59
dren. The world shall be a better or
worse place to live according to how
we treat the children today.
Education is an investment made by
the nation in its children for harvesting a future crop of responsible
adults productive of a well functioning society. However, children are
vulnerable. They need to be valued,
nurtured, caressed and protected."
In Lakshmi Kant Pandey vs.
Union of India, AIR 1984 SC 469, the
Supreme Court laid down that, "the
child is a soul with a being, a nature
and capacities of its own, who must
be helped to find them, to grow into
their maturity, into fullness of physical and vital energy and the utmost
breath, depth and height of its emotional, intellectual and spiritual
being; otherwise there cannot be a
healthy growth of the nation".
In Sheela Barse vs Secretary,
Children's Aid Society & Ors., AIR
1987 SC 656, the Supreme Court has
held that children are the citizens of
the future era. On the proper bringing up of children and giving them
the proper training to turn out to be
good citizens depends the future of
the country. If there be no proper
growth of children of today, the
future of the country will be dark. It
is the obligation of every generation
to bring up children who will be citizens of tomorrow in a proper way.
Today's children will be the leaders
of tomorrow who will hold the country's banner high and maintain the
prestige of the Nation. If a child goes
wrong for want of proper attention,
training and guidance, it will indeed
be a deficiency of the society and of
the current government. A problem
child is indeed a negative factor.
Every society must, therefore, devote
full attention to ensure that children
are properly cared for and brought
up in a proper atmosphere where
they could receive adequate training,
education and guidance in order that
they may be able to have their rightful place in the society when they
grow up.
In Bandhua Mukti Morcha vs
Union of India & Ors., AIR 1997 SC
2218, the Supreme Court held that
"child of today cannot develop to be
a responsible and productive member of tomorrow's society unless an
environment which is conducive to
his social and physical health is
60
In Rohit Singhal & Ors.
vs Principal, Jawahar N
Vidyalaya & Ors., (2003)
1 SCC 687, the Supreme
Court expressed its
great concern regarding
the children's education,
observing ...elders in
general, and parents
and teachers in
particular, owe a
responsibility for taking
care of the well being
and welfare of
the children
assured to him. Every nation, developed or developing, links its future
with the status of the child.
Childhood holds the potential and
also sets the limit to the future development of the society. Children are
the greatest gift to humanity… If
children are deprived of their childhood -- socially, economically, physically and mentally -- the nation gets
deprived of the potential human
resources for social progress, economic empowerment and peace and
order, the social stability and good
citizenry."
In Gaurav Jain vs Union of India
& Ors, AIR 1997 SC 3021, the
Supreme Court emphasised that the
national policy sets out the measures
which the government proposes to
adopt towards attainment of the
objectives set out in the perambulatory introduction and they include
measures designed to protect children against neglect, cruelty and
exploitation and to strengthen family
ties "so that full potentialities of
growth of children are realised within the normal family neighbourhood
and community environment". The
national policy also lays down priority in programme formation and to
give fairly high priority to maintenance, education and training of
orphans and destitute children.
There is also provision made in the
national policy for constitution of a
national children's board to provide
a focus for planning and review and
proper co-ordination of the multi-
plicity of different levels, services
striving to meet the needs of children
and to ensure all the essential services.
In Superstar Education Society vs
State of Maharashtra & Ors., (2008) 3
SCC 315, the Supreme Court, while
dealing with the role of private
schools in imparting education,
referred to universal access to education observing that the objects of regulating permissions for new private
schools is to provide access to basic
education to all sections of society, in
particular the poorer and weaker sections. The Court held that it is the
duty of the state government to provide access to education to every
statehood to discharge its constitutional obligation.
In Election Commission of India
vs St Mary's School & Ors., AIR 2008
SC 655, the disputes arose as to
whether the private school teachers
may be assigned the duty of preparing electoral roll. The Supreme Court
held that imparting education is a
sovereign function of the State. It is a
constitutional obligation, and for
want of proper resources and proper
implementation, the private actors
are performing the duty.
The state of primary education in
India is in deplorable condition.
There is a heavy dropout rate in the
schools particularly the girls' schools.
Sixty years of independence, however, have not brought about the
desired result of imparting compulsory education to all the children.
In Ashoka Kumar Thakur vs
Union of India & Ors., (2008) 6 SCC
1, while deciding the issue of reservation, some of the Hon'ble Judges
had made reference to the provisions
of Articles 15(3) and 21A of the
Constitution, observing that without
Article 21-A the other fundamental
rights are rendered meaningless.
Therefore, there has to be a need to
earnestly focus on implementing
Article 21A. Without education a citizen may never come to know of his
other rights. There is no corresponding constitutional right to higher
education. The State is under a
mandatory obligation to implement
Article 21A on priority basis. The
fundamental stress has to be on primary and elementary education, so
that a proper foundation for higher
education can be effectively laid. ■
Hidden Apartheid
here is an explosive demand
among poor parents for education throughout the country.
For them, education is an important
tool to break the cycle of poverty and
marginalisation. They see education
bringing in equity and justice. They
are willing to make enormous sacrifices to get their children educated.
About six months ago, a team from
National Commission for Protection
of Child Rights (NCPCR) visited the
residential bridge course (RBC) set
up by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in a
remote tribal pocket at Jhajha (Jamui
district) of Bihar. At the public hearing it was heard how an intense programme of social mobilisation with
active role of the local youth and the
gram panchayat members motivated
over 400 tribal girls who had never
been to school getting ready to join
the RBC. However, the government
had place only for 50. It was decided
by the community that all the girls,
aged 14, would go for this bridge
course as once they turned 15
they would lose their educational
opportunity.
After the meeting and a drive of
two kilometers, a group of tribal
T
Children upto
18 years have a right
to education and this
is non-negotiable.
Aruging that those
who are perceived as
drop-outs are actually
pushed-outs from the
system, Dr Shantha
Sinha emphasises that
the State should
immediately take
complete responsibilty
of ensuring
compulsory
education for all
www.combatlaw.org
women stopped the convoy and told
the NCPCR team that they wanted
their children to complete at least
class X but had no school after
class V in the vicinity and their children had to walk 16 kilometers to go
to the nearest school which was only
up to class VIII. The NCPCR team
asked them why they had not raised
this issue at the public hearing and
the women answered quite piquantly
whether the authorities have to be
told and did not know that their children too required education up to
class X and more. This defied the
conventional wisdom that tribal
parents are not interested in getting
their children educated and especially they do not want their girls to go
to school.
Dantewada
district
in
Chhattisgarh is an area that has been
caught in a situation of civil unrest
with the presence of naxals as well as
the police, making it impossible for
the local population to articulate
their difficulties in accessing their
entitlements. In the last six months,
about five gram panchayats in the
Sukma block have mobilised children in their villages to join the local
schools with support from NCPCR
and in coordination with the district
authorities and NGOs. The news of
children going to schools in these
gram panchayats spread around in
the neighbouring blocks. Many a
tribal parent sought education for
their children to extricate them from
adversities once and for all. They did
not want their children to suffer the
same fate as they did.
Likewise the NCPCR team found
in its visit to the northeast that at the
relief camps of displaced persons in
Tripura and Assam there was a crying demand for education. In
Manipur too, where despite suffering from HIV and AIDS children
want to be educated. Among the
migrant child labourers from
Rajasthan to Gujarat, Orissa to
Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra to
Gujarat, Bihar to Mumbai, it has been
found that if only the education system had the capacity to reach out to
each of them, these children would
61
not have joined the labour force. In
all the public hearings, the NCPCR
heard voices of rescued child
labourers yearning for education and
struggling hard to win their battle
for schools. It is evident that
education alone can realise the possibility for the poor to change their
predicament.
Absence of social norm
Despite a growing demand for education, a large number of children are
not in schools. This appears as contradictory, but reasons are obvious.
Firstly, there is a societal tolerance of
child labour and absence of social
norm for right to education. It
appears normal that poor children
are engaged in work. There is neither
shock nor outrage that children are
out of schools. In fact, the presence of
a large number of children out of
schools and engaged in some form of
labour is even justified. Often it is
stated that such children have to
work because they are poor and the
family needs the income earned by
the children for their sustenance.
Poor infrastructure
The other reason for children being
school dropouts is the lack of availability of schools, teachers and
infrastructure. While there are enrol62
ment drives and programmes of sensitisation of poor for accessing
schools, there is no corresponding
effort to create the necessary infrastructure to absorb the demand. There
is a strong co-relation between the
availability of infrastructure and the
proportion of children in schools at
each stage. It is not anticipated that a
poor child entering class one would
have to complete class 10. Exclusion
of poor children from the system is
pushing them away from the system.
The school dropouts are indeed
school push-outs.
Further, instead of reinforcing
sturdy institutions and strengthening existing structures and processes,
the government has set up parallel
systems in form of ad hoc programmes through the Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan. The quality of the programme is based on the decisions of
concerned officials presiding at that
point of time. With new officers
replacing the old ones there is a shift
in the implementation of the programme. For example, the programme may shift from emphasis on
quality of education and teachers
training, to bringing school dropouts
into schools or provision of more
classrooms and so on. Thus lack of
institutionalisation of the schemes
that are being implemented hinders
the continuity of the programmes.
First generation learners
The entire education system including the schools is not designed for
the first generation learner. For
instance, in their urge to compete
with the private schools there is an
insistence on poor children to wear
school uniforms in government
schools. Those unable to get a school
uniform are not allowed to attend
school and thus get excluded. In the
public hearing NCPCR held in Tamil
Nadu, a child's only pair of school
uniform got wet in the rain and so
she went to school without the uniform. She was insulted by her teachers in such an inhuman way that by
evening she committed suicide. The
attempt is not to dramatise this particular incident but to show that even
an issue like that of being reprimanded for not wearing a school uniform
can have a profound impact on a
child's mind for attending or not
attending school.
Similarly, the inability of a child
to procure a birth certificate or a
transfer certificate can be detrimental
to the child's continuance in school.
In one such incident, the principal of
a school issued a transfer certificate
with his signature in blue ink and the
next school did not accept the document as the signature of the principal
should have been in green ink. By the
time the issue was negotiated, the
child lost one academic year and
dropped out of school. Inability to
produce birth certificates has led to
denial of admission to millions of
children.
Market demand for child labour
In fact, the market utilises the largescale exclusion of children from
schools to its advantage. The path of
children who are school dropouts is
sealed for good. This is especially so
with regard to the business that
depends on unskilled labour force in
the unorganised sector. They prefer
children as they are source of cheap
labour and can be forced to work for
long hours. This can be affirmed if
one looks into the stories of migration, trafficking, and child labour in
our country.
Full time formal schools
The Commission is of the view that
children's right to education is nonnegotiable. All children up to the age
of 18 years must be provided access
to schools. They have to be in full
time formal system of education and
not in the shift system. There have
been stories in Maharashtra, Delhi,
Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh
where they have shift systems in
which children attend classes from
morning 8 am to afternoon 1pm. It is
noticed that shift system violates
child rights as it eventually forces
them to slip into the work force and
not continue in the education stream.
The quality of learning and
investments made at each stage
reflects on the quality of learning in
other stages of education. A weak
pre-school education would have an
impact on the higher levels and viceversa. In this manner there cannot be
competing demands on investments
for education from within the education stream. All the stages of education are equally important, from preschool to primary, elementary, sec-
ondary, and higher secondary level.
Provisions have to be made to
include children who have dropped
out of school into age specific class
giving them an opportunity for
lateral entry.
Education now a commodity
Most private schools in the country
today are guided by the logic of the
capital and have emerged as commercial ventures, small or big, successful or limping projects. This scenario is vastly different from the private schools which had emerged
decades back to serve the educational needs of children and were nonprofit organisations and charitable
trusts that depended on State aid.
Now in the framework of market,
services are offered to such children
who can buy education. Like any
other product, it is in form. In their
urge to acquire the 'brand' product as
any consumer, the clients begin to
spend more than what they can actually afford just as consumers of any
commodity in the market. Education
is becoming a commodity for sale
and transaction, available only for
those who can afford it.
Encouraging private schools as
commercial enterprises compromises
the principle of universalisation of
education as it offers services only to
those who can pay for it. Thus those
who are deprived and marginalised
are automatically out of its net. If left
unregulated, the higher end suppliers would foster further exclusion,
and thus reinforce class differentiation. The rich and the poor would
never meet and there is every possibility of widening the divide. It
would operate inadvertently as a system of hidden apartheid. This is contrary to the very tenor of schools that
have always been institutions based
on universalistic principles, nurturing equity and social justice and fostering inclusive democracy.
Neighbourhood schools
It is in this context that it becomes
imperative to see the role of schools
as institutions that are indispensable
for creating conditions for an inclusive democracy and as instruments
for building capacities of the citizens.
In a situation where children from
the neighbourhood join schools in
that locality, and when equal stanwww.combatlaw.org
dards are maintained in all schools in
all neighbourhoods, creation of citizenship and not consumers is fostered. The very act of studying along
with their peers in the neighbourhood, transcending class differentiation integrates children into a web of
interaction, encouraging them to
utilise creative modes of thinking
and pursuit of knowledge. They
enable children transcend their
immediate environs and locate themselves in the context of a reality
which is informed by a sense of larger society and its complex milieu.
Thus the first step towards equity
and bridging the gaps in the social
and cultural hierarchies are actually
addressed in schools that provide
access to all in the neighbourhood,
without spelling out preferences of
any kind. Under such a circumstance, children aspire for similar
kind of learning regardless of their
class or cultural background.
This implies that the State must
provide services to protect the rights
of all children. It must lay down
absolute standards for what constitutes a school in terms of education,
infrastructure, teachers, and all other
facilities and ensure that they are
guaranteed. In emphasising the State
as the essential guarantor of right to
education, private schools too would
have a role to play in ensuring that
every child is in school. The State
would have a role to bridge the gaps
in both the government-run as well
as private schools and improve their
standards.
Conclusion
The successful accomplishment of
ensuring that children's right to education is guaranteed would need a
wholehearted attempt by all
forces/institutions, both within the
government and those that lay outside. All have a role to play in this.
The commitment to provide education for each and every child in the
country must therefore become pervasive and indeed an obsession. In
fact there has to be an agreement that
there is a role for all the institutions
and the battle is in arriving at this
agreement and commitment for children. This would require firmness in
wading through the logic of market
and profitability that has unfortunately seeped into the delivering of
services in education. This is certainly not an easy task. But the debate
must go on and capture the imagination of one and all into partaking in
the project of universalisation of education in India. If this goal is clear,
then the arguments that emerge and
the difficulties that are stated will be
seen as a justification for maintaining
the status-quo, which is denial of
right to education to the children in
our country. On the other hand if it is
understood that children's rights
have to be protected no matter what,
then there would be solutions to
make it practical for the rights to
be enjoyed.
Education being a public good
must nurture and enhance the principles of inclusion, non-discrimination,
equity, and justice. It must be an entitlement and a right that is guaranteed by the State. In a context when it
is becoming an acceptable discourse
to run down the State giving it a
cause to abdicate its responsibilities,
there is a need to constantly bring to
the forefront, the rights based
perspective that resonates with the
values of democracy, justice, and
equity as enshrined in the
Constitution of India.
—Dr Shantha Sinha is chairperson,
of Child Rights (NCPCR)
63
RTE Bill: bane for the poor
Discriminatory, lopsided and myopic, the Right to Education Bill
will further increase the divide between the rich and the poor. As
education becomes more inaccessible for the poor than ever before,
the State must de-commercialise the existing structure and adopt
common school system providing free and compulsory education,
writes Professor P M Bhargava
Educating masses
I am neither an expert on education,
nor an activist, nor a jurist, nor a policy maker, but just a concerned citizen of this country, a country that I
love and for the freedom of which I
fought along with millions of others
when I was a student. In 2003, an
exercise was undertaken by us to
prepare an "agenda for the nation". A
part of this project was to a make a
comprehensive list of all the prob64
lems in our country. The problems
enumerated in the list were interlinked in order to see which of them
were at the top of the hierarchy so
that if these particular problems were
not solved then other problems
would get no solution automatically.
When this particular exercise was
done, five problems emerged to be at
the top of the list -- education, water,
energy, corruption and governance.
Amongst these, the problem of edu-
cation bagged the first spot. The
report was presented to Sonia
Gandhi on December 29, 2003.
Today, the most important dividing factor in the country is not religion, caste or language, but education. It is the education-based divide
which emerges as the most alarming
and threatening. Nearly 80 percent
of people of the country have no
access to quality education. Recalling
Arjun Sengupta's analysis of the last
census report, 78 percent of the population is living on less than Rs 20 a
day. With this meaningless amount
they are surely not in a position to
send their children to a school where
they would get some kind of real
education. The problematic issue is
that the vested interests in this country want to maintain this unjust situation. I made a public statement on
this issue some years ago, saying that
I wanted to see every child of schoolgoing age of 6-18 in school, getting
quality education, the best that we
can provide. The very next morning,
a senior bureaucrat called me,
referred to the above statement in the
newspapers and said that if something like this happens then where
would we get our household servants from? This particular incident
supports the view that the selfish
attitude of the high profile people
keeps this 80 percent uneducated.
The time has come when people
do not want to tolerate any kind of
delay in terms of education. This
educational demand must be met, as
people do want to be educated. If this
demand is not fulfilled, there would
be serious problems. Firstly, we will
cease to be de facto a country of free
people. Secondly, there would be a
revolution. One needs to recall the
French Revolution and the American
Revolution. There would be a revolution in India too, if the above situation continues to persist.
Right to life & education
The Constitution guarantees right to
life. The question that gets raised in
the present scenario in the country,
given the developmental status of the
world, is what kind of life is our
right? Is it suspended animation or
total deprivation, or a life of slavery
to a small number of fortunate lot
who have been educated? Is this
going to be the definition of the right
to life? To me, this right means and
stands for the satisfaction of the basic
human needs of our citizens, which
also includes education and the right
to employment, housing, clothing,
health and social justice. One can easily see that in the hierarchy of basic
rights, education acquires the topmost priority because if one is educated - if every child is educated many of the other basic needs would
be automatically taken care of. In
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fact, history tells us the same thing.
There was a justice movement in
1917 which was against the Brahmins
in the South. In 1932 the uneducated
non-Brahmin population was overwhelming but they had less than one
percent of the civil servants seats
when compared to the educated
Brahmins. We have just replaced the
Brahmins with the educated. This situation has emerged and tends to persist due to a lack of sufficient educational opportunities for all. Today,
85-95 percent of our people are in the
same situation as the non-Brahmins
of the earlier time. Throughout history, the maximum exploitation has
been on account of lack of education.
Learning from other nations
Before deciding the minimum education that every child should have,
one must be clear as to the objectives
of this education. Firstly, such minimum education must produce
informed citizens who can claim
their rights and discharge their
responsibilities. Secondly, the minimal education should prepare one
for vocational training, professional
training, or higher education. World
experience shows that 12 years of this
kind of education, beginning at the
age of six years and going on till 18
years of age, is absolutely necessary
for the above two functions to be performed. The age of 18 is the age at
which one can drive and marry, and
an age when a person can be generally considered to be physically, intellectually and emotionally independent and matured. Therefore, one
needs to actually have a bill that
ensures that every child between the
ages of six and 18 has 12 years of
quality school education, from class
one to what one calls today as intermediate, that is, class 12.
The next question that arises is
who should impart this kind of education from class I to class XII?
Again, studies around the world
show that if we wish to maximise the
use of the gene pool of our country,
provision of education from six to 18
years of age must be the exclusive
responsibility of the State, and that
this responsibility is not to be shared.
The private sector is welcome to contribute but within an overall common school system with State as the
main player. The only system that
If school education is
not taken care of, I
predict there would be
a bloody revolution in
this country in the
next 15 years.
Therefore, if the Right
to Education Bill is
passed in its present
form, there would be
no immediate choice
but to engage in a
public interest
litigation which may
turn out to be the
most important one
ever fought in the
history of this country
65
has worked around the world is the
common school system (the neighbourhood school scheme) in which
the child is provided education free
of cost and which allows him/her to
go to the nearest school.
The French common school system, to cite an example, is at the base
of France being a developed country.
The French government schooling
system has been the source of education for virtually all the leaders of
that country.
In Britain, Sweden and the United
States, school education is virtually
The formulators of the
draft forgot that the
best educational
institutions in the
country, from school
onwards, are noncommercial
(government or trustrun) institutions. As it
is, education is
probably one of the
most profitable
businesses today with
members of Parliament
and members of state
legislatures often
having a vested
interest in it
the exclusive responsibility of the
State, and they operate under the
neighbourhood or a common school
system. It is absolutely clear from the
innumerable experiences across the
globe that quality school education
can only be provided by the government, considering that education is
not a commodity that can be sold, as
is happening in our country. It is
important that the sector which controls and regulates the entire school
system has no profit motive. It is
equally important that children of all
classes and communities study
together. That alone would inculcate
understanding, tolerance and a feel
for social justice in them. In fact,
before the late 1960s when there were
no commercial schools, everyone
66
went to a government school or a
school run by a trust. It was this government school system that produced virtually all of our great leaders in that period. Our literature of
that time, say that of Bankim
Chandra and Sarat Chandra
Chatterjee, talks about the value of
the high school education of that era.
If one had attended a high school,
had a BA, or an MA degree, one was
bound to be taken in high esteem. By
contrast, today 80 percent of our
graduates are unemployed and in
most cases a high school pass out
means virtually uneducated.
Public vs private system
In the present time, there are three
kinds of school systems in our country. There are central schools
(Kendriya Vidyalas), which are the
best one in the country. Then there
are schools run by trusts which are
not commercial and some are subsidised by the government. The third
category is that of private schools
that have taken dominance since the
1960s, meant for the middle class and
the upper class. These schools are
supposed to provide good education
but there are very few of them actually doing so. If such schools did provide quality education then why
would their students need to be sent
to private tutors? There were no such
rampant private tuitions till the 60s.
It is thus the rich and the privileged
that send their children for private
tuitions as the high fee-charging
schools where they send their children, do not provide quality education. The buildings of the private
schools are well maintained, certainly better than those of government
schools. The government schools, on
the other hand, face many lacunae in
the form of scarcity of teachers,
dilapidated or no school building,
lack of equipment, even lack of toilets (specifically for girls). In
Hyderabad where I have lived for 58
years, I was not aware that right next
to the old airport there was a slum of
90,000 people in which there were
20,000 children of the school going
age. There was just one school for 700
children from class 1 to class 10 with
two teachers and two rooms. A small
group of youth, most of them computer engineers, decided to raise
some money to build two more class-
rooms with their resources and physical labour. The situation is similar in
almost all parts of the country and
the dropouts from government
schools remain on the increasing
edge.
Looking at the consequences, we
have some three million scientists
and technologists, which is a matter
of great pride for our country. India
thus has the third largest scientific
manpower in the world. However, as
a scientist with over 60 years of professional experience, let me say that
out of these three million scientists
not even five percent of them would
come anywhere near the average lot
of any European country. That's the
standard of these scientists and technologists -- most of them are unemployable. If India had provided equal
opportunities of giving school education to every child, there would have
been no need for any reservation
based on caste and creed today.
RTE Bill prejudiced
The solution is not the RTE Bill
before us today. A lot has been said
about the bill. Firstly, it is only up to
class 8and we need a bill that makes
it compulsory for every child to
study up to class 12.
Then, the Bill is highly discriminatory as it encourages the division
between the rich and the poor. The
rich would continue to send their
children to private schools (and the
bill indirectly encourages them to do
so) while the poor will struggle with
the bad conditions in government
schools. There would thus be no
motivation to make government
schools better institutions, and the
situation would remain exactly the
same as it is today.
One needs to look at the reasons
for the failure of government schools.
As mentioned earlier, till the late
1960s the government schools were
the best in the country. The majority
studied in them. The main reason of
the collapse is because of commercialisation of education. With the
emergence of the affluent middle
class and their mindset to send their
children to private schools as they do
not want their children to mix with
the rest of society, and the bill outlining no steps to curb this practice, the
draft bill is highly prejudiced and
would further divide the society.
The fact that there are also some
government schools, apart from central schools, which are in a good
shape shows that the government
can do well if there is a will. A teacher of a government school in Kerala
took her son out from a private
school where she was paying Rs
1,500 per month as fees, and got him
admitted to her school because teaching in the private school was no
where near as good as in her school.
Coming back to the proposed
RTE Bill, the private schools are
expected to have 25 percent of their
students from the underprivileged
group. Even if they do so, there are
ways and means for discriminating
against them. Most of these schools
have sections. The schools could
have a section of these 25 percent students where the teaching will be bad
and nobody will learn. How can one
prevent de facto charging of capitation fees under many other heads in
private schools? The bill provides no
checks on them. There is no provision of providing free textbooks to
that 25 percent poor lot in private
schools.
Children above six years of age
should be admitted in a class according to their capacity and not on the
basis of age as the bill requires. There
are constant references to the neighbourhood school scheme but the bill
does not define the concept of neighbourhood. There are no rules or regulations attached to the bill.
An interesting thing that needs
attention of all is that, as of today,
parents are entitled to deduct from
their income tax statement, the
expenditure on children's education.
It is somewhere up to a lakh rupees
for two children -- an incentive for
the rich to send their children to private schools! Without this exemption, the tax collected from the parents sending their children to private
schools, could contribute substantially to the common school system.
Then there is no provision for residential government schools which
may be a necessity for some.
There are no satisfactory mechanisms for evaluation of schools in the
bill. Neither any detailed criteria is
mentioned nor lessons are learnt
from the experience of, say, AICTE
or MCI.
Sample this. Someone wants to
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set up an engineering college but
there is no building, no staff, and no
equipment. A building is rented, the
equipment is rented, and so is the
staff for Rs 30,000 a day. It is not a difficult job to get a professor on rent for
a few days! All this is arranged by
giving the contract to an event management agency. (One such agency
asked me once to suggest the name
of a professor of pharmacy for
approval of a pharmacy college by
the Pharmacy Council of India.)
When the inspection team goes away,
the equipment and the staff also vanishes. Yet high fees are charged,
mostly from ignorant people. Such
institutions produce unemployable
graduates who have paid lot of
money to get no education. The RTE
Bill indirectly encourages such a system. It favours those who commodify education. The product is of no
real consequence in the Bill. The formulators of the draft forgot that the
best educational institutions in the
country, from school onwards, are
non-commercial (government or
trust-run) institutions. As it is, education is probably one of the most profitable businesses today with members of Parliament and members of
state legislatures often having a vested interest in it.
Concluding remarks
I will close by making two or three
very quick points. One is that the
terms, knowledge economy and
knowledge society, are often not
used in the right context, as they are
not identical. We are already living in
a knowledge economy with information technology, biotechnology, etc.,
but a knowledge economy without a
knowledge society is highly exploitative as one can witness today. We are
thus living in a highly exploitative
global economy. In a knowledge society, every citizen would have a certain minimum amount of knowledge
which would need to be defined. As
it turns out, the 12 years of education
that we have been talking about can
provide that amount and kind of
knowledge. So the only way to a
knowledge society is through the
common school system where education is free and in which every child
has the opportunity of having the
same quality and quantity of education. And it is only when knowledge
economy is based on knowledge
society, the economy will be nonexploitative.
Finally, what one really needs to
do if we want to make the right to life
operational, is to de-commercialise
school education. We need to adopt
the common school system or the
neighbourhood school system. We
need 400,000 of them. The education
has to be free, totally free, with no
hidden expenses. When this happens, we will automatically get rid of
the reservations. All this can be done
if we make an allocation of six per-
cent of GDP to education. The financial calculations of this have been
worked out by many, so lack of
finance is only a lame excuse on the
part of the government.
If school education is not taken
care of, I predict there would be a
bloody revolution in this country in
the next 15 years. Therefore, if the
Right to Education Bill is passed in
its present form, there would be no
immediate choice but to engage in a
public interest litigation which may
turn out to be the most important one
ever fought in the history of this
country.
–The writer is former
Vice-President National
Knowledge Commission, Hyderabad
67
Justice AK Patnaik
Chief Justice of
Madhya Pradesh High Court
f a legislative action or an Act is
challenged before the judge, he
strikes it down, amends the
Constitution and that's all. Article 45
of the Indian Constitution Directive
Principle of State Policy (DPSP)
imposes an obligation on the State to
provide free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of 14 years, within a
period of ten years from the time of
commencement of this Constitution.
The Constitution was framed in 1950
and till today, the country has failed
I
68
Meeting
constitutional
obligations
to achieve the set target, because
of the unenforceable nature of
the Directive Principle (as under
Article 37)
The state is duty bound to provide resources to ensure imparting of
education, at all levels, including at
the elementary level. This discourse
is upheld in Article 21A of the
Fundamental Rights and reiterated
in the Unnikrishnan judgement of
1993. Article 21 guarantying right to
life and liberty is to be read in continuation with Article 45, because
education improves the level of
human well being, especially with
regard to life expectancy, infant mortality, and nutritional status of children/etc. Both articles 45 of Directive
Principles and 21 of Fundamental
rights are complementary to each
other and cannot be read or implemented in exclusion with the other.
The Right to Education Bill was
long pending since 1993 and in 2008
was introduced in the Parliament. In
some states this Bill has been passed
and Madhya Pradesh already has a
law in force. After having the constitutional commitment of providing
free and compulsory education, no
defence by the state in support of
resource crunch can be accepted. All
standards and norms unleashed in
the Act ought to be adhered to by the
state governments. The court has the
power to issue a Mandamus on
Article 21 whenever the need be.
There is confusion about the capitation fees too. Private educational
institutions can exist so as long they
follow a common norm system
aligned with the constitutional
promise. Education cannot be made
a business. Article 19 (1) (g) says that
every citizen has a right to carry on
any occupation, trade or business but
education in not a trade or business,
because the term business carries
with it the connotation of something
profit-like. The right of individuals to
establish educational institutions
cannot be accommodated within
Article 19 (1)(g). Hence, Article
19(1)(g) has a tendency to violate the
promises of Articles 45, 21A and the
Unnikrishnan judgement. By having
the best of infrastructure in unaided
schools and absence of even the basic
amenities in government aided
Madhya Pradesh
already has a state
law on education in
force. After having
the constitutional
commitment of
providing free and
compulsory education,
no defence by the state
in support of resource
crunch can be
accepted. All
standards and norms
unleashed in
the Act ought to be
adhered to by the state
governments. The
court has the power to
issue a Mandamus on
Article 21 whenever
the need be
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It is not the failure of the child
nyone who deprives a
Indian Public Schools conferchild of education must
ence. On entering the school
be taken to task. If it is the
after clearing the entrance
State that has failed, it must
exam, there was no differbe made accountable. If it is
ence between the paying stuthe parents who are faildents or those attending
ing, a writ must be issued Justice VN Sinha on the basis of reservation.
to them also. In the court Patna High Court No child received more
of law, a writ can be
than Rs 50 a week as pockissued to a private person to ensure et money, provided either by parthe rights of his own children.
ents or by the school management.
Children have the right to free
It follows that a poor quality of
and equal education and this is education leads to a scarcity of good
partly facilitated through the 25 per- teachers. The same problem is faced
cent reservation that the Right to in the law schools. In Bihar, excludEducation Bill provides to poor chil- ing Chanakya law school which has
dren in public schools. My own been brought up to the standard of
experience of this provision, in a the Bangalore law school, there is
public school in Nainital, was posi- no other law institution with good
tive. The school came under the teachers.
A
schools we can be best assured of the
growing inequalities and chasm
between the poor and elite sections
of children. Equal facilities and
opportunities have to be distributed
among all children. Though there
lays a matter of choice in the process
of school selection, yet, the state has
to equip its schools akin to the private schools to brige the rift between
the private and government school
children.
Right to quality education is
everyone's right and as such, private
schools should be welcoming all children irrespective of the social economic background they hail from.
The Supreme Court needs to effectively deal with the private and government schools divide. Education is
State responsibility and therefore,
private educational institutions are
not beyond the state jurisdiction.
Private institutions have to operate
within the states' administration and
monitoring. The Unnikrishnan
judgement also address the question
of privately management educational institutions (by providing a policy
on fee fixation in private unaided
educational institutions imparting
higher and technical education
including management education.
This policy is founded on principles
of non- commercialisation and avoidance of profit-making while simultaneously ensuring maintenance of
standards and upkeep of facilities
and assets. It calls for bringing all private unaided institutions within the
purview of the scheme- not merely
confining it to 'colleges' and involving the state governments concerned
in the process of fee determination).
A wonderful judgement by
Justice
Jeevan
Reddy
in
Unnikrishnan case clearly stated that
privatisation is an outcome of the
government's failure in providing
necessary support in the field of
higher education. Nevertheless, the
private institutions are shouldered
with the sharing of state's function
when it falls short of resources.
However, the latter should be subject
to the same constitutional legal obligation as that of the State in matters
of admissions and school education.
At last, a great judge of America,
Justice Sworne says, "after all, what is
law, an evidence act, or any other act,
which has some meaning, any act,
any law, even the constitutional law,
is the basis of logical explanation. It
is the experience gathered over years
and years that has been codified into
law." So, unless experience is counted
especially field experience is worked
out and then it finds a place in policymaking and law making, nothing
is going to work. Experiences with
the tribals, experiences of the panchayats, municipalities, municipal
schools, schools in the metros, and
all, will play a crucial role in the
drafting and enforcement of a law. ■
69
The Right to Education Bill
he Right of Children to Free
and Compulsory Education
Bill, 2008 has already been
passed in the Rajya Sabha. This is a
follow up legislation to the
Constitutional 86th Amendment Act,
2002, which provides for giving
every child the fundamental right to
education. It is the one and only or at
least the first positive right in the
Indian Constitution. Article 21A
states, "the State shall provide free
and compulsory education to all children of the age group 6-14, in such
manner that the State may by law
determine". However, the 86th
Amendment Act has not yet been
notified. This means that since 2002,
an Act has been in the Constitution
without having been notified.
Section 1(3) of the 86th CAA states
that "it shall come into force from
such date as the central government
may, by notification in the official
gazette appoint". In the report to the
Central Advisory Board of Education
(CABE) in July 2005 it was stated that
"the notification has not yet been
issued pending enactment of the consequential legislation envisaged in
the above Article 21A". It is ironical
that the framing and adoption of the
entire Constitution of India took less
than three years but it has already
taken seven years, to decide the manner in which education should be
given to children. A follow up legislation was prepared in 2003, then in
2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and then in
2008 the bill that had been drafted
in 2005 was placed before the
Rajya Sabha.
T
The Right of
Children to Free and
Compulsory Education
Bill, 2008, passed by
Rajya Sabha in July
2009, defines the right
to education as right to
free and compulsory
education for 6-14 years
age group of children.
This can be translated
into reality through
required infrastructure,
good governance,
trained teachers
and adequate
funding, writes
Professor Nalini Juneja.
She further asserts the
need for availability of
committed lawyers to
ensure justiciability of
this fundamental right
70
Genesis of right to education
Tracing the genesis of the right to
education in the Constitution of
India, in 1946 a fundamental rights
sub-committee was constituted and
this sub-committee had placed this
Article to make right of free primary
education as the duty of the State,
and till today there is no formulation
stating this right in such forceful language, "it shall be the very duty of
the State to provide within a period
of ten years, from the commencement of the Constitution, for free and
compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of
14 years". This clause was on the list
of fundamental rights for a few
months till the advisory committee
met and questioned as to whether we
can afford it. This led to the dropping
of this clause and sending it to the list
of 'non-justiciable fundamental
rights' which was later termed
the Directive Principles of the
State Policy.
In terms of the contribution of
this clause -- it set up a timeframe -no other clause has this, i.e., it set the
upper age limit at 14 years. Although
this is being rethought and it is felt
that the right should be till the age of
18 years. There was no minimum age
mentioned because it was never an
issue at that point of time. The lower
age, i.e., whether pre-primary should
be provided for was not an issue
because the emphasis was on free
and compulsory education. The age
for which education should be 'compulsory' for children was not envisaged as being below the age of six
years (this was a settled matter having been decided by the Wardha
scheme of basic education in 1937,
that 'pre- basic education' when
provided by the State, should be free
education but not compulsory
education).
In 1944, the post war development plan for education (popularly
known as the 'Sargent Plan') had proposed making education free and
compulsory by 1984 (a period of 40
years). This long period was not
acceptable and the BG Kher committee was also established to explore
ways and means for achieving the
same goal within 10 years at a lesser
cost. This aspiration of achievement
of Universal Elementrary Education
in 10 years was later reflected in the
constitutional statement.
Instead, of the lower age, at that
time, the upper age stirred the larger
discourse because the Sargent
Committee envisaged providing
education in two phases, i.e. first up
to the age of 11 and then up to the
age of 14. The aspiration of providing
education 'up to the age of 14' is also
reflected in the Constitutional statement. Later, when clause on right to
education was transferred to the list
of 'non-justiciable fundamental
rights', the phrase "it shall be the
duty of the state was changed to "the
State shall endeavour to provide".
Some of the members of the constituent assembly had warned that
the 'non-justiciable fundamental
rights' would remain as only 'pious
wishes'. Coincidentally, Justice
Jeevan Reddy had also asked and
stated in his famous judgement in
the Unnikrishnan case that, "Is it a
pious wish that after 45 years of the
framing of the Constitution that you
can use this term simply because
that you're not required to provide
and the article only asks you to
endeavour".
In those ten years in which education was to be achieved for all,
instead of the envisaged crash programme for education, there has not
been even a passing reference to education in the budget speeches of the
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finance ministers. This aspect was
ignored even by the educational system itself for neither the education
policy of 1968, nor the one in 1986
made a demand for the enforcement
of compulsory education.
By 1997, when a study was carried out, at all levels of education, a
stage had been reached that hardly
any educational administrators had
even heard about compulsory education legislation in their state. Every
person owning a vehicle knows of
the Motor Vehicle Act. Every professional knows about the act related to
his or her profession except it seems
in the sector of education. There is no
attempt to even teach it. There were
very few people who brought up discussions relating to educational law
and about the legal provisions for
education.
Drafting the bill
Professor Anil Sadgopal has critiqued this system and needs to be
supported. However, there was a
change in 1992 when India became a
signatory to the Convention of the
Rights of the Child and then in 1993,
thanks to the Supreme Court, right to
education was declared as a fundamental right. The common minimum
programme of the united front government in 1994 made a resolve to
make education a fundamental right.
It was incidentally the very first time
that any election manifesto had
included education. In 1997, after
coming to power, the united front
government set up the Saikia
Committee, which recommended the
amendment of the Constitution to
make education a fundamental right.
The
83rd
Constitution
Amendment Bill drafted in 1997
clearly stated that the private schools
should be exempted from having
anything to do with free and compulsory education. The bill was sent
back by the parliamentary standing
committee for redrafting and
removal of this clause, and for the
inclusion of a statement about the
71
sharing of the financial responsibility
for education between the Centre
and the states (In the recent 213th
report, 2009 which was presented
before Parliament, the parliamentary
standing committee has again reiterated the same). The bill was redrafted, the government also set up the
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)
through which the Centre would
spend money and run the programme for provision of elementary
education. Thereafter, the 93rd
amendment bill was presented to
Parliament and passed in 2002 as the
86th Constitution Amendment Act,
which is still awaiting notification.
The point that gets reiterated is that
since then we have been drafting further legislations, but what is being
missed in all this 'activity' is that
there is no real move to give to the
child the 'right' to education.
The current phase of legislation
which has been revived from the
CABE Committee draft in 2005, had
been sent for scrutiny to a high-level
group and thereafter, it was just
being tossed around until 2008 when
the Cabinet suddenly cleared it and
in December 2008 it was presented in
the Rajya Sabha. The parliamentary
standing committee had submitted
its report on February 18, 2009. The
Compulsory Education Bill, 2008 has
finally been passed in the Rajya
Sabha on July 20, 2009.
The bill that was originally drafted by the CABE committee in 2005
had a preamble, which is no longer
the case in the present bill. However,
what was earlier in the preamble is
now contained in the statement of
objects and reasons that has been
presented along with the introduction to the bill. The reasons being
stated for the change is on the
grounds for strengthening the social
target of democracy through the provision of equal opportunities to all. It
has mentioned high dropout rate, the
quality of education, and its belief in
the values of equality, social justice,
and democracy. It seeks broadly to
provide free and compulsory education of satisfactory inequitable quality in a formal school, which assuages
certain standards and norms as stated in the statement of objects & reasons. Compulsory education has
been defined as an obligation on the
72
government to provide and to ensure
admission,
attendance
and
completion of elementary education.
Free education in government school
means there is no liability to pay any
charges, and the duties and responsibilities have also been defined as
also this bill sets out a grievance
mechanism.
Salient features of RTE Bill
The Right to Education Bill comprises 37 clauses, 17 definitions, and as
an overall picture, it defines the
dimensions of what it means to provide for a child's right to education in
the Indian context. It means different
things to different children under
different circumstances, but within
the larger Indian context, it can be
viewed as a definitive statement, or
certainly an attempt at defining the
right to education or the rights in
education as broadly being -- right to
infrastructure and good management, transaction of curriculum, and
the right to a trained teacher. The
of Child Rights (NCPCR) is a larger
body that monitors the right to education and there is a finance sharing
arrangement also stated in the bill.
The right to education has been
restricted to the children of 6-14 age
group. It is free and compulsory
within a neighbourhood school till
the completion of elementary education and for the disabled as for the
PWD Act of 1996. There is the fundamental duty of the parents in the
86th Amendment Act to permit their
children to receive the right to education. No birth certification is to be
required, there is to be year round
admission, all the children of an age
should be sent to appropriate classes.
The private schools, Kendriya
Vidyalas and Sarvodaya Vidyalayas
will have to admit children from the
weaker sections as 25 percent children have to be admitted. This particular clause comes from the 165th
report of the Law commission. It was
the very first report that had stated
this and after that every single bill
that has been drafted by no matter
which government, has carried this
particular clause. It is also there in
the Model Master Plan of Delhi
which was drafted in 1958. Another
document from the pre-independence times of 1942 also speaks of the
duty of secular institutions such as
hospitals and schools to give 10 percent free admission to patients and to
students. Apparently this particular
clause has a long history.
Capitation fee has been categorically forbidden. There should be no
screening at the time of admission.
There is a right to ask for transfer,
which originally in the CABE bill
was written as right to transition that
makes one think this is a typographical mistake. The headmaster has
the authority to issue the transfer
certificate.
There are certain infrastructural
rights that the appropriate government has to provide for like education in the form of neighbourhood
school within three years and all the
school must obtain a certificate of
recognition. There is a case in the
Delhi high court, which is dealing
with unrecognised schools and
makes a claim that the Delhi court
has been submitted a list of unrecognised schools, which shows almost as
many if not more schools than the
recognised ones. The minimum
pupil-teacher ratio has to be maintained in each school as it is important to be maintained at the district
level so that at an average there are
enough teachers but not necessarily
within each school.
Certain minimum standards and
norms have to be provided as per a
schedule and this schedule was
pointed out as being too drastic. It is
one classroom per teacher and for
class I to V there has to be 200 working days, 800 instructional hours per
year, while for the middle level, 220
working days and teacher working
hours have to be 45 hours per week
plus preparation hours. These steps
have to be taken so as to ensure the
presence of teachers in the school.
A school management committee
has to be set up at each school level
which should have 75 percent membership of the parents of the children.
Presently, the Delhi Education Act
has a very nominal representation of
parents. There is no voice given to
the parents. However, there is certainty and hopefulness in terms of
giving them a voice as they would be
involved in making the school development plans and on the basis of
these plans grants will be determined. The schools would utilise
such plans and all recognised schools
are mandated to furnish information
to the government as may be
required from time to time. NUEPA
brings out an annual report of the
status of education and one finds
that there are difficulties in getting
the schools to filter out their informawww.combatlaw.org
tion. So such provisions needs to be
welcomed at all levels.
The transaction of education has
to be according to the national curriculum framework, which must be
developed by the central government. The evaluation procedure has
to be laid down, as it must be based
on the constitutional values and allaround development. Corporal punishment and any form of mental
harassment to any child have been
banned. There should be no board
examination until the completion of
elementary education but this does
not imply that any form of formative
evaluation of learning should be discarded. There should be a completion certificate at the stage of elementary education. And the first certificate which so far is given at the class
X level should be given at class VIII
level. In order to ensure the availability of the teachers, the Centre has to
develop standards in terms of
enforcement of guidelines like training of teachers leading to appointment of trained teachers only. Also
the salaries that are given to teachers
are to be in conformity with the
state norms.
Very hard attempts have been
made to ensure that the teachers
should not be deployed for non-educational purposes except for the cen-
sus, elections and for disasters. There
shall be no private tuitions or private
teaching activity. The various state
education acts have already banned
this. There has to be a body to monitor the right to education. The appropriate governments have to ensure
that no child from weaker sections is
discriminated against and to also
monitor the functioning of schools.
There should be steps to ensure the
admission attendance, completion of
elementary education and maintenance of records of all children up to
the age of 14. The National
Rights is to monitor and to act with
quasi-judicial powers. Rules have to
be made comprehensively by each
state with guidelines that will be
issued by the central government
and all the appropriate governments
will be making specific rules.
The structure has to be constructed in a particular manner. Another
point that needs to be mentioned is
that the whole exercise of making
education justiciable rests upon the
fact that a child must first have a
lawyer to take a case to a court. A
lawyer must be sensitive to the fact
that the child is being deprived of
education. A child who cannot afford
a teacher can hardly afford a lawyer.
The entire exercise of justiciability is
resting upon the assumption that a
lawyer would come forward to take
the case for the child's right to education. Yet there are hardly any lawyers
fighting public interest litigations for
the right to education. The absence of
a follow up of legislation is not material, as there is nothing to prevent
lawyers from taking cases to the
higher courts, which interpret the
Constitution in harmony with
Convention on the Rights of
the Child.
An important question that needs
to be raised is -- if no attempt is being
made to induce lawyers to seek and
to take cases to court to enforce the
justiciable right to education, will
this amendment of the Constitution
to make education a justiciable
fundamental right remain only a
paper exercise?
–The writer is associated
with National University of
Education Planning and
Administration (NUEPA)
73
Dr Niranjanaradhya VP
RTE Bill : A still born legislation!*
he month of December has
gained vital importance in the
history of child rights movement as it has witnessed many
important events related to rights of
children both at the national and
international levels. To name a few,
India had ratified the UN
Convention on the Rights of the
Child (UNCRC) in December 1992;
the National Commission for
Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR)
had organised its first historic national consultation in December 2008 as
part of a process for recommending
crucial policy changes to improve the
lives of children by restoring their
childhood; and the International
Human Rights and Anti-child
Trafficking days are also observed
during this month.
The significance of these historic
events has been shadowed, of late, by
the government that has introduced
the much criticised, diluted and distorted Right to Education Bill in its
new avatar, the Right of Children to
Free and Compulsory Education Bill,
2008 in Parliament through a
backdoor.
It is important to note that at the
time when the bureaucracy was
preparing the groundwork for introducing the much diluted bill in
Parliament,
the
National
Rights (NCPCR) had unanimously
passed a resolution for the abolition
of child labour and realisation of
T
74
right to education, adhering to three
non-negotiable core principles: (a)
any person below 18 years of age is a
child; (b) all forms of child labour
need to be abolished; (c) all children
who are out of school are child
labourers and all work whether hazardous or non-hazardous is detrimental to the growth of a child. The
NCPCR looks to the State to subscribe to these recommendations as
guiding principles while formulating
policies and legislations towards
abolishing child labour and realising
the right to education.
However, the biggest paradox is
that the core recommendations made
by the NCPCR, which is a national
level body having the mandate to
monitor the implementation of the
new Act if it comes through, were not
even taken note of leave alone incorporated into the text of the new education bill. Incorporation of the
NCPCR recommendations would
have altered at least certain crucial
definitions such as ‘child’, ‘working
child’, ‘child labour’, etc. However,
contrary to this, even the definitions
that were there in the February 2008
draft bill relating to ‘working child’,
‘out-of-school child’, ‘migrant family’, etc. were removed by the government in the education bill tabled in
the Rajya Sabha.
This is nothing but a heinous
crime against children. The ardent
proponents of a neo-liberal agenda
who are defending the present bill
owe an explanation to the children of
India for their treachery to join hands
with market forces to deny the fundamental right to equitable education to millions of children who have
been deprived of it for generations.
As all of us are aware, the decision of the Supreme Court in the case
of Unnikrishnan vs State of Andhra
Pradesh declared the right to education as a fundamental right of the
child up to the age of 14 years.
Furthermore, the Court had also
held clearly that the fundamental
right continues to exist even after 14
years depending upon the economic
capacity of the state. After dilly-dallying for almost 15 years, the State
has introduced a bill that totally
negates not only the spirit of the
Constitution but also the far-reaching
interpretation of the decision of the
Supreme Court that link the right to
education with the right to life as an
inseparable concept to ensure not
just right to life but right to a dignified life.1
Therefore, there is an urgent need
to place the glaring shortcomings of
the bill in the public domain to
expose the illusions created by the
ruling elite, bureaucracy and a negligible section of civil society in favour
of the bill that deprives care and education to a vast section of the child
population and legitimises the existing inequalities and disparities in the
education system to maintain the status quo.
To begin with, the title of the bill
has been changed from ‘the Right to
Education Bill’ to ‘the Right of
Children to Free and Compulsory
Education Bill’ in order to dilute the
‘rights perspective’ reflected in the
earlier title and again taking it back
to free and compulsory framework of
the truancy model. The implication
of the change is that education being
a fundamental right may not be justiciable through a court of law in
favour of the right holders – the children. Instead, the bill tabled in the
Rajya Sabha empowers the bureaucracy and other attendance officers to
blame the teachers and the parents of
the truants for noncompliance with
attendance requirements.
Secondly, the preamble of the bill
has been replaced with the statement
of objects and reasons. In any statute,
the preamble serves as an important
aid to interpret the law in order to
achieve the intended goal. The larger
implications of the removal of the
preamble are as follows:
(a) It takes away the broader
framework for interpreting the law
in line with the ethos of social justice
and equity;
(b) If not removed, the preamble
would have provided an inseparable
linkage between the dignity of an
individual and right to basic education as held by the Supreme Court in
Unnikrishnan judgement(1993);
(c) All the more, it would have
been a constant reminder for the
executive and the judiciary about
their roles and responsibilities to provide equitable quality education to
all children within the prescribed
time frame without compromising
with any factor that comes in the way
of achieving the long standing goal.
Thirdly, in any law the definitions
clause assumes a lot of significance
and provides clarity while implementing the law. It is unfortunate
that nearly 29 definitions in general
and all the crucial definitions necessary to ensure equitable quality education in particular have been omitted from the new bill tabled in the
Rajya Sabha when compared to the
earlier draft of February 2008. For
instance, definitions like an ‘age
appropriate grade’, ‘compulsory
education’, ‘equitable quality’, ‘participation in elementary education in
relation to child’, etc. are the imporwww.combatlaw.org
tant operational definitions to put the
law into practice and for necessary
interpretation whenever required. In
relation to what I have already stated
earlier, the linkage between the total
abolition of child labour and attaining a right to education has been
weakened by removing important
operational definitions such as
‘working child’, ‘out-of-school child’,
‘migrant family’, etc. This dilution
not only negates the fundamental
right of a child (up to the age of 14
years) but also defies the position of
the NCPCR in relation to abolition of
all forms of child labour in order to
realise the fundamental right to
education.
The most lamentable aspect of the
definitions clause is the removal of
the terms related to pre-school education that were meant to ensure justice to children in the age group of 06 years. With this unfortunate omission, children in this age group who
were already excluded from the
purview of the fundamental right to
education earlier are now further
removed from the ambit of this legislation as well and cannot claim their
entitlements under early childhood
care and education (ECCE).
Other important definitions
removed from the bill include ‘academic year’, ‘age appropriate grade’,
‘aided school’, ‘child in need of care
and protection’, ‘compulsory education’, ‘equitable quality in relation to
elementary education’, ‘migrant family, ‘neighbourhood school in relation
to a child’, ‘out-of-school child’, ‘participation in elementary education in
relation to a child’, ‘pre-primary section in relation to a school’, ‘preschool’, and ‘working child’.
Fourthly, as I understand, the
focus of the education bill 2008 is to
ensure equitable quality education to
all children irrespective of the agencies imparting education. This has
been more or less defeated by removing the phrase “equitable quality”
from the title of Chapter I of the bill
that deals with entitlements. It clearly indicates that the State is not willing to provide equitable quality education to all children in India as a
matter of principle and commitment
as required under the Constitution
and other international legal instruments, including the UNCRC.
Instead, the bill in its present
form confirms further that the neoliberal State is practising discrimination by legitimising two distinct and
parallel streams of child education —
an inequitable, multi-layered and
low-quality education system for
poor children, and a so-called quality
education system for the elite
through various other means. This is
nothing but an attempt at legitimisation of an inequitable, low-quality
education system through a central
legislation. This bill, if passed into
law, would no doubt violate the basic
principles
enshrined
in
the
Constitution and certain other international instruments ratified by
India. Furthermore, it would also
perpetuate the present non–egalitarian system of education by introducing a “New Sapta Varna System”2 in
the place of current “Chaturvarna
System”.
There is no definition for the term
neighbourhood in the definitions
clause. However, the term has been
used in the text of the legislation.
This creates confusion for the enforcing agency that seeks to understand
the meaning and connotation of the
term in relation to universal access.
In the context of the common school
system (CSS), it means all children of
a defined geographical area should
attend the common neighbourhood
school notified by the State irrespective of their social status, gender,
religion etc.
The time frame mentioned in the
earlier draft of the bill to mainstream
all the push-out (drop out) children
into full time school education
through an appropriate bridge
course or transition programme has
been removed. This indicates that the
fundamental rights of the children
deprived of education shall not be
restored on a priority basis within a
clear time limit. This undermines the
claim of a deprived child to basic
education before she/he attains the
prescribed age and thereby denying
the right altogether. As a result of all
this, the State can prolong the task of
mainstreaming the drop outs and
non-school going children according
to its own whims and fancies.
Another important obstacle in the
bill is the introduction of a penal
action against the head teacher for
delays in issuing transfer certificates
at the time of a transition that would
75
result in further demoralisation of
the teacher community. This exemplifies a disabling legislative process
instead of an enabling one that could
have made them work proactively to
realise the long standing goal of equitable education.
Fifthly, the most decisive factor
for realising the fundamental right to
education is to commit necessary
funds for its effective implementation. In this regard, the central government’s responsibilities are of
paramount importance. The bulk of
the funds have to come from the
Centre to realise this fundamental
right in an effective manner.
Unfortunately, the government has
completely abdicated its responsibilities towards the implementation of
the fundamental right to education.
Based on the ‘definitions’ clause
(Chapter I), it is very clear that the
onus of implementing the fundamental right has been transferred to
the states, the rural panchayats, local
bodies and the poor parents. The
central government justifies this
stance through its claim that as education is a concurrent subject since
1976, the right to education remains a
joint responsibility of the Centre and
the states. Although this is correct on
facts, the state governments are not
in a position to spend adequate
funds for this purpose. It was in the
same context that under the Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) project a reasonable amount was given to the
states to universalise quality school
education. It is evident that unless
there is substantial financial support
from the central government for this
project, the goal of providing quality
education to children in India cannot
be achieved.
Thus, it is clear that the political
economy of the right to education in
India is to protect and promote the
interests of the ruling elite, the
bureaucracy, the rich business classes
and the market-oriented upper middle class through making education a
purchasable commodity and also
renouncing and dismantling the
public education system to hinder
the growth of all other children to
perpetuate the inequalities and injustice already prevalent.
The Right to Education Bill 2008,
adhering to the truancy principle,
invoked a constitutional provision
76
under Article 51A (k) to make parents responsible for the education of
their wards. This is nothing but shifting the onus of this onerous task onto
the poor people who are already
struggling for their survival. I believe
that the government is playing a
double game in relation to its roles
and responsibilities as on the one
hand whenever there is a financial
question, the Centre speaks the language of concurrent and decentralised responsibilities and whenever there is an issue of content, curriculum, minimum standards and
processes related to education, it
seeks to exercise all possible control
on the states.
The Bill invoked a
constitutional provision under
Article 51A (k) to make
parents responsible for the
education of their wards. This
is nothing but shifting the
onus of this onerous task
onto the poor people who are
already struggling for their
survival. The government is
playing a double game in
relation to its responsibilities.
Whenever there is a financial
question, the centre speaks
the language of concurrent
and decentralised
responsibilities while on the
issue of content, curriculum,
minimum standards etc., it
seeks to exercise all possible
control on the states
The bill now passed in the Rajya
Sabha retains the provision related to
25 percent reservation in private
schools for those children coming
from weaker sections and disadvantaged groups. The cost of the education of these children is intended to
be reimbursed by the state/central
government on the basis of a “per
child” cost in the government school.
Contrary to this approach, private
institutions have a social obligation
to provide education to marginalised
children since they obtain benefits
from various facilities provided by
the State. For instance, in many cases,
these private institutions are granted
special land reserved for public welfare activities or even government
land meant for common use. Other
benefits available to them include
proper road access, cheap/free electricity and water, trained teachers,
etc. This being the state of affairs, the
State’s decision to reimburse the cost
of the education of the marginalised
children is nothing but a form of
nepotism that gradually paves the
way for further privatisation of
education.
Sixthly, all the norms and standards prescribed by the National
Council for Teacher Education
(NCTE) in the previous bill for the
appointment of teachers have been
removed. This will help the State to
continue the practice of appointing
unqualified and untrained parateachers at the cost of quality education. In addition to this, the provision
for “ensuring equitable quality education by strengthening the teacher
education process through innovative measures” has been removed
including the use of information and
communication technology (ICT) for
teacher education.
The provision pertaining to equitable facilities and learning opportunities for differently-abled children
has also been removed. The change
in the provision related to the medium of instruction (medium of education is a better term for the same) is,
in fact, an attempt on the part of the
State to protect the vested interest of
private institutions by succumbing to
their pressure and thereby negating
the universal truth that children perform better and with more creativity
if education is provided in their
respective mother tongue. This is
also a denial of the constitutional
provisions under Article 350A.
Seventhly, the title of Chapter VI
in the RTE Bill 2008 has been
changed from ‘monitoring the implementation of Act’ to ‘protection of
right of children’ with the aim of
making the NCPCR alone responsible for the implementation of right to
education. As all of us know, the
NCPCR was established under the
Commissions for Protection of Child
Rights Act 2005 to protect child
rights within the broader framework
of the UNCRC in the Indian context.
The implementation of the right to
education needs a specialised and
competent body having requisite
expertise in the area of school education. In my opinion, the NCPCR as
such is not a competent authority to
monitor the implementation of right
to education. A body with suitable
expertise in the area of school education and vested with appropriate
judicial powers applicable at the
national/state/district/taluk/panchayat level alone can ensure the fast
and effective implementation of the
fundamental right to education.
The revised bill, in its present
form, has rendered the right to education meaningless as it has not provided a justiciable right under the
law. This essential fundamental right
of the child is not justiciable as any
violation of the same needs prior
sanction or permission from the State
through an authorised mechanism in
order to be remedied. A child who is
deprived of his/her basic right to
education cannot question the State
or any other authority responsible in
a court of law. The central government has thus diluted the idea of fundamental rights that serve as the cornerstone of our democracy and
inflicted a great dishonour to basic
human rights and human dignity
enshrined in various international
and national legal instruments by
subjecting fundamental rights to
the mercy of the State and the
bureaucracy.
Finally, many crucial provisions
in the main text of the RTE Bill 2005
have, in the present draft bill, either
been dropped or shifted to the miscellaneous chapter or moved under
delegated legislation as per the governmental rule making process that
is further diluting the already diluted
bill to make the whole legislation dry
and ineffective. For instance, the
State is not even willing to place the
early childhood care and education
(ECCE) related provisions in the
schedule under the desirable list.
This shows that the State has completely abdicated its responsibilities
towards protecting and nurturing
the rights of children below six years.
The definition related to ECCE in the
definitions clause has also been
removed.
It seems from the text of the
revised bill that the State does not
consider electricity and computers as
www.combatlaw.org
essential for a school in the age of
information technology. Hence, the
clause relating to the provision of
facilities such as electricity, telephones and computers is dropped.
The true colour of the State in
relation to finding adequate
resources to ensure equitable quality
education is exposed through empty
statements made without any commitment in the last part of the bill
under the financial memorandum. It
is a universal truth that the implementation of any legislation that has
serious financial implications needs
to be planned in order to ensure adequate allocation of resources. There
are several expert committees such as
the Education Commission of 196466, the Tapas Majumdar Committee
and the CABE that have made several concrete recommendations as part
of redrafting the bill in this regard. It
is difficult to understand as to why
the government is reluctant to consider the recommendations made by
such expert committees to arrive at a
rough estimation that could have
been mentioned in the financial
memorandum as well.
To conclude, Article 13 of the
Constitution
establishes
the
paramount nature of the fundamental rights guaranteed to all citizens.
The first clause under Article 13
relates to the laws already existing
and in force and declares that such
pre-Constitution laws are void to the
extent to which they are inconsistent
with the fundamental rights. The second
clause
relates
to
post–Constitution laws and prohibits
the State from making any law that
either takes away totally or abrogates
in part, any fundamental right guaranteed as per the Constitution.3
Besides the Unnikrishnan judgement, various provisions in the
Constitution including Articles 14,
15(3), 21, 21A, 23, 24, 39(e) and (f), 41,
and 46 constitute the spirit of the
right to education. Above all, the
preamble to the Constitution constitutes the spirit and backbone to the
ideals of social justice and equality as
an integral part of the charter.
However, the Right to Education Bill,
2008 passed in the Rajya Sabha takes
away these fundamental principles
and values that constitute the vision
of the right to education according to
the letter and spirit of the
Constitution and so negates the fundamental right to education and dignified life.
Therefore, it is evident from the
above analysis that the bill passed in
the Rajya Sabha is unconstitutional
and inconsistent with the fundamental right to dignified life. It also
breachs various other provisions of
the Constitution and international
covenants and conventions ratified
by India from time to time including
the UNCRC. The bill, in its present
form, is not going to give anything
substantial to the children of India.
Therefore, it needs to be rejected in
order to protect the best interests of
our children.
–The writer is fellow, Centre for
Child and the Law, National Law
School of India University,
Nagarbhavi, Bangalore
Footnotes
* A critique of ‘The Right of Children to
Free and Compulsory Education Bill, 2008
introduced in the Rajya Sabha on 15th
December 2008.
1. Unnikrishnan vs State of Andhra Pradesh,
(1993) 1 SCC 645. The Supreme Court drew
a link between basic education and the fundamental right to life. It held that the right to
life is inseparable from the right to basic
education, and the latter flows from the former.
2. “Sapta Varna System of Education” means
the system of education according to the
social and economic status of the stratified
Indian masses on the lines of the following –
International General Certificate of
Secondary Education (IGCSE) for the children coming from elite classes, Indian
Council for Secondary Education (ICSE) for
the children coming from the rich classes,
Central Board of Secondary Education
(CBSE) for the children coming from the
upper middle class and bureaucracy, State
recognised private English medium schools
for the children coming from the middle
classes, State run and State aided institutions
for the children coming from the lower middle class/poor masses, institutions run by the
local self governments for the poorest of the
poor especially in urban slums and the
Education Guarantee Scheme of the Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan for the children coming
from the marginalised and pauperised class.
3. See Article 13, Constitution of India. See
also Notes on Article 13 in P.M. Bakshi, The
Constitution of India, Universal Publishing,
New Delhi, p. 13.
77
Reinforcing
colonial legacy
Common School System
(CSS) has been one of
the oldest policy
suggestions but the most
neglected one. Over the
years, publicly funded
elite schools and
privately owned
charging teaching shops
were recklessly
encouraged, linking the
quality of education to
the fee paid. The net
result has been the
emergence of a small
section of upper caste,
upper class, English
speaking, public school
educated students. This
has put an obstacle to
CSS, historically proven
to be the most
successful means of
universalising education.
Ms Madhu Prasad argues
that the Right to
Education Bill fails to
check these inequalities
and discriminatory
streams, trapped in a
time warp, inherently
tilting the whole system
in favour of the
privileged
78
ur education system, or
rather what still remains of it
as a system, is today nothing
but a decrepit amalgam of dysfunctional 'sarkari' schools, of proliferating private 'teaching shops', and a
plethora of 'alternate' education centres and non-formal schemes on the
one hand, and on the other a set of
elite institutions, both publicly-funded (Kendriya and Navodaya
Vidyalayas, Sainik schools, etc.,) and
privately-owned, the so-called 'public schools'. The divide is very clear,
the poor and the marginalised, child
labourers, minorities, and children
from the scheduled castes and tribes,
if they are fortunate enough to even
set foot in a classroom, are found in
government schools which lack both
trained and committed teachers and
even the most basic infrastructure.
The privileged elite, wealthy, politically prevailing and socially empowered send their wards to the 'good'
schools. It is within a social reality
marked by stark injustices of this
kind that the Right to Education
(RTE) Bill, 2008 has been introduced
in Parliament. The Bill itself is almost
fifty years overdue, for Article 45 of
Constitution had required the State
to ensure that all children up to 14
years of age were provided with free
and compulsory education by 1960.
O
Revisiting history
Half a century has brought about
radical changes in context, in public
perception and in the people's experience. Aspirations and expectations
have altered accordingly. So I feel it is
necessary to revisit the historical circumstances in which the demand for
universalising education was articulated and, in the process, examine
some of the conceptual issues relating to education, to the goal of universalising school education, and
perhaps find answers to the question
of why we have failed so completely
to provide equality of opportunity
and access to education of comparable quality for all the children
in India.
The demand for the right to education was firmly grounded in the
freedom movement. The struggle for
independence was a struggle for the
creation of a modern nation in which
the recognition of the democratic
rights of all individuals, irrespective
of the section of society to which they
belonged, was fundamental. As a
result, during the process of the
national movement, we saw that the
fight for a range of democratic rights
acquired a new sort of momentum
and articulation. Dalit rights,
women's rights, peasant rights, tribal
rights, the demand for an end to
regional, linguistic and religious discrimination, all received an impetus
as the people of India struggled for
independence from colonial rule.
The significance of the demand
for the right to education can only be
fully comprehended within this context. The earliest demand for universalising four years of primary education was made in 1881 by Dadabhai
Naoroji and placed before the
Education Commission (also known
as the Hunter Commission). Naoroji
had meticulously and persuasively
argued that poverty in India was the
creation of British rule and the
demand that the people should be literate was occasioned by his concern
that their poverty should be substantially alleviated. In 1910, Gokhale
moved a resolution reiterating
Naoroji's demand in the central legislative assembly and followed it up
with a bill in 1912. The Nagpur
Congress (1920) took a qualitative
leap forward when it advocated that
children should be withdrawn from
existing colonial schools and called
for the setting up of nationalist
schools and colleges. The idea that a
system of quality education providing equality of opportunity and
propagating values of patriotism
rather than encouraging empire worship emerged as an integral part of
nationalist thought. The opposition
to the colonial education system
because of its inherently elitist character culminated in the Wardha
Conference (1937), the deliberations
of which were advanced in the Zakir
Husain Committee's Report on "Nai
Talim". This recommended that free
and compulsory education in the
mother tongue be provided nationwide to all children for a minimum of
eight years, i.e. up to 14 years of age.
I find it interesting and significant
that this whole period of becoming
aware of and struggling for democratic rights lead to the passing of the
resolution to build a national system
of education on a wholly new foundation at the Haripura Congress in
1938. The 1944 report of the central
advisory board of education (also
referred to as the Sargent
Committee) stated that encouraging
students in discharging "their duties
as citizens" was a necessary goal for a
national system of education.
Further, it was recognised that for
such a system, it was "impossible to
justify providing facilities for some
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of the nation's children and not for
others". Both recommendations represented fundamental reversals of
the premises of colonial policy.
I know that many of us look at the
'new foundation' established after
1947 as being a colonial structure
which the British had imposed on
India for over a hundred years and
which we adopted wholesale as
being our own. An exclusionary system of education dominated India
for thousands of years. Within the
rigid inequalities imposed by the
caste system, education was restricted entirely to Brahmins and some
sections of other higher castes. So the
idea of building a national system of
education on a new foundation,
indeed, the very idea of a national
system itself, was democratically of
great significance. This is why the
Right to Education Bill (RTE) Bill,
2008 is such a disappointment, for it
deprives us even of the conception of
a national system. There is no vision
underlying this bill. Several parallel
streams, working multi-track to provide educational opportunities to the
privileged and deny such opportunities to the deprived masses, would be
institutionalised by the bill in its present form. This bill would actually do
great harm. It's not a question of "let's
take what we are getting now" and
then remove the anomalies. The conception of the present bill is flawed.
Of course, this flawed conception
which is so distant from the constitutional ideal arising out of the freedom struggle, is itself related to the
failure, post-independence, to implement fundamentally egalitarian economic, political and social reforms,
for these always have a deep impact
on the education system.
The other conclusion that
requires to be drawn is that a great
value must be placed on the democratic character of the freedom struggle, on the kind of leadership that it
threw up, and the active participation of the people in that struggle.
There are many reasons for valuing
democracy, but perhaps the most
important one is that in 1947, one
part of undivided India, which was
to become Pakistan, chose a different
path. India chose to adopt a republican constitution in which the equal
rights of all individuals are
enshrined at the core. This was the
people's mandate and it is within this
people's mandate that the full import
of the right to education and the conception of a renewal of national life
can be comprehended. But we do
need to reflect on the fact that a part
79
of the united sub-continent rejected
republicanism and therefore we
must recognise that the actual
choices which are made have a decisive value.
The historical fact of the choice
means, firstly, that the choice itself
cannot be taken for granted and has
to be continuously strengthened, and
secondly, that a choice once made
can still be undone at any time.
Academicians and political or social
activists often speak about the possibility of a revolution if the RTE Bill is
not framed and passed in a form that
answers to the needs and aspirations
of the people. Indeed, an RTE Bill
that fails to protect the democratic
rights of India's children would certainly weaken constitutional republicanism and be a step in the wrong
direction. However, the socio-political consciousness of sections of the
political leadership and of society at
large has moved far from what it was
even in the decades after the country
gained independence. There is a far
graver threat before us now, and it is
not revolution. India has seen the rise
and spread of profoundly anti-democratic organisations and vigilant
groups in the past two decades,
which deny democratic rights to
those who oppose them and hence
shrink the democratic space within
which choices can be made.
Post-independence reforms
In the early post-independence period of planning and policy-making,
the statement made to the central
advisory board of education in 1964
by M C Chagla, then education minister, was like a beacon. Four years
after the constitutional deadline for
universalising education for children
up to 14 years of age had been
crossed, Chagla's words appeared as
a warning that the failure to meet the
aspirations of the people went
against the constitutional directive:
"Our Constitution's fathers did not
intend when they enacted Article 45
that we just set up hovels, put students there, give them untrained
teachers, no playground and say we
have complied with Article 45 and
primary education is expanding. The
compliance intended by our constitutional fathers was a substantial compliance, they meant that right to education should be given to our chil80
dren." There was a direct link here
between democracy and the right to
education, a link which was very
clear to the minister at the time. Now,
unfortunately, we have got used to
ministers who, apart from promises
made during the elections, place
before us only the so-called 'pragmatics' of public policy. Hence, RTE
and other rights to employment, to
shelter, to food security and health
etc., are always presented as a drain
on the country's resources and whatever little is done in this regard is
viewed as governmental or administrative 'favours', or even worse, as
'dole-outs' for which the people must
be grateful to political parties and
leaders. What is even more regrettable is that the people in general,
and the decision-making elite in particular, have become passive takers.
The importance of a movement for
realising the goal of universalising
education is patronisingly viewed as
the 'bee-in-the-bonnet' of some
intransigent 'activists'.
Going back, the goal before the
Education Commission, also referred
to as the Kothari Commission (196466), was the setting up of a national
system of publicly funded compulsory and free education. Hence, it was
to be the responsibility of the State,
and be organised primarily through
government, local body and government-aided schools of comparable
quality. Recognising the presence of
what was, at that time, a small stream
of private 'public schools' as they are
referred to in India, the Commission
did not see them as the future of the
national system of education,
although it was ready to grant that a
section of these elite schools may
even be called 'good'. The Kothari
Commission identified common
neighbourhood schools, with a
socially, culturally and economically
diverse student composition, as
being both the form and the best
instruments for universalising elementary and secondary education.
The common neighbourhood school
was not an idea that the Kothari
Commission happened to chance
upon and include in its monumental
report. The recommendation was
based on the experience of other
countries which had successfully
universalised education -- countries
with political, economic and social
structures as diverse as those in
China, the erstwhile Soviet Union,
Japan, the United States of America,
France, Cuba, etc.
So the questions before us now is
why did the policies and practices of
successive Indian governments
moved further and further away
from this idea when the very first
education commission had actually
recommended this solution? What
forces were at play? What were the
factors that were involved in bringing about this subversion? For even
60 years after independence and
almost 50 years after the failure to
meet our constitutional obligation to
the children of this country, the
Preamble to the RTE Draft Bill (2008)
admitted that despite Article 45 of
Constitution, out-of-school children
no difficulty in learning an adequate
level of English. Today, students have
no language. They are simply inarticulate and they are sitting in undergraduate and postgraduate classes
unable to comprehend or adequately
express themselves. They are completely dependent on rote learning.
The marks and not what one has
learned, is what matters. This problem affects even children from nonEnglish speaking families in the socalled 'good' schools.
from disadvantaged groups and
those engaged in labour, and children who receive the poorest quality
education constitute the huge majority in the relevant age group. It is
obvious then that the retreat from the
concept of the common neighbourhood school was not the result of
having found some other more effective means of reaching the desired
goal of providing education of comparable quality to all children.
Executing national schemes
It's really a problem of implementation and since the government is now
collecting an education cess from taxpayers to augment the funds available for the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan
(SSA), we can expect that there will
be real improvement and proper
monitoring of the execution of a variety of educational schemes being
taken up with. However, recently
there was an analysis (The Hindu,
February 20, 2009), which was based
on the report of the PROBE committee that revisited after a few years villages that they had covered earlier in
the educationally backward states of
Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan
and UP, to evaluate the impact of the
new schemes. The findings were
revealing. Despite salutary increases
in inputs, resulting in much higher
levels of enrolment, "the quality of
education remains abysmally low for
the vast majority of Indian children".
The analysis shows that the resort to
"short cut, ad hoc methods", like
employing contract para-teachers
who are underpaid and untrained,
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has not been successful in addressing
the issues. Encouraging private
schools, another provisional solution
to cope with the failure of the state to
meet its constitutional responsibility,
had not helped either.
New norm of education
In fact, it needs to be pointed out that
this dependence on private schools
has created a new 'norm' of education - that the quality of education
must be linked to the fee that is paid.
If you pay less, you get less. This is a
norm, which despite its pedagogical
irrationality, has come into education
and found acceptance. The justifying
of demands being made for exorbitant fees in institutes that offer students five-star facilities is part and
parcel of this mindset. We have
accepted a new 'market model' for
education. But the corollary of this
for the poor and disadvantaged is
devastating. The mushrooming
growth of fee-charging 'teaching
shops' is a scandal, although it is
often held up as evidence that even
the poor prefer private schools to
government ones. The truth is that
they are able to attract poor students
and those from lower middle class
families only by the lure of teaching
them in English medium, the hallmark of an elite education which
holds out the promise of economic
and social advance. Earlier, students
who did not come from elite schools
or backgrounds would be fluent in
Hindi or Urdu or Hindustani. Not
only did they comprehend and participate in class discussions, they had
Structural and
social impediments
The other way of looking at the present situation is to see how policy has
failed to tackle the structural impediments to universalising quality elementary education. To illustrate this
point, I would like to refer to the
paper on regional imbalances and
social inequalities in literacy and elementary education in India by
Professor
Govinda
(National
Seminar, NUEPA, December 26-28,
2006) which points to the persisting
nature of regional imbalances and
social inequalities. When the
Planning Commission was preparing
the documents of the Sixth five year
Plan in 1978 they had identified
Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya
Pradesh, Rajasthan, UP and West
Bengal as being among the most educationally backward states. These
same states, with UP and Bihar dominantly so, were on most indicators
found to be under-achievers even
after five more plans had been implemented. Seventy percent of all outof-school children and 76 percent
Scheduled Caste out-of-school students of the relevant age group were
concentrated in UP, Bihar, Madhya
Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, and West
Bengal. Along with Gujarat and
Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and
Rajasthan account for 68 percent of
the Scheduled Tribe out-of-school
students. Predictably, this group of
educationally backward states also
comprises the six poorest states. The
study concludes that the link
between deprivation and lack of
opportunity has strengthened over
the years because "ad hoc measures
cannot drive long term progress".
It is obvious from both the
account of the activists and the
academia that merely increasing
81
inputs mechanically or creating
'abhiyans' is not going to help. What
we need is that the state be prepared
to play a dominant role through
innovative policies and financial support in reforming the structure and
content of the entire education system to facilitate achievement and
progress for those who are
marginalised. Unfortunately, state
policy has moved further and further
away from this responsibility since
the time that the National Policy of
Education 1986, and its companion
Programme of Action were framed.
Approved and then revised in 1992
by Parliament, a year after the neoliberal economic reforms were put
into effect, this document made two
crucial breaks with earlier education
policy. Despite the failure to implement it, policy statements had continued to support the common
school system. The 1986 document
proposed a large non-formal education (NFE) sector which was to be
treated as 'equivalent to schooling'
for those children who could not be
expected to attend a full day at
school. Children living in habitations
with no schooling facilities, poor
children who had to work including
boys and girls with household
Merely increasing
inputs mechanically or
creating 'abhiyans' is
not going to help. What
we need is that the
State be prepared to
play a dominant role
through innovative
policies and financial
support in reforming
the structure and
content of the entire
education system to
facilitate achievement
and progress for those
who are marginalised
responsibilities,
children
from
marginalised groups, constituting
over 80 percent of children of the relevant age group, were excluded from
the range of the formal education
system. This decision, influenced by
the World Bank's prescriptions and
pressures for developing nations,
declared that providing education of
comparable quality for all Indian
children was no longer a priority for
state policy. Financial constraints
were offered as justification for what
was clearly an unjust 'solution' to the
abject failure of the state to implement a pedagogically sound and
socially inclusive education policy.
Indeed, from this time onwards,
whenever money was made available, and it was usually sourced from
foreign agencies, a series of
'schemes', and 'missions' were substituted for the task of establishing a
national system of formal education.
Each of these carried the negative
features of policies that justified setting lower goals at lesser cost for the
education of the masses. The deep
crisis in which we find the system
today can therefore be seen as the
outcome of changed and inegalitarian policy decisions.
I think that caste identity and
prejudice constitute the biggest
obstacles to universalising education
through a formal system of quality
learning. It was this that ensured that
no serious attempt to implement the
common school system was ever
really made and that the concept was
allowed to die a natural death in policy statements. Secondly, and this is
Strengthen primary education first
ad but true, too much emphasis is
placed on scoring high in exams
and doing BAs, MAs and MBAs.
Getting the degrees is the priority
and not education. We tend to identify an individual as an MA or a BA,
but we never think that our purpose
is to educate atleast up to class X or
XII. We do not value elementary and
secondary education as much as we
ought to. Education should not be
about results but about producing
educated people who can write,
who can read and who can understand. That is why education should
be free up to class X or XII.
Emphasis is placed on third level
education to the detriment of elementary and secondary education.
The majority of India's population
does not reach third level education
and yet it is a policy to go to all
talukas and open colleges without
ever thinking about basic education.
S
82
Justice Satish K. Agnihotri
Chhattisgarh High Court
The problem lies in the standard of
education, majority of children are
receiving. Para-teachers are rampant
as are gurujis and shikshakarmis.
These gurujis and contract teachers
have neither talent nor tenure, they
can be terminated any time and the
method of their appointment is by
political machinery. There is no
quality, no merit and no qualification. In addition, a teacher is often
appointed to serve in two schools
simultaneously, sometimes up to 50
or 100 km apart. Children are missing out on the opportunity for
receiving quality education. A sincere thought has to be given to the
education system we have and how
it can be strengthened.
The holistic approach is often
discussed as the best option but
what exactly is the approach? It cannot be a concentration on high
achievements, or on entering colleges. It needs to be more than rotting papers, some notebooks and
books. Experts need to think about
how to strengthen our education
system. Education is not just being a
college graduate. Why should one
not be educated to the limit of class
XII? Why should pressure be on
every individual to go for higher
education? If they have capability
and the interest, let them go. If they
do not, they should be encouraged
into employment.
certainly a related idea, is the elitist
conception of what constitutes 'quality' and 'merit'. The concept of 'good'
education is based on the prejudice
which lies entrenched in the concepts
of quality and merit. This explains
why such concepts are so easily promoted by those who oppose any
form of affirmative action in education. The claim, for example, that
reservation constitutes a form of discrimination against the 'deserving'
lot, is born of this training in prejudice. If one recalls the agitation that
took place about two years ago by
students of the All India Institute of
Medical Sciences, enjoying perhaps
one of the most privileged forms of
reservation at taxpayers' expense,
one would remember that they vented their anger against reservation for
schedule caste and schedule tribe
students by sweeping the streets in
protest. This display of a most
obnoxious form of caste antagonism
went largely unnoticed. But the problem goes beyond this, after all these
young people, and those who failed
to be outraged by their mode of
protest, are themselves victims of a
deep-rooted caste consciousness.
There is reluctance, if not direct
refusal, to question how various
forms of social privilege influence
knowledge patterns and mould educational institutions. Hence, the
entrenched preference in India, for
example, is for the upper-caste,
English-speaking, public school educated, economically well-endowed
students who have the capacity and
conditions to permit a single-minded
focus on achieving higher grades
through expensive and time-consuming coaching classes. These are
the students that we identify as meritorious, these are the students that
are sought out by the selection procedures of the educational institutions
that we find meritorious, and this is
the notion of merit with which we
deny any value to the varied
experiences and knowledge of the
rest of our people. They are excluded
with one stroke of the pen from being
considered even as potential
contributors to the national pool of
knowledge.
Conclusion
Education policy has to be pulled out
of this stranglehold of entrenched
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privilege. The door to this was legally pushed open by the 1993
Unnikrishnan Judgement of the
Supreme Court. It interpreted Article
45 of the Directive Principles in conjunction with Article 21, stating that
the right to life and liberty were
deprived of meaning if free and compulsory elementary education could
not be provided to all children.
Economic and financial constraints
of the state did not constitute
grounds for the failure to ensure free
and compulsory elementary education. The judgement acknowledged
the RTE as a fundamental right of all
children. The RTE Bill 2008, delayed
by reluctant governments for over a
decade and still not passed by
Parliament, was a necessary consequence of the path-breaking judgement. However, the bill, claiming to
correct the policy waywardness seen
since 1986, cannot lift the education
system out of the confines of
entrenched privilege. The RTE Bill
2008 accepts and provides discriminatory streams for the privileged and
the marginalised. If implemented,
the structure it proposes would continue to reproduce existing inequalities throughout the education system. It would certainly not bring to
an end the discriminatory practices
which the constitutional right to education of comparable quality for all
children was intended to achieve by
transforming the education system
and rebuilding it on a "wholly new
foundation".
The only way to achieve this goal
is to recognise the possibilities that
are opened up by acknowledging
heterogeneity, and not an elite homogeneity, as the real challenge of quality education. Homogenising students and curricula in the classroom
is a recipe for 'manufacturing' a
product, not for 'educating' an individual. The richness and complexity
of social diversity must enter the
classroom through the composition
of its students and teachers, and the
knowledge skills and life experiences
that they bring with them.
The common school system,
therefore, has not only proven historically to be the most successful
means of universalising education, it
is also in keeping with the most progressive contemporary trends in
pedagogical theory. It recognises the
inherent dignity and worth of all
children, and takes up the challenge
of providing an environment and
curriculum that allows every child
equal opportunity to develop to the
fullest extent by benefiting from
sharing and learning across a wide
range of diversities and abilities.
Learning takes place everywhere in
society, and a formal system of education is a significant contributor
only to the extent that it is able to
respond to these processes critically
and creatively.
–The writer is Reader,
Department of Philosophy, Zakir
Husain College, University of Delhi
83
available forms of secondary and
higher education. Educational rights
constitute freedom from discrimination in all areas at various levels,
improvement in access to the continuing education and the vocational
training, information about the
health nutrition, and reproduction
and family planning.
Justice Jayant Patel
Gujarat High Court
ducation has a very major
impact on lives of all individuals. The Rig Veda also reiterates
the emancipatory aspect of education, as is a reflection of the cosmic
power highlighting that all good
thoughts come from everywhere and
prevail in the universe, to enlighten
all lives. No human mind would be
enlightened unless it is charged with
knowledge. In this manner the right
E
Education as a
fundamental right
The right to education is intricately
linked to other fundamental rights.
Rights are universal, indivisible,
interconnected, and independent as
they include other human rights
available to all people. The emphasis
should be on the human rights,
which should involve the right to
education in its ambit as an essential
purpose. However, there has been a
failure in substantiating this right as
it has been reduced to being an
amendment in the Constitution and
RTE: ineffective enforcement
to education is interwoven with the
humanity on the earth.
As per the Universal Declaration
by the United Nations, Article 26,
"Everyone has a right to education,
education should be free, at least in
the elementary and fundamental
stages. Elementary education shall
be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and the higher education shall be made equally accessible to all on the basis of merit."
The right to education does not
limit itself to the primary or the first
stage of the basic education or
amongst the children of a particular
age. It is not an end in itself but
instead it is an important means that
leads to certain kind of involvement
with the quality of life. Education is
the key to the economic development
and access to human rights. It provides a means, which brings a larger
awareness amongst people about
their rights and their responsibilities
for achieving the goal of equality
which entitles every individual to
free and compulsory elementary
education. It also entails to rightly
84
The supreme court of
the United States in the
case of Brown vs Board of
Education, said that there
cannot be two systems of
education -- one for the
blacks and the other for
the whites. The state had
declared in the year 2002
that there cannot
be two education systems,
one for those who can
afford to send their
children to good school
and another for those poor
people who send their
children to under
performing school
has not been enforced effectively.
Therefore all the Indian courts are
required to incorporate this right to
education under Article 21, as it has
already been done in the apex court.
The Union Of Charter in the Human
Rights in 1981, Article 25 says, "The
state parties of the present charter
shall have the duty to promote and
ensure through teaching, education
and publication of receipts the rights
and freedoms contained in the present charter and to see that it is freedom and the right as well as the corresponding obligation, and the
duties are understood".
A global emphasis
The importance of the right to education has been emphasised throughout the world and the role of the
Indian courts and most particularly
the Supreme Court on the issue is
well known. The Council of Europe
consisting of 45 European countries
and India, in 1981, had declared that
the committee of the Council decided
to come to certain awareness of the
requirement of human rights and
ensuring the responsibilities in a
democratic society. The aim was also
to encourage creation of schools from
primary level upwards to a larger climate in achieving a respective understanding of the qualities and the cultures of others.
Dont make it business
t is said that the life of law
was in the division bench, I
is not logic, but experience.
referred the matter to a larger
With this in mind, I would
bench. I persuaded the chief
like to share my experiences
justice to constitute a full
that have shaped my opinbench with me and decided
ions on education. I attended
that the ratio of 1:40 should
both government school Justice PK Misra apply to each class and
and government college.
Madras High Court not to each school. The
At that time, the attitude
state government immediof teachers was that they were ately filed an appeal because of the
always there to help the students; financial implication of such a deciVidyadaan was the norm. If any stu- sion. This matter is now pending
dent required help the teacher elsewhere.
would willingly give him so and
In all the government schools in
encouragement, even beyond school Tamil Nadu, the medium of instruchours if needs be. By the time my tion is Tamil and this same rule
son reached college I discovered that applies in the aided schools also. If it
the attitude of teachers was starkly is a minority school then the medidifferent. Extra coaching for a fee um of instruction can be Malayalam
was the trend. Whereas earlier teach- or Telegu etc. Now there is a plethoers and lecturers felt it was their ra of questions arising out of these
duty and privilege to advise stu- two sections of schooling --Who all
dents for free, now teachers are only go to the government or aided
happy to give this extra teaching for schools? Where do the children of
a consideration. This proliferation of the ministers go? Or for that matter
private tuition for a fee is representa- where do the children of the high
tive not only of the changing atti- court judges and the IAS officers go?
tudes towards education of our ped- In what language do such children
agogues but also of the falling stan- study? They study in the English
dard of education in our schools. medium. Those who cannot afford to
There should not be a need for extra go to elite schools are compelled to
private tuition outside of schools study in aided schools and governhours. Education can now be consid- ment schools. We advise one thing
ered to be a business and the crux of from our pedestal but we follow
the problem lies in the changing atti- another. We are sending our children
tudes of teachers and the education to good schools and to others, we are
process.
saying that these govt schools are
I have seen that government available. We need to question our
schools can still be good schools. actions. If somebody in your family
Given the choice, where would the falls ill, where are you going to go?
majority of people send their chil- To the government primary hospital
dren to study? Those who can afford because it is around the corner or to
to would willingly send their chil- a five star super specialty hospital?
dren to the best institutions.
The attitude is that government hosIn my capacity as the judge of the pitals have less proficient doctors
Madras High Court, I tried to and other medical staff, lacking in
improve the conditions of govern- hygiene and are meant for the lowerment-aided schools. The standard in middle classes.
these schools was a teacher-student
There is a Chinese proverb, "If
ratio of 1:40. This ratio was regard- you are thinking of the next year
less to the number of classes. Many then grow paddy, if you are thinking
of these schools teach between 90- of twenty years ahead, you plant a
100 students across five classes, usu- tree, but if you are thinking one hunally from Class I to Class V, with just dred years ahead, improve your
two teachers. How can we expect the education." We must improve educaquality of such schools to be of a tion to even out disparities and to
higher standard when two teachers improve the standards in this countake five classes each day? When I try for the future.
I
The organisers of the American
States in the protocol of San Salvador
in the year 1999 focused on the State's
role in provisioning of education as
State's obligation to promote education in social, economic, and cultural
human rights, including the right to
education. It was demonstrated that
the State might fulfill this obligation
through enacting legislation and
enforcement of the matters of the
protection from discrimination of all
sorts. The World Conference on the
Right to and Right in Education in
November 2004, in the Netherlands,
came up with the Declaration of
Amsterdam which expressed the
determination towards continuation
of promotion of educational rights,
'The Right to and the Right in
Education', by networking and professional interaction along with the
intellectual gathering, research, studies and advocacy. In this declaration,
there was a resolution to cooperate
with the international committee,
super-national and regional organisations, states and the governments
with all other public authorities to
play a more prominent role in supporting the education system and
should be responsive to the challenges of the political, economical or
cultural diversities. The same declaration also suggested that the professional associations dealing with the
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85
law and policies pertaining to education are important in terms of promotion of the right to education. Also
encouragement should be given to
the creation of similar professional
bodies in other regions and different
countries for the research, studies
and reflections related to the right
to education and the right in
education.
The supreme court of the United
States, in its well known decision in
the case of Brown vs Board of
Education, said that there cannot be
two systems of education -- one for
the blacks and the other for the
whites. As the state had declared in
the year 2002 that there cannot be
Policy framing on
education botched
Prof Prayag Raj Mehta
o begin with, it is the policy
framing of education that is
faulty. This problem is not only confined to the education sector but is
evident in policies on health, food,
poverty and all aspects of life. In
India, every sphere of policy making is faulty and contrary to the
promises that the government
makes to its denizens from time to
time. Before the Right to Education
Bill is passed, a view of the Bill
should be taken according to the
constitutional provisions. But even
before that, it is necessary to first
understand the policy since the bill
is not just a legal matter but much
beyond that.
T
86
two education systems, one for those
who can afford to send their children
to good school and another for those
poor people who send their children
to under performing school. The
court had also recognised that in
access to the quality education, the
constitution should make provision
that no child should be left behind.
The supreme court of Canada, in its
unanimous judgement talked short
of striking down the provincial legislation that restricts access to the
English schools, but laid down a new
legal criterion that makes it easier for
the migrants and the natives to gain
an access to the English school. The
court also ruled that the linguistic
minority too has the constitutional
right to education not only in a
minority language only, but could
also have the education in national
language, which at the prevalent
time was English. The right to education can be made meaningful if it is
made available.
Broad facets of reform
1. Availability meaning the education is provided in a free manner. The
government funds and presence of
the adequate infrastructure with
the availability of the trained teachers in supporting the educational
deliveries.
2. Accessibility, which means that
the system is non-discriminatory,
accessible to all, and positive steps
are being undertaken to include the
most, marginalised.
3. Acceptability means that the
contents of education are relevant,
non-discriminatory and culturally
appropriate.
4. Adaptability meaning the education should evolve with the changing
needs of the society and that it can
adapt locally to ensure the specific
context.
There is a larger need to build a
bridge between the primary education and the higher education. If various schools provide education at
both levels, then there would be no
problem in enforcing right to education. Taking the case where education at the primary level is available
in a particular school and for higher
education the student is required to
join another school, there would be
problems. It is expected of the state
to lay down the uniform and standard criteria in the process of attainment of the purpose of universal
education.
There can be a system of quota
provided for a particular level of
school education and the golden
principle would prevail that of merit
for maintaining the standard of education. But in a country like India, the
number of schools available is much
lesser in comparison to the number
of students. Consequently, it results
into the privatisation of education
but also after getting admission in a
particular school at a particular level,
the possibilities may arise for
prosecuting the education at the
higher education level. Therefore,
it is required for the State to lay
down the proper norms and
the criteria to make a larger link
between the school education and
the higher education as it would
make the citizen of the country
enjoy the right to education in a
better way. ■
Let private actors also play a role
hough primary education can be
obtained in a village, everyone
had to go to outside places for higher
education. Conversely, today there
are large networks of educational
institutions in both the private and
the government sectors and few students in Kerala have to walk more
than a kilometre to school or even to
college. There has been a tremendous
rise in educational institutions in the
coastal state, with 10-15 colleges and
nearly 100 engineering colleges, as
compared to only 7 to 8 in the past.
Kerala education system is probably the highest in all of India state
wise. However, many highly educated Keralites are now leaving the state
after achieving top quality education.
For example, of the two million
Indians said to be working in the
Middle East, one million are from
Kerala, majority of them being technicians.
The government schools in this
south Indian coastal state are excellent and at par with the private sector. In fact, the education system in
Kerala is so highly regarded that
many schools in neighbouring states
T
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Justice C. N. Ramachandran Nair
Kerala High Court
such as Tamil Nadu and Karnataka
are founded by educational institutions of Kerala. As a result, Kerala
has a large number of educated
Indians and the contributions of
these people have transformed the
state into a growing economy. There
are now more wealthy Keralites than
statistics show, a fact that can be supported by the exceptional amount of
population who can afford to send
their children to schools with class I
costing Rs 5000 rupees or more a
month When people are willing to
purchase these services at a high cost
and a section of people are offering it,
it is not our role to declare that we
should not make business of education. Education is a business only,
nothing else and given the great
many capital being invested in education, it is unclear why some individuals deem it not to be so.
Education should remain part of
the government sector, but there is
no reason that it should not also be
treated as business. Allowing private
institutions to come up improves
education and allows them to create
business viably. Moreover, it allows
the State to continue to educate some
students at extremely low fees.
Certainly, private management of
education should have started first at
college level currently run by the
government. To remedy this 50
percent of students (should) pay only
government fees. Unfortunately
though, at this point in time, there
is no other solution. To get better
education you have to pay for it.
There is no money for government
spending on education. Everything is
in shortage in India, and in such a
country you cannot expect the
government to divert its funds
to education. ■
87
Enforcing RTE Bill
Justice Akil A. Kureshi
Gujarat High Court
88
he role of judiciary is extremely
crucial when it gets to protect
and guarantee fundamental
rights of the populace especially children as it is difficult for a child to
assert his right and all the more troublesome to move the court of law. I
have a small experience to share to
reiterate this fact. A student of a
socially backward education community (SBEC), who did extremely
well in the high school examination
without resorting to reservation of
any kinds, could have got a seat in a
dental college. When he went to fill
the form, he took the certificate of
reservation of his community from
the Sarpanch. However, his caste certificate was not accepted by the
authorities claiming non-validity and
therefore, he had to get it from the
development commissioner. By the
time he could get the certificate, the
last date for filling up the form had
expired. He was therefore treated as
an open category student and offered
a seat in a dental college at Baroda on
payment that meant his parents had
to pay Rs 70, 000 a year for five years,
which was unaffordable.
The boy could not afford a good
lawyer and by the time his parents
got one and came to court it was the
T
last date the Supreme Court had
fixed beyond which no admissions to
medical colleges could be done.
What the family could afford was a
very junior lawyer. When the matter
was called up in the first round, the
advocate was absent. In the second
round, they were livid and I asked
them what are you doing? It is a matter of two hours and if I do not pass
and sign this order now, then your
boy wouldn't get to study. It is not
just a matter of being a doctor or a
dentist but it is a matter whether this
boy would be a doctor or a class 12
dropout tomorrow. Fortunately the
problem of that particular student
could be solved as the learned AGP
was very cooperative. The order was
passed that helped the boy in securing admission in a medical college.
But there are many such cases that go
unnoticed, unreported and do not
even come to the courts. The judiciary can play a small role when cases of
such kind surface to facilitate bigger
changes pertaining to education.
On one side we boast of some of
the finest higher educational institutions such as IITs, IIMs and AIIMS,
but the state of local and primary
education is really poor. Education
system in India has, therefore,
a Herculean task
remained largely in a sorry state.
More than six decades back, on
December 9, 1946, the first meeting of
the constituent assembly was held.
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, addressing
the assembly said, "the first task of
the assembly is to free the country
with a new constitution, to feed the
starving people, clothe the naked
masses and to give every Indian first
opportunity to develop himself
according to his capacity".
Implementing Article 21A
The Unnikrishnan judgement had
said that though right to education is
not strictly a fundamental right, it is
implicit and flows from the right to
life as given under Article 21. It took
the shape of framing of Article 21A
and as one can see that though it has
not been formalised and implemented, yet the Supreme Court has
already used it on four occasions to
enforce right or duty against the
State. For example, in the case of
state of Maharashtra vs St. Jhanejas
(2006) 9 SCC pg 1, the Supreme
Court while taking up the question
of the state objective to start educational institutions when the National
Council for Teacher's Education
(NCTE) felt the need, the Court,
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under Articles 19 and 21 of the
Constitution, brought it firmly that
every citizen has the freedom to practice any profession, and if the NCTE
feels the need the state cannot object.
Again in state of Bihar & ors vs
Project Uchvidhyala shikshak & ors,
2006, SCC pg 545, the question was to
take over some of the schools, and
Article 21A was used when the
Supreme Court said, "imparting of
education is the sovereign function
of the state. Article 21A of
Constitution of India envisages that
the children in the age group of six14 years have a fundamental right of
education". Thus, the state right was
upheld.
Despite 60 years of Independence
there has been no change as the
desired results in imparting compulsory education to all children has not
been very fruitful. Education is one
of the most important functions of
the State. The state has a basic
responsibility with regard to it and
human rights conventions have
imposed a duty on the contracting
states to set up institutions of higher
education, which leads to the conclusion that an effective right of access
should be given to citizens. In a
democratic society right to education
In state of Bihar
& ors vs Project
Uchvidhyala shikshak
& ors, 2006, the
question was to take
over some of the
schools, and Article
21A was used when
the Supreme Court
said, "imparting of
education is the
sovereign function of
the state. Article 21A
of Constitution of India
envisages that the
children in the age
group of six-14 years
have a fundamental
right of education".
Thus, the state right
was upheld
89
is indispensable in the interpretation
of right to development as the
basic human right. Therefore, the
Supreme Court has already been
making use of Article 21A in
different scenarios.
In the case of Ashok Kumar
Thakur vs Union of India, well
known as socially and educationally
backward classes [SEBCs] reservation case, the role of Supreme Court
emerged prominently where different judges gave detailed interpretations. Justice Pasayat speaking for
himself and Justice Thakkar using
the data available in National
Institute of Educational Planning and
Administration (NEUPA), observed
that about 63,000 schools in the country did not have school building and
were operating in tents or under the
trees, about 71,000 primary schools
had no proper classrooms, about
95,000 primary schools had single
classroom, about 8,000 primary
schools had no teachers, about
1,50,000 primary schools had single
teachers, and about 60, 000 schools
Compare your and my children with the children of the rural
areas who have to walk miles to go to their school. If there is
a nearby school, probably there is no building, if there is a
building then it doesn't have a roof on top. By God's grace if
there is a school nearby with a building and a roof then there
is no teacher. If there is a teacher then he does not know how
to teach the children and those students are then asked to
pass the same level of proficiency of Mathematics and
English. Nearly 80 percent of the students who fail in rural
India fail either in Maths or in English or in both
had pupil-teacher ratio less than
100:1. Apart from these facts, one
study showed that only 35 schools
had safe drinking water, 13 percent
had urinals and five percent had urinals for girls and only six percent
had a lavatory. This shows the grim
situation that we are facing presently
and one can see that a large number
of social workers, economists and
educationists have great misgivings
about the Right to Education Bill.
One thing that can be said is no
assessment, no failure may work
Bring govt. schools upto
standards of pvt. schools
T
here are certain areas of conflict in the Right to Education
Bill which need immediate
attention. Despite the fact that the
bill implies education should be
accessible to every child, still there is
so much debate going over it.
Education must be available to street
children, children of migrant labourers, children with disabilities and
victims of child labour. The problem
is how to make it work and ensure
that the benefits reach the target
deprived sections. Assuming that we
have the required number of schools
and the infrastructure, then how
does one ensure that these children
are admitted to schools? It is not an
easy task. Despite all the big talks
and discussions on right to education, to get these 25 percent admitted
to school is going to be a very
tedious job. It is very difficult to
force a parent to admit their ward in
90
school. It will be easy for the judges
to make the government answerable,
to issue orders against local authorities but it is difficult to persuade the
parents as orders cannot be passed
against them and ask them to send
their children to schools. This is an
important question that needs to be
raised. Even if such powers are vested in the judiciary, it couldn't be
done because if this is done it will
have a very traumatic effect on the
child, to see that his father is hauled
up by the court of law. Therefore,
clause 8(2) in the bill says that appropriate government shall ensure compulsory admission, attendance and
completion of elementary education.
The word compulsory implies force.
Now, how can one force a parent? A
Supreme Court judge has commented that parents can be given some
incentive in the form of capital and
be encouraged to send their children
counterproductive to this entire system because when a child fails, it is
the teacher who fails. For eight years
if the performance of the teacher is
not judged one would not be in a
position to judge the performance of
the school. There must be some form
of assessment and grading. One cannot grade them down saying 65.5
percent students failed or passed but
there should be a system of grading,
A, B, C, D somewhere, so that we
know that the teacher is teaching at
all or not.
Ms Justice Ranjana P Desai
Bombay High Court
to school. It needs to be seen how
incentives of different kinds can
help. What are we going to offer
them and whether the government
can really afford to give money in
the form of incentives to so many
parents to lure them.
Secondly, the RTE bill places a
very heavy responsibility on the
schools. Now, in the definition of
school one needs to add the category
of private school. A lot has been said
about private schools, privatisation
and existing private schools. In Delhi
some effort has been made for 25
percent children who are admitted
in schools and are taught separately
in the morning session while other
children were taken in the afternoon
session. There are apprehensions
whether these 25 percent would be
There is one grey area, as all have
anxieties about the misgivings of the
Bill, but one must understand that
the judges are not policy framers and
they can only implement that Act in a
proactive manner. In a recent case the
Supreme Court said, "you cannot liberalise pension schemes that cut off
those who have retired before a certain age and those who have retired
after a certain age". The government
argued that if the scheme is bad then
strike down the scheme but don't
strike off the cut off line. The Court
said that it will strike off the offending cut off date and will make it
applicable to all irrespective of the
date of retirement. This was the kind
of approach the apex court took and
this is what that can be done if an Act
is pressed before the judges and its
constitutional provisions are tested.
A procedure in law cannot take away
fundamental rights but it can be tested, we can expand it by removing the
clogs. In the absence of an Act nothing can be done. Article 21 remains in
the statute book. Therefore, a new
beginning is required. As far as the
courts are concerned we can ensure
the support which has always been
concerned with the constitutional
values and try to uphold them as best
as we can. We are not policy framers
and we cannot go beyond that.
Despite this bill being in whatever form, i.e., good bad or indifferent,
a huge task of implementation is
where great number of challenges
will be thrown up and that is where
the role of the policy framers, the
educationists, the economists, and
the social activists will come into
play and the question of rural versus
urban divide would be strongly present. For example, taking a case of a
child in an urban area, take the case
of my son or your son or daughter,
they go to the best schools, they have
private tuitions to pay for, their parents were graduates and double
graduates, they get a laptop or a
computer on their 18th birthday.
Compare them to the children of the
rural areas who have to walk miles to
go to their school. If there is a nearby
school, probably there is no building,
if there is a building then it doesn't
have a roof on top. By God's grace if
there is a school nearby with a building and a roof then there is no teacher. If there is a teacher then he does
not know how to teach the children
and those students are then asked to
pass the same level of proficiency of
Mathematics and English. Nearly 80
percent of the students who fail in
rural India fail either in Maths or in
English or in both. They are being
told to learn trigonometry, calculus,
set theory functions, which our children with the best of education and
the best of additional tuitions grapple with and find it difficult to pass.
And when these students fail we tell
them you cannot now pursue further
studies. He might be the first child to
reach class 10 in the entire family.
I beg to differ with due respect on
commercialisation of education,
because if the education is commercialised then our graduates will
not be professionals, they will be
personalised. ■
retained in the RTE Act at all. One
cannot be carried away by emotions
as the larger want is that all the children coming from deprived backgrounds should receive education.
The international schools are also
required. If there are suggestions
that one needs to do away with these
schools, it will not be good for the
country to shut those schools that are
doing very well and giving very
good education to children. When
one talks about elementary education, the children are drawn from
slums and are put in schools of children who belong to very high strata
of society. It is problematic. When
those 25 percent are brought in the
schools, one need to understand the
effect it is going to have on those
children. There are certain basic
inequalities which have not been
done away with or got rid of even
today. These children in these
schools are seen 'differently'. When
these children join the schools the
clause is that these children can neither be expelled nor can they be
failed. There should be some assessment of the children otherwise in the
age of competition there would be
problems. It is right that these chil-
dren should not be failed even the
child coming from an affluent family
should not be failed up to a certain
standard. But they cannot be
expelled. The two groups have to be
treated equally. The objection is that
when 25 percent poor students are
brought to elite private schools, then
they are treated as a different category of school. The effect will be clearly dangerous as it will lead to creation of two classes of students.
Our endeavour should be to
bring the municipal schools to the
standard of private schools and not
vice a versa. Private schools are
required and needed because they
are going to give us good judges,
good engineers, good doctors etc.
We want slum children to become
somebody but whether the method
of reaching the goal is correct or not,
there are apprehensions over this.
The system is plagued by the
problem of lack of good teachers.
Even in law colleges in Mumbai
there are immense problems of good
teachers. We at our times had some
good teachers, at least upto our level.
Now students complain that there is
non-availability of talented teachers.
It is a very ambitious project, but the
perennial question is where do we
get teachers in large numbers from.
The government must have the political will and administrative resolve
otherwise it will not work.
Therefore, the success of this entire
project to a large extent depends on
the national commission and the
state commission and their functioning. They must monitor issues pertaining to education seriously. One
of the good features of the Act is
Clause 32, which says that any person having any grievance relating to
the right of a child, under the proposed Act, can complain to the local
authority. The success of the Act will
depend on vigilant and alert citizens
who must get benefit of this Article
32 by telling and informing the
authorities that a child is being
deprived of educational facilities. It
is our duty to a large extent to make
a piece of legislation work or not
work and in this case, I think all of us
must make a great endeavour to
make it work. Two very good things
are that capitation fees and screening
procedure are done away with. One
needs to work how the 25 percent of
children can be helped. Law needs to
work over it.
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91
One city, many worlds
Urban poor
out of schools
he city of Mumbai is a microcosm of our country. Nearly 60
percent people in this Indian
financial city are not just economically poor but suffer deprivation in various ways. Nearly 15 percent of
Mumbai’s population does not have
access to safe drinking water and
nearly half do not have adequate sanitary facilities.1 In addition, almost 60
percent live in slums, near railway
tracks, pavements etc, and occupy
only eight percent of the land.
Population density in Mumbai is
highest in the world, as high as
1, 07,723 persons per sq km.2 But on
the other end of the spectrum some
of the richest people in the world also
live in Mumbai and have sprawling
mansions with helipads, swimmingpools, gymnasiums plush gardens.
The caste and class divide is clearly
reflected in the education system of
the city. There are international baccalaureate (IB) schools each charging
monthly fees to the tune of minimum
Rs 50,000 and occupy as much as 10
acres of land. Next in line are the
ICSC and CBSE schools for the
upper-middle classes, followed by
government-aided or non-aided SSC
schools charging nominal fees for the
middle working class. Municipal
Corporation of Greater Mumbai
(MCGM) runs ‘free’ schools for the
poor and finally non-formal centres
(NFA) typically held under a tree or
in a makeshift shelter in a slum
under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
(SSA) scheme.
The socio-economic disparities in
our society are embossed on the education system we have in place. How
much and what quality of education
one can attain is often pre-decided by
the paying capacity of the family and
thus majority of the poor are unable
T
Schooling can have
different meaning for
different sections of
society. Elite
international schools
of Mumbai stand tall
in stark contrast with
the slum schools on
the other side.
Simantini Dhuru takes
us through narrow
bylanes of a city that
has 60 percent of its
citizens living in sub
human conditions
where poverty and
malnourishment rob
the young ones of
their right to
minimum education
92
to cross the boundary of economic
advancement. This is the picture of
our society be it for education, health
facilities, land, property rights or jobs
people hold. The system of education
has immense power and can shift the
balance in favour of status quo or
change, for betterment and justice.
Here is a case study of the biggest
icon of progress of our country, the
story of education in the city of
Mumbai.
While the economic imbalance
between rural and urban areas in
India is acute, the gap between the
rich and the poor in the cities is also
wide. In order to discuss issues related to the educational infrastructure
in Mumbai it is necessary to understand the phenomenon of growing
urbanisation. About two hundred
years ago, we had just about four
percent of the population living in
cities. About a century ago the figure
rose to 14 percent. In year 2000, nearly 47 percent of the world’s population was living in urban areas. For
example, while India’s population
has increased two and a half times
since Independence, its urban popu-
lation has grown five times. India has
the second largest urban population
in the world after China. Cities are
not just expanding, the number of
poor people in them is also increasing. One third of urban dwellers live
below the poverty line.
Reasons behind such patterns
There are many reasons for such patterns and fall largely in the area of
‘push’ factors. Massive displacement
in the name of development, lack of
basic amenities, oppressive social
structures, unemployment, and star-
vation drive people to migrate to
cities. Although the city may mitigate
starvation, the living conditions are
abysmal to say the least. In Mumbai,
the commercial capital of India that
contributes 40 percent of the total tax
revenue, the picture is representative
and predictably not bright for
those who throng here in search of a
better life.
Madhura Swaminathan reveals
(in an article in Environment and
Urbanisation) that poverty among
the urban poor must be measured
not just by looking at income levels
but at other variables, such as access
to safe water, sanitation, and nutrition. She illustrates the point by
quoting from a survey of notified
slum settlements in 1981, which
revealed that there were over 203
users for every tap in a slum settlement and that in some, the number
went up to 8,600. The situations with
the toilets were worse. There were no
toilets in 174 shanties out of the 619
surveyed by the Census of India in
1981. And according to the National
Commission
on
Urbanisation,
Swaminathan quotes, “ Nearly 85
percent of children up to age of six
years in urban slums in India are
malnourished. In our survey of children under the age of five in a
Mumbai slum in 1993, 61 percent of
boys and 72 percent of girls were
malnourished on the basis of a
weight-for-age index.”3
Although updated studies revealing such insights are not available
one can say that the increasing gap
between the ‘rich’ and the ‘poor’ has
only added to the severity of the
problem as an analysis of per capita
food consumption levels reveals.4 It
is in this context that we need to discuss the issue of Right to Education.
For sake of brevity it will be useful to
identify some issues that are most
disturbing in general and some that
are characteristic of the city
of Mumbai.
State apathy in ECCE
Since the Jomtien Conference of
‘Education for All’ held by the World
Bank, International Monetary Fund
and the UN agencies in 1990 and particularly after the 86th Constitutional
amendment, the role of the state in
the ECCE has become non-existent.
The MCGM mandated to provide
Overview of schools in Mumbai from 2001 to 2009
Type of school
Schools
Pupils
Teachers
2001
2006
2009
2001
2006
2009
2001
2006
2009
Primary schools
1197
1177
1161
5,64,892 4,24,918 4,05,797 14,303
11,747
11,935
Secondary schools
51
49
49
6,55,111 53,938
43,471
2000
1754
1183
Aided schools
338
403
450
1,76,150 2,07,480 2,18,407 3438
3786
3386
Unaided schools
590
574
631
2,80,189 2,48,821 3,00,504 5780
5343
4270
Source: Documents made available to NGOs, by the MCGM Education Department as part of their efforts to promote
the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model called the School Adoption Programme.
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93
education between the age group of 0
to 14 years according to the 45th
Directive Principle that acquired the
status of the fundamental Right in
1993 as per the Unnikrishnan
Judgement of the Supreme Court.
The MCGM does not run any
Balwadis but the SSA grants sanctioned for ECCE are used. But the
administration does not have any
details of expenditure. Such a trend
has not only pushed-back the disadvantaged children’s socio-psychological, intellectual development but has
serious consequences on their physical growth and survival. Thus in this
most affluent city of India too there
are several instances of children
falling victim to malnourishment. (A
PIL has been registered in the
Bombay High court to highlight this
neglect by the state.)
Interpreting legislation
One of the legislations concerning
the provision of education through
municipal schools in Mumbai is the
Municipal Corporation of Greater
Mumbai Act, 1888 (MCGM Act).
Section 61(q) of the MCGM Act spells
out the functions of the municipal
body in the context of primary education. As such the MCGM has a
statutory legal duty to provide primary education, however, ‘primary
education’ itself is not defined by the
MCGM Act. The State and MCGM
thus interpret it as per their conve94
Number of out-of-school
children in Maharashtra
as per MPSP
Year
Out of School
Students
2002-03
15,78,863
2003-04
5,24,687
2004-05
2,29,224
2005-06
4,28,798
2006-07
1,71,255
2007-08
96,821
Source: Analysis of education
department’s performance by
SAMARTHAN (2008-2009). All
information received from MPSP
nience, providing schools only from
class I to IV or class I to VII instead of
from ECCE to class VIII and stands in
violation of the 1993 SC judgement.
Push-out factors
Another instance of gross violation is
the insufficient number of schools.
For instance, the MCGM currently
runs 1,161 schools. Out of these, 243
are from class I to IV and 869 from
class I to VII, and only 48 schools till
class X. It is thus evident that besides
the gross neglect of the age group
between 0 to six years, the MCGM
also fails to serve children at the elementary level. Nearly one-fourth of
children are pushed out from schools
at the age of 10 and the remaining 99
at the age of 13 years. In this context
it is essential to understand that
besides these 1,161 schools run totally with its support the MCGM also
assists about 90 percent of expenses
to nearly 450 schools in the form of
recurring aid. These schools are
allowed to charge restricted fee from
students. After the MCGM support
ceases in class VIII, these ‘aided’
schools continue to receive support
from the state government but the
schools run by the MCGM are not
given any help so that the children in
those schools complete their education till class X. It is a well-known
crude fact that children going to the
MCGM schools come from families
for whom sending children to
schools comes with a premium. For
these families education is probably
the only hope to build a better future
for their young ones. However, since
the MCGM schools cease to exist
after class VII, the majority of children are left with no option but to
discontinue education. Today no
doors open for further education or
employment without the HSC (class
XII) certificate, but the majority of
children are permanently pushed
into the darkness of under-education
in this shining metropolis. Under
such circumstances many families
end up sending their children to
‘aided’ or unaided’ schools by paying
for fees and other expenses often at
the cost of their basic necessities. But
there are innumerable instances
where even after incurring high
costs, many such children end up in
unrecognised and illegal schools and
cannot appear for board examinations.
By not providing schools after the
primary level, the state compels parents to opt for private schools and
thereby propagates two fallacies:
a) that the government schools are
not viable because people are not
interested in them and b) since the
government school system is beyond
retrieval there is no point in investing
in it. The data below clearly reveals
the dwindling number of MCGM
schools and increasing number of
aided and unaided schools and is
self-explanatory.
The fall in the number of children
in the MCGM schools has other reasons too like multi-grade teaching
and teachers being forced to do noneducational clerical duties. (These
have increased several-fold with SSA
surveys, MLL or quality-improvement programmes, launched by the
government.) The teacher is often
made to ‘handle’ two to three classes
at a time, or busy with other duties
whilst the children despite reaching
class III or IV have no basic knowledge of what is ‘Rs three’. Thus even
poor parents are driven to send their
children to private schools paying
hefty fees with the hope that their
children will really learn and study.
The number puzzle
As per the 2001 census, the population within the jurisdiction of the
MCGM is 11,978,450. There are
2,190,686 children in the age group of
5–14 years in this area, that is,
approximately 2.1 million children.
The most puzzling statistic is that of
the number of children ‘falling within the education net’. In addition to
the children educated in municipal
schools, there are 6, 94,693 children
who are educated in privately aided
and unaided schools.5 Therefore, out
of a total child population of 2.1 million in the MCGM region, all schools
(municipal and private) cater to only
1,180,224, that is, about 1.1 million
children. The state government and
the MCGM are unable to account for
the remaining one million children
who are not to be traced in schools!
According to MCGM education
department surveys conducted in
Mumbai and Mumbai (suburban)
districts (both of which fall under
MCGM’s jurisdiction), there are only
2,699
out-of-school
children.
Therefore, out of the one million children who are “not” in any school,
only 2,699 are identified as “out-ofschool” children. Another instance of
this callousness to identify such children can be seen through the state
level statistics provided by the
Maharashtra Prathamik Shikshan
Parishad(MPSP), the body responsible for the implementation of the
SSA.
These figures of ‘out-of-school’
children are rather puzzling as they
change drastically each year without
any quality impact on admission of
children in schools (whether the regular schools or the substandard nonformal classes.) The sudden dip in
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the number is as puzzling as the sudden escalation; particularly evident
from years 2003-04 to 2008. The same
discrepancy is evident in the number
of ‘out-of-school’ children in Mumbai
as the table below reveals. The mystery deepens as one takes a look at
the reports submitted to the
Comptroller and Auditor General
raised
questions
during
the
Assembly sessions answered by the
education minister and various documents given by MPSP in reply to
several RTI applications as all figures
contradict each other even if the
source is the same body.6
In light of the authorities’ claim
that there has been a steady decline
in the number of out-of-school children, the obvious inference is that at
least a substantial number of such
children
are
mainstreamed.
Therefore, there should be a comparable increase in the corresponding
enrolment figures in municipal
schools. The data provided by the
MCGM regarding enrolment does
not corroborate this. On the contrary,
there has been a consistent decline in
enrolment figures as per the data
given by the MCGM. (From 6, 08,551
in year 2000 the number of children
in municipal schools has dwindled to
4, 74, 037 in 2005. There is no corresponding increase in children in the
private schools either).
Mumbai at altar of Shanghai
Another aspect typical of the city is
the ‘Mumbai to Shanghai’ phenomenon. The collapse of the textile
mills and real estate politics has
pushed the poor on the periphery of
the bustling city. Mumbai has
changed its character as a production
hub and is saturated to absorb more
people. The move to seal the city by
passing a law was made for the first
time during the emergency imposed
by Indira Gandhi. The Maharashtra
Slum Areas Act was passed in 1976
giving legal status to settlements up
to 1975. The vision of political parties
across all hues is to convert mills into
malls and finally Mumbai into
Shanghai. Any existence of the poor,
whether in slums within the city or in
chawls located on mill-lands or in
other government-owned colonies, is
an eyesore for these builders. The
poor are either unceremoniously displaced or given accommodation on
the ever-stretching peripheries of the
city. The population profile of the
Number of out of school children in Mumbai as per MPSP
Dist
2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08
Mumbai
34,851
6,030
78,898 78,000
55,503 1,677
Mumbai BMC
57,056
50,000
Source: Analysis of education department’s performance by SAMARTHAN
(2008-2009). All information received from MPSP
95
administrative zones known as
‘wards’ in Mumbai reveals overcrowding on the outskirts of
Mumbai. Despite high density of
population in the suburbs the number of schools has not grown in proportion to the populace. The changing priorities of the administration
with regard to the education of the
poor are evident by understanding
the ratio of ‘upper-primary’ to ‘secondary’ schools. The comparatively
large number of schools in South
Mumbai and Central Mumbai
(wards A to G) reveals the intent of
earlier administrations to provide
education to all. The number of primary schools in proportion to secondary schools in these areas too is
greater, that is, 1:15. However, in the
crowded suburbs the number of secondary schools dwindles to the ratio
of 1:78 and is completely non-existent in some wards. The message is
that the government will fulfill its
duty to provide for primary education but not respond to strengthening the system or ensure that the
poor complete their school education.
Victims of the changing demographic class profile of Mumbai are
the relatively newer migrants (and
sometimes those who fall well within
“cut-off” date). The permanent
threat of imminent demolition has
had deep impact on the educational
prospects of the children. Parents
often do not send children to school
with the fear of losing them due to
sudden demolition raids or children
keep guard on the meagre belongings of the family while the parents
are away. The impact of involuntary
resettlement on the ‘resettled’ communities was studied in detail by
CEHAT in the context of 2,000 odd
families who were resettled from
Rafique Nagar to Shantiniketan,
Dindoshi (Goregaon). While assessing the impact of resettlement on
children’s education, the study finds
that “… (the) process of shifting had
itself both direct and indirect impact
on the education of children and
young people in the community. The
whole process of resettlement, and
the problems related to access prevented the girls and boys from
attending schools. Many lost a year
of school due to the resettlement…
economic burdens on the resettled
96
community also had an impact on
utilisation of educational facilities.
Many boys have had to take up jobs
to supplement the family income….
The shifting thus had a detrimental
impact on younger people in terms of
enrolment and continuation of
schooling.”
The ‘others’
The other two vulnerable groups in
this city are the Adivasis – the original inhabitants of Mumbai on one
side and the construction migrant
workers – the continually circulating
population of those who are permanently homeless. The Adivasis in
Mumbai are on their way to extinction as a unique community either
due to assimilation or mostly due to
displacement and denial of resources
like forests, water, and land. While
the forest cover of the city has eroded, another jungle of concrete has
come up. In the city of Mumbai and
in the urban area of the adjoining
Thane district, there are approximately 3,00,000 construction workers. It is estimated that about 30 percent amongst these are children of
school-going age.7 Most of these are
landless labourers and are Dalits
and Adivasis. Being traditionally
oppressed by upper castes and feudal structures they are socially and
politically disempowered. Accepting
oppression, low wages, lack of
amenities, and remaining as
‘unrecognised/unorganised’ work
force, are conditions that have been
internalised by most. It is due to
these factors that the sub-contractors
and developers’ lobby can get away
by paying less than minimum wages
to them.
An engineered collapse
Besides these problems the relatively
recent one plaguing the system is the
move towards privatisation of the
MCGM schools under the guise of
public private partnership (PPP). A
relatively well functioning system of
public education that earlier worked
as a feeder system to affordable
‘aided’ schools, with its rich heritage
of eight language mediums, meritorious, sensitive teachers and officials is
on the way to extinction. Effort to
abdicate statutory responsibility was
first made by the MCGM in 1990 in
form of the school adoption pro-
city where land is a priceless
resource.
The permanent threat
of imminent
demolition has had
deep impact on the
educational prospects
of the children.
Parents often do not
send children to
school with the fear
of losing them due to
sudden demolition
raids or children keep
guard on the meagre
belongings of the
family while the
parents are away
gramme but was a rather low-key
one. Many NGOs and private trusts
including corporate bodies have
taken over functions of the MCGM
by running Balwadis, providing uniforms, study material to children,
conducting health camps, recreational camps, running study classes for
‘weak’ children, non-formal education (NFE) centres for out-of-school
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children etc. Some have gone even to
the extent of supplementing the
shortfall of teachers. After the advent
of the SSA in 2000-2001 the non-formalisation and trivialisation of teaching-learning has been institutionalised and the school adoption programme has successfully discharged
its duty by handing the reins in the
hands of NGOs running NFE centres. There has never been any indepth study to critically evaluate the
implementation of the existing adoption scheme but in 2006-2007 an
attempt was made to aggressively
push for privatisation this time at a
cost commitment by private parties.
Private bodies and individuals were
invited (without scrutiny) to adopt
the schools. They were offered crucial decision-making powers including appointment of teachers, charging of fees for certain extra-curricular
activities etc. Although this was
stalled temporarily due to resistance
of concerned citizens and organisations a milder form of this anomaly
does still exist. Instances of taking
over the MCGM school premises by
private trusts running IB schools are
ringing warning bells enough in the
Conclusion
Detailing these features of the
MCGM and the scenario of the fractured education system, this leads
one to an answer that was attempted
more than 40 years ago by the
Kothari Commission. Need for the
common school system stands out
like a guiding star today when the
Right to Education Bill has been
passed in the Rajya Sabha in
December 2008. This bill rather than
understanding and genuinely seeking to address and remedy the difference in society (which is well represented in the city of Mumbai) is
attempting to white-wash the same
by its apologetic measures of 25 percent reservations to so-called private
schools and maintaining same problematic norms that have led to the
disintegration of public school system in India. The leverage of education if allowed to be flexible and
essentially as per the paying capacity
of the family will only work for the
betterment of the majority of our
people. Equal quality free education
to all the children as per the standards set by the Convention on the
Rights of the Child (CRC) and supported by our strong constitutional
framework is thus non-negotiable.
–The writer is a documentary
filmmaker and Director of the
AVEHI-ABACUS project, Mumbai
The information about the MCGM schools
is based on “Public Education in Mumbai:
Rhetoric or Rights?”, a report of the Indian
People’s Tribunal on environment and
human rights, HRLN, Mumbai.
Footnotes
1. ‘Rediscovering Dharavi’, Kalpana
Sharma, Penguin Books, 2000.
2. Census of India, 2001.
3. ‘Rediscovering Dharavi’, Kalpana
Sharma, Penguin Books, 2000.
4. ‘Republic of Hunger’, Utsa Patnaik, Three
Essays Collective, 2007.
5. Information provided by the Education
Department (MCGM) under RTI, to the IPT.
6. Source: Analysis of Education
Department’s Budget and Performance by
SAMARTHAN (2008-2009).
7. Survey conducted by the Nirman Mazdoor
Sanghatan and ‘Salah’, organisations
working with the construction labourers.
97
Early childhood care
and development is a
proven and powerful
investment in nation's
well being and future
economic prosperity.
Professor Vrinda
Datta outlines the
importance of a
holistic approach to
early childhood care
and education
advocating that with
good quality care in
preschool stage, the
child, parents, family
system, and society as
a whole will reap the
benefits
Emphasis on pre-school education
t is widely accepted that the first
five years of a child's life are the
most crucial years in determining
the developmental pathways for
their future lifespan. The recent brain
research gives further emphasis that
the environment affects not only the
brain cells and the number of connections but also the way these links
are utilised that ultimately determine
the development levels children will
reach. Therefore stimulating chil-
I
98
dren's development and helping
them reach their potential are beneficial not only to them and their families but also to the entire society. The
human rights argument that every
child has the right to develop to
his/her full potential makes it imperative that families, societies and the
State make it possible for every child
to get this opportunity for optimum
development.
Investing in the current genera-
tion of children is perhaps a good
way to break the intergenerational
cycle of poverty and inequality. The
World Bank (1996) gives the following five reasons to invest in young
children:
1) To build human resources in a scientifically proven manner,
2) To generate high economic returns
and reduce social costs,
3) To achieve greater social equality,
4) To increase efficiency of other
investments and
5) To help mothers as well as
children.
The continuous inputs given by
researches and the lessons learned
from field have made it possible to
develop effective strategies and programmes that benefit children. The
experiences from all over the world
point out that one has to take the
holistic perspective on child development and provide for the multiple
needs of children.
To break the life cycle of deprivation one has to start with prenatal
care and therefore the care of the
mother. Secondly, programmes cannot be effective with a targeted, service oriented approach. For them to
be successful and cost effective,
inputs from parents and the community to enhance their capabilities to
care for children is essential. Thus
integrated programming is important but needs to be understood and
conceptualised carefully. It needs to
take into account how to offer a variety of programmes but also take care
that a) additive effect of services
meets the full needs of children, b)
that a multisectoral approach may
help in developing better and effective strategies c) that the integrated
services must take into consideration
the context in which they are implemented and make possibilities for
flexibilities within the programme to
address these contextual differences
and d) it must be understood that the
effectiveness of early childhood programmes will not sustain unless the
larger issues of poverty, health, nutrition and education are also
addressed. Therefore national policies and programmes must produce
a systematic effort to deal with the
issues of human development.
Economic impact
The past two decades have seen
India go through dynamic changes in
its economic policies which are having an impact on social sector particularly child development programmes. Swaminathan (1993), in
her analysis, states that there are
direct and indirect ways in which
these economic changes affect the
overall growth of children. The direct
impact of such policies is felt through
cuts in expenditure on health, education, nutrition programmes and
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other services that contribute directly
to the well being of children. She further says that whilst the economic
changes are impacting growth rates,
levels of employment, and real
wages, it is adversely affecting the
living conditions and resources of
the families, which indirectly impact
children's well being.
To a certain extent the international pressures to work towards the
goal of children's rights and the concerns regarding the human development index have at least not wiped
out the social sector from the political
agenda. The ninth plan emphasises
the need to look at child development not merely as an investment for
the nation's future, but as a part of
the obligation to fulfill every individual child's rights - in the present.
Thus it is expected that the convention on the child rights will be a guiding principle for formulating necessary policies and programmes for
child development in the Plan documents. The current Eleventh Five
Year Plan (FYP) of the Indian government also acknowledges Early
Childhood Care and Education
(ECCE) to be a critical investment,
given its inter-generational benefits
for social inclusion and equity. In
2006, the subject of ECCE was transferred from the department of education, ministry of human resource
development to the ministry for
women and child development,
which now has the mandate to promote the legislative and administrative decisions of the government to
"universalise ECCE along with other
services for children, with quality"
(Kaul, 2009). India is also signatory to
the Education for All (EFA) Goals,
whereby it is committed to "expanding and improving comprehensive
early childhood care and education,
especially for the most vulnerable
and disadvantaged children" (EFA
Goal 1). However, the 86th
Constitutional amendment (2002),
which made elementary education a
fundamental right, specified education of children from six to 14 years,
thus excluding children under six
years. Now after a lot of advocacy, it
has been included specifically as a
Constitutional provision through an
amended Article 45, which reads "the
State shall endeavour to provide
Early Childhood Care and Education
(ECCE) for all children until they
complete the age of six years."
Alarming statistics
More than 27 million children are
born in India every year. Despite the
steady decline in birth rates and also
increased child survival rates,
around three million children -under the age of five -- still die each
year. Girls continue to face higher
risks of mortality and are nearly 20
percent higher than boys throughout
These "educational
shops" are known by
various nomenclatures
like nursery, play school,
montessori, kindergarten
etc. Observing these
centres one finds that
most of them have no
understanding of child
development or
pedagogy related to
children. Swaminathan
observes that these
schools use teaching
methods that are "highly
didactic and verbal and
pay little attention to
individual development
or to the development of
cognitive skills, problem
solving, language,
imagination, curiosity,
and social
skills in children"
childhood. The national infant mortality rate (IMR) is stagnating and it
points to a slowdown in the momentum of child survival (GOI, 2000).
With the rate of malnutrition falling
very slowly at one percent per year,
there are 53 percent of children
under five years of age who are malnourished and this accounts for one
third of world's undernourished children. Besides, micronutrient deficiencies, nutrition anaemia, vitamin
A deficiency and iodine deficiency
are still widely prevalent. The latest
99
report by the UNWFP (2009) reveals
that 43 percent of children under five
years of age in the country are still
underweight compared to the global
proportion of 28 percent in Sub
Saharan Africa. Nearly 50 percent
children are stunted and 30 percent
of the newborn have low birth
weight. Though India's efforts to
increase access to health services are
noticeable, the primary health care
system continues to face glitches in
combating the health risks. Even
today we have large number of children dying of diarrhoea, upper respiratory tract infections and other preventable diseases.
Though our Constitution ensures
free and compulsory schooling for
every child up to 14 years of age, this
is far from reality. It is true that 95
percent of the population now has a
primary school within walking distance of one kilometre; still there are
about 100 million children who are
yet to make it to school. Not only
that, about 35 percent of children
who have joined school drop out
even before completing their primary schooling.
100
Preschool component
of the ICDS programme
is very weak. The
anganwadi workers
devote just one hour of
the three hours to
engage children in
some meaningful
activity. The preschool
education component
fails to make any
significant impact on
children due to lack of
learning materials
Early childhood care
& education
The initiation of early childhood programmes in India was because of private institutions and individuals.
Educationists and missionaries like
Gijubhai Bhadeka and Tarabai
Modak were the first Indians to start
Bal Mandirs. The visit of Maria
Montessori to India in the forties created a lot of interest in Montessori
education and training. The role of
the state was seen only after setting
up of the Central Social Welfare
Board (CSWB 1953). The CSWB had
grant-in-aid programmes for setting
up Balwadis and also nutrition programmes. Besides, under various
ministries different schemes and programmes tried to give impetus to
health, nutrition and educational
needs of the most disadvantaged.
Similarly many national committees
gave recommendations for the development of the ECCE.
Significant is the development of
National Policy for Children (1974)
which acknowledged that while
poverty alleviation and community
development projects should continue, focused, child-centered interventions are required to address the
inter-related needs of children and
women from disadvantaged community. Thus the integrated child development services programme was
started in 1975. During this period,
the efforts of NGOs in this field were
also worth appreciating. Not only
the grant-in-aid programmes, but
organisations like Nutan Balshikshan
Sangh, Shishu Vihar, and the Kosbad
programme established model programmes and training besides providing opportunities to develop
Indian philosophy, methods, materials and equipment for early childhood education. The seventies and
eighties also saw the quick development of the private sector. The regular school system was offering preprimary education but being influenced by the west, the urban communities started looking for preschool programmes that would provide pre-school education before the
formal schooling. These "educational
shops" are known by various nomenclatures like nursery, play school,
montessori,
kindergarten
etc.
Observing these centres one finds
that most of them have no understanding of child development or
pedagogy related to children.
Swaminathan (1993) observes that
these schools use teaching methods
that are "highly didactic and verbal
and pay little attention to individual
development or to the development
of cognitive skills, problem solving,
language, imagination, curiosity, and
social
skills
in
children"
(Swaminathan 1993, pg.225)
Integrated child
development services
The eighties saw the establishment
and expansion of ICDS, which is the
major vehicle to address child development issues. Recognising that
early childhood development constitutes the foundation for human
development, the ICDS is designed
to promote holistic development of
children under six years through the
strengthened capacity of caregivers
and communities and improved
access to basic services at the community level. The programme provides an integrated approach for converging basic services for improved
child care, early stimulation and
learning, health and nutrition, water
and environmental sanitation, targeting young children, expectant and
nursing mothers, women and adolescent girls. The ICDS offers a powerful community based outreach system that functions as the convergent
interface between disadvantaged
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Extra-curricular activities must be incorpated
ports and cultural
being facilitated through the
activities
including
child welfare committees, as
music and dance should
mandated in the Juvenile
be incorporated in the
Justice (Care and Protection
school
curriculum.
of Children) Act. However,
Sometimes, such activities
there is lack of implementadistract students from
tion of legislation resulting in
their regular studies if
deprivation of children from
they practice them
their
fundamental
extensively outside of Justice Mukul Mudgal right to education.
school, i.e., in the form
Parliament
enacts
Delhi High Court
of private tuitions or
good legislation but
workshops. So if extra-curricular there is little implementation or
activities are included in the school enforcement of the same. Every fortcurriculum, a balance can be night a news report appears before
achieved whereby students can the government on the pervasivebecome all-rounders.
ness of child labour. Enforcement
It is the duty of the State to pro- officers go out on inspection but
vide education for children, particu- always with the intention of
larly those in need of care and pro- researching and reporting and
tection. Opportunities for education never with the intention to rescue
and rehabilitation must be provided child labourers and put an end to
to children and currently this is child labour.
S
communities and government programmes such as primary health care
and education (GOI 2000). Poised for
near universal coverage at the time of
the century, ICDS today reaches out
to 23 million children through its
preschool programme. The national
evaluation (1997) of integrated child
development services (ICDS) of India
Mobile crèches
have successfully
demonstrated how the
needs of women and
children can be well
integrated into a
successful programme.
The daily programme
offers rich, diverse,
multifaceted and
satisfying mix of
activities, using the
simplest of material
at low cost. Mobile
crèches not only cater
to children below six
years but also provide
non-formal education
for older children
showed that children who got the
experience of ICDS programme had
better nutritional status, better
immunisation coverage and were in
large number in school and continued to do so. The evaluation also
showed that 50-60 percent of ICDS
children were able to count numbers
1-50 while a smaller percentage
could recognise colours and name
objects (National Institute of Public
Cooperation
and
Child
Development, 1997). However, there
are many other studies which show
that preschool component of the
ICDS programme is very weak. The
anganwadi workers devote just one
hour of the three hours to engage
children in some meaningful activity
(Datta 2001). The preschool education component of the ICDS programme fails to make any significant
impact on children due to lack of
learning materials. Swaminathan
(2000) points out that early childhood programmes should help to
enhance learning competencies in
children but this can happen only if
active involvement of children is
there and not only nurturance.
Collaborative efforts
Under the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan
(SSA), provisions have been made
not only for greater convergence of
101
pre-school education initiatives, in
particular the ICDS, within the
realms of primary schooling, but also
of setting up Balwadis as preschool
education (PSE) centres in uncovered
areas, training inputs for stakeholders, organising awareness and advocacy campaigns in favour of importance of PSE and the like.
Moreover, in order to practice any
innovative activity to strengthen the
early childhood education, a financial provision of Rs 15 lakh per
annum in a district has been made
available. Partnerships between government and non-governmental
organisations have been encouraged
and one of the successful outcomes
of this partnership is "PRATHAM",
an educational initiative started in
Mumbai and replicated in many
cities across India. The PRATHAM
programme is a tripartite collaborative effort between local business
groups, the community, and the government to attain the goal of universalisation of primary education.
PRATHAM institutes preschool
programmes, bridge courses (assistance to children who want to rejoin
school) and provides support to the
existing primary school system.
Another major area for early
childhood intervention is providing
adequate care to children of working
women. The Rajiv Gandhi national
crèche scheme for working mothers
is an effective and expanded scheme
for childcare. The scheme has been
designed by merging the existing
two schemes of national crèche fund
(which was set up in 1994 to meet the
growing requirements for crèches
with a corpus fund made available
from the social safety net adjustment
credit from the World Bank) and the
scheme of assistance to voluntary
organisations for running crèches for
children of working and ailing mothers (which was started in 1974 in pursuance of the objectives of National
Plan for Children). Under this new
initiative, the crèches are being allocated to the states/UTs on the basis of
the proportion of child population.
Uncovered districts / tribal areas
under the scheme are being given
highest priority so as to ensure the
balanced regional coverage. The services being provided pertain not
only to care aspect but preschool
education as well. There are about,
102
22,038 crèches sanctioned across the
country.
The scheme lays down the norms
for grants and also outlines the basic
requirements of a crèche programme
in term of logistics, equipment and
staffing. Evaluation of the earlier
form of the scheme by Gopal and
Khan (1998) points out that majority
of the crèche units were located in
backward, far-flung villages and also
in those areas where women were
working either in the fields or in the
unorganised sector. However meagre
budgetary allowances and untimely
release of grants interfered in providing appropriate facilities for children
like nutrition or play materials.
In the nineties when women's
empowerment was the focus in all
development programmes, the
Mahila Samakhya (MS) initiative was
launched. MS means education for
women's equality and is an innovative programme that is need based,
process-oriented, and participatory
by nature. It acknowledges that substitute care of children is intrinsically
linked to women's development and
empowerment. Such a programme
not only provides direct benefits to
working mothers and their children
through the child care programme
but addresses many other core issues
as well. The programme approach
encourages mobilisation of villagers
particularly women and gives
authority to village community to
design and manage their childcare
centre. On the flip side, lack of funding in the Mahila Samakhya programme makes it difficult to run the
centres and sustain them.
Provision of statutory crèches in
factories and plantation has been one
of the first attempts to address the
women workers' needs. The law
makes it mandatory for employers
who have 30 or more women
employees, to provide for childcare
services in factory premises. The Act
specifies the details of staffing, materials and equipment for the centre.
Rane's (1978) observations show that
there was reduction in factory crèches because employers employ less
numbers of women or older women
and thus escape from the law. It is
therefore argued that such laws may
only serve to limit women's entry
into the formal sector jobs. The
Plantations Act is similar to Factories
Act but it caters to the women workers in plantations in rural areas. But
studies reveal a grim picture of reality. Gopal's study (1983) points out
the inadequacy of programme outreach. The crèches which are func-
tioning are having inadequate,
untrained staff and centres neither
have space nor play materials to
stimulate children and very often
they were functioning as Balwadis
(pre-school). Lack of guidance and
supervision gives no opportunity to
crèche workers to improve their lot.
Day care centres
A successful collaboration of an
employer and an NGO can be seen in
the old mobile crèche programme.
Considering that construction workers are migrant population whose
home and workplace keep shifting
from time to time, the mobile crèche
also moves with this group and provides for their childcare needs
(Khalakdina 1995). Mobile crèches
have successfully demonstrated how
the needs of women and children can
be well integrated into a successful
programme. The daily programme
offers rich, diverse, multifaceted and
satisfying mix of activities, using the
simplest of material at low cost
(Swaminathan 1985). Mobile crèches
not only cater to children below six
years but also provide non-formal
education for older children.
The government and NGOs make
efforts to cater to disadvantaged
women and children, but the responwww.combatlaw.org
sibility to provide proper childcare
for other groups fall on the private
sector. Daycare centres in private sectors are very few as they are not costeffective considering the space,
staffing, and other infrastructure
requirements. The initiatives by individuals and women's self help
groups have set up some day care
facilities in the urban areas but things
are in a quandary. These centres provide care to about 30 children and
major responsibility lies with the
'maids' or 'ayahs' who are usually
untrained with education up to higher secondary. Though space and
materials exist in centres, they are
never utilised to stimulate children.
It appears that only custodial care is
offered in many of these centres
(Datta 1993). Since the need for childcare was growing, family-based
group care (family day care) by
housewives became a growing phenomenon. A study (Datta and
Maheshwari, 1997) conducted in
Mumbai on dual earners, among all
who used child care services, 65 percent used FDC while only 25 percent
used day care centres. The family
day care offers a home like environment and is preferred by parents
who want their children to have personal care. Besides family day care is
a convenient and flexible programme. The mother can make
arrangements for care of all her children, arrange for convenient hours of
care and allow flexibility to take care
of emergencies. The mother also
finds the location of the family day
care center in her own neighbourhood an added boon. It is possible for
parents to make arrangements with
providers according to their work
schedule and special needs of
children.
Conclusion
The task ahead in the field of early
childhood care is indeed very challenging. On the one hand we have a
vast number of children whom we
have not been able to reach despite
varied efforts. On the other hand, the
child development programmes
have not given us outcomes which
require a more sincere commitment
to make an impact. With no regulatory mechanism, the players in the
field of ECCE are increasing and it's a
challenge to see that no programme
is working against the interest of
children. Scaling up successful initiatives, evolving new partnerships,
and drawing connections nationally
and globally will be some of the ways
that will help in creating effective
strategies which will touch every
child and help them reach their optimum development.
—The writer is Professor at
Centre for Human Ecology, Tata
Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
References
● Datta, V (2001): A Study of Urban Early
Childhood Programmes, Project Sponsored
by UNICEF. Mumbai 2001.
● Datta, V. and Maheshwari, P. 1997:
Working Parents and Family Life in
Mumbai. Project Report, Mumbai: Tata
Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
● Datta, V. (1993). Group Care as a Context
for Child Development. Unpublished Ph.D.
Thesis. Mumbai, S.N.D.T. University.
● Gopal, A.K. Khan, N 1998: Crèche
Services in India. New Delhi; National
Institute of Public Co-operation and Child
Development.
● Gopal, A.K. 1983 : Crèches in Plantations.
New Delhi; National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development.
● Government of India (2000): Achievement
Challenges, Aims and Strategies. New Delhi:
GOI.
● Kaul, V. (2009) Concept note for the
Center for Early Childhood Education and
Development at Ambedkar University, New
Delhi.
● Khalakdina, M. (1995). Early Childhood
Education: A Review. Paper presented at the
National Consultation Meet on 'Streamlining
of Early Childhood Education Services'.
New Delhi: NIPCCD.
● NIPCCD (1997). National Evaluation of
Integrated Child Development Services.
New Delhi: NIPCCD.
● Rane, A.J. 1978 : A New Look at Factory
Creches. Eklavya Mobile Creche Annual
Pgs. 7-11.
● Swaminathan, M S (2000). Quality
Matters. An exploratory study in Tamil
Nadu. Chennai: MS Swaminathan Research
Foundation.
● Swaminathan, M. 1985: Who Cares? A
Study of Child Care Facilities for LowIncome Working Women in India. New
Delhi; Centre for Women's Development
Studies.
● World Bank (1996). Investing in Young
Children. Site:www.worldbank.org
103
Don't rob them of childhood
Compulsory education
of all children in the 614 years age group is
the surest and the most
effective means of
preventing and
prohibiting child labour.
Let them spread wings,
soar and fly high,
writes Dr LD Mishra
104
I am the child
All the world waits for my coming
All the earth watches with interest
What I shall become
Civilisation hangs as a balance
For what I am, the world of tomorrow
will be
I am the child
You hold in your hand my destiny
You determine largely whether I shall
Succeed or fail
Give me, I pray you, these things
That make for happiness
Train me, I beg you, that I may be a blessing to the world'
–Mamie Gene Cole
he poem is a lucid expression
of the anguish of a child who is
full of unsuspected possibilities
and potentialities but who is not
allowed to be what he/she should be;
for the reins of his/her destiny are in
the hands of others who decide
whether he/she shall succeed or fail.
T
Defining child labour
Simply stated, a child is one who
may be a person of and below 14
years of age. Child labour is a phenomenon where a child below 14
years of age is pushed involuntarily
to work for wages or otherwise.
While most of our laws having a
direct or indirect bearing on child
labour have defined a child as what
is mentioned above, they have failed
to define a working child or child
labour. Article 24 of the Constitution,
however, brings out the concept of
child labour in the following words:
"No child below the age of 14
years shall be employed to work in
any factory or mine or engaged in
any other hazardous employment."
It does not define as to what constitutes hazardous employment. In a
more refined sense, a child is the
finest and best human resource. It
constitutes our succeeding generation, out best asset. It is the centre of
our hope in rebuilding a humanity
torn and traumatised by fear, hatred,
envy, cruelty and violence where to
be good is just not to be bad, to be
social is just the antithesis of being
callous or anti-social.
If human life is a cycle childhood
is an important stage in that cycle. It
represents the most tender, formative
and impressionable stage of human
development. It is the stage for painting, sculpting, cartooning, clay modeling, singing, dancing and playing
as also learning a host of skills
including cognitive, affective and
psychomotor ones. It is certainly not
the stage for work, hard manual
work, arduous and dangerous work
and far less hazardous work.
Age an important determinant
The question is at what age a person
should enter the world of work and
at what age he/she should not? There
is a clear scientific rationale for fixing
a minimum age of entry to the world
of work in terms of physical or biological strength; mental soundness;
emotional maturity; awareness of the
consequences of such entry; ability to
face situations as they come; ability
to take management decisions.
It is obvious that a child below
the age of 14 will neither have that
physical energy, nor the mental and
emotional maturity nor the professional ability to grapple with situations as they come in a world of work
and overcome the challenges associated with that assignment.
It is against this background that
ILO Convention No 138 of 1973
exhorted the member states for fixing
a minimum age of entry to the world
of work in such a manner that a child
would be able to complete a minimum period of eight years of schooling by the time he/she was 15. It,
however, left considerable flexibility
for the member states that the minimum age of entry to the world of
work may be fixed depending on the
stage of social and economic development in a particular country.
Twenty six years later in June,
1999 the International Labour
Conference adopted Convention No
182 on elimination of the worst forms
of child labour such as child sex
abuse, child pornography (including
pornographic performances), child
drug trafficking, recruitment of children for war and such other practices
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as would adversely affect the health,
safety and morals of children.
For reasons not known the government has not ratified either of
these two conventions even though it
has ratified the Convention on the
Rights of the Child (CRC) adopted by
the General Assembly of UN on
November 20, 1989.
In India we do not have a single
omnibus law fixing a minimum age
of entry to the world of work on a
uniform basis throughout the country. While the minimum age of entry
to the world of work under the
Factories Act 1948, Plantation Labour
Act, 1951, Motor Transport Workers
Act 1961, Beedi and Cigar Workers
(conditions of employment & service) Act, 1966, Merchant Shipping
Act, 1958 and Child Labour
(Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986
is 14, it is 18 in Mines Act and
Building and other Construction
Works (Regulation of Employment &
Conditions of Service) Act. Under
Shops
and
Commercial
Establishments Acts in some of the
states, it was till recently less than 14.
These laws have been enacted at different points of time and it does not
appear if the said exercise was
backed by any scientific analysis of
the hazardous character of employment or the extent of hazard while
fixing a minimum age of entry to the
world of work.
Age of a child can be determined
with reference to the date of birth as
The State should
review the national
policy on elimination
of child labour adopted
in August 1987. This
policy smacks of
dualism. It seeks to
prohibit employment
of children in
hazardous work while
permitting child labour
in non-hazardous work.
It does not advocate
universal prohibition of
child labour. In the
wake of 86th
Amendment of the
Constitution in 2002
(arising out of the
judgement of the
Supreme Court in JP
Unnikrishnan vs state
of Andhra Pradesh in
1993) and insertion of
Article 21A in the
Constitution and also
the introduction of
in Parliament this
budget session, both
the Child labour
(Prohibition &
Regulation) Act and
national policy on
elimination of child
labour would need to
be replaced by a new
policy
105
recorded at the time of registration.
Births, however, are not universally
registered and notably in rural areas
even though Registration of Births
and Deaths Act has been on the
statute book since 1969. In that situation age is to be determined with reference to physical and mental
growth. Such growth is partly related
to genes and partly to nutrition.
According to the National Family
Health Survey III (2005-2006) 45 percent of the children below three years
in India are victims of malnutrition.
When these children grow up their
growth will be stunted or wasted.
Real growth in terms of age will be
substantially concealed. A boy or girl
of 18 will look like that of 12 only.
Age cannot, therefore, be easily correlated to growth.
Employers and in particular, the
callous and insensitive ones often
take advantage of this situation and
take a perverse stand that the child in
question was above 14 and cannot,
therefore, be brought within the
framework of law.
Cause and continuation
The phenomenon of child labour
could be attributed to the factors like
approach of the government; mindsets of parents/guardians; perceptions of civil society; and perceptions
of the working children themselves.
The state governments think and
believe that identifying children at
work, rescuing and releasing them
from hazardous work may adversely
affect the economic status of poor
households, the economy of the state,
apart from bringing a slur on administration.
Parents and guardians think that
in a scenario of large size of families
and poverty where additional
mouths have to be fed, employment
of children adds up to the limited
income of households and if children
are withdrawn from work flow of
this income will be adversely affected. Parents/guardians also justify
child labour on the ground of intergenerational transfer of skills. They
think and believe that children can
learn fast and in particular, learn the
family occupations best when they
are young. They should, therefore, be
trained in family occupations in
childhood instead of being sent to
school. Few hours at the work place,
106
according to them, is worth spending
years in school.
Employers think and believe that
children have nimble fingers and will
contribute to higher productivity,
that they will easily submit to
authority and will not drag employers to trade disputes. The civil society
draws a distinction between child
labour and exploitative child labour.
According to this perception child
labour per se is not bad; it is exploitative child labour which deserves to
be discouraged. Such a perception
was amply evident in the report of
MS Gurupadaswamy, former MP
Rajya Sabha and chairman of the
committee which was constituted by
the then Janata Dal government in
1979 and which submitted its report
to the government in 1981 advocating adoption of a dualistic approach
of prohibition and regulation to child
labour. While employment of children was to be prohibited in hazardous work, it was to be permitted
in non-hazardous work. The report
of the committee became the basis for
enactment
of
Child
Labour
(Prohibition & Regulation) Act in
1986 and adoption of a National
Policy on Elimination of Children in
August, 1987 later.
Working children sometimes
think and believe that their employment provides them an exposure to
the outside world and makes them
more productive; it enables them to
learn skills and enhances prospects
of their employability when they
cross the threshold of childhood and
enter adulthood. Besides, many of
them want to be on their own and
abhor dependence on parents for
meeting the cost of their education
when they are at school.
The more important question is
what should be the appropriate policy and strategy to be pursued by the
government at the centre and states
in the light of these opinions.
What is to be done
To start with, the central and state
governments need to adopt a strong
IEC package backed by an advocacy
programme to demystify/demolish
these mindsets. There is no basis for
the theory of incremental income
generation. Under the existing law
children if at all, can work only 50
percent of the working hours of an
adult and will be entitled to earn half
of the wages of an adult. In actual
practice, children are made to work
for much longer hours and what they
receive is a pittance (much less than
what the rule says).
Children are not adults and are
not expected to be members of a
trade union. The question of their
dragging or not dragging the
employers to trade disputes does not
arise; it is an ill-perceived notion.
Nowhere it has been conclusively
proved that children are more productive than adults merely because
they have nimble fingers. Nimble fin-
Nowhere it has
been conclusively
proved that
children are more
productive than
adults merely
because they have
nimble fingers.
Nimble fingers are
meant for reading,
writing and doing
arithmetic, for
painting, sculpting,
cartooning and not
for weaving durries
and carpets
gers are meant for reading, writing
and doing arithmetic, for painting,
sculpting, cartooning and not for
weaving durries and carpets.
The theory of transfer of intergenerational skill, if promoted would
promote caste based artificial social
division of labour. The son of a carpenter is not meant to be a carpenter,
so is the case with a cobbler, blacksmith or any other skilled professional. Skills can always be integrated
with education and are not to be pro-
moted at the cost of studies at a tender and formative stage of human
development.
It is illogical and irrational to
draw an artificial line of distinction
between child labour per se and
exploitative child labour. Every work
should be a source of excitement and
joy when (a) it is socially desirable (b)
there is a positive correlation
between the nature of work to be performed with age and strength of the
person performing it. This is what
has been clearly spelt out by Article
39(e) of the Constitution. Since children below the age of 14 would find
it difficult to decide what is hazardous and what is non-hazardous,
what is exploitative and what is nonexploitative, the State should take the
responsibility of facilitating their
access to the world of education
instead of permitting them to work
on the ground that the work was
non-hazardous and non-exploitative.
Such a policy would lead to a colossal waste of precious human resource
at a very formative and impressionable stage of their development.
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Secondly, the State should review
the national policy on elimination of
child labour adopted in August 1987.
This policy smacks of dualism. It
seeks to prohibit employment of children in hazardous work while permitting child labour in non-hazardous work. It does not advocate
universal prohibition of child labour.
In the wake of 86th Amendment of
the Constitution in 2002 (arising out
of the judgement of the Supreme
Court in JP Unnikrishnan vs state of
Andhra Pradesh in 1993) and insertion of Article 21A in the Constitution
and also the introduction of Right to
Education Bill in Parliament this
budget session, both the Child labour
(Prohibition & Regulation) Act and
national policy on elimination of
child labour would need to be
replaced by a new policy. The new
policy should advocate universal
prohibition of all forms of child
labour and access to and retention of
all children in formal system of education with full participation and
achievement of minimum levels of
leaving (in arithmetic, mother tongue
and social sciences). In the new dispensation (when the Right to
Education Bill comes in Parliament)
it will be illogical and irrational to
say that only few children who are in
the work/employment of a prohibited category will be entitled to free,
compulsory and universal education
after being released from work
and
children
who
are
in
work/employment in the non-hazardous category will continue to
work and can at best receive non-formal education.
Thirdly, a policy of holistic development of the child as a tender
human resource should go side by
side with (a) fixing a minimum age of
entry to the world of work (b) protection of human rights and (c) building
a solid foundation of social justice
and equity. Such holistic development would imply waging a war
against sex determination tests
(amniocentesis), foeticide, female
infanticide, discrimination against
girls and women and positive and
proactive policy towards elimination
of girl child labour backed by universal enrolment and retention of girls
in the formal school system; primary
health care including immunisation;
waging a war against infant and
child mortality; against malnutrition;
promoting food security; and advocating environmental hygiene and
sanitation.
Free and compulsory education
phased out child labour in many
countries including the erstwhile
USSR (now the Russian Federation);
USA; UK; Japan; North & South
Korea; Taiwan; Peoples' Republic of
China; and many countries of
European Union. A number of steps
would be needed to make free, compulsory and universal education a
reality such as school mapping -- all
UPE & UEE schools should be located within one kilometre of the habitat; school architecture - well-lit and
ventilated large size rooms; a sylvan
surrounding for the school premises
-- school playground, garden, a safe,
clean and congenial environment
where the children will feel at home;
good quality blackboard, roller
board, slate, pencil, chalk, duster,
charts, posters (well visualised and
well illustrated, IEC materials); curriculum, course content and textual
materials, which are need based i.e.
attuned to the needs of day to day
life of parents and children to be
designed through participative and
communicative workshops of creative thinkers, writers and artists.
A participative and communicative teachers' training to sensitise and
professionalise school teachers,
orient them to value education and
inculcation of a new ethos and
culture of accountability among
teachers.
The end result of all this is to how
to make education joyous, exciting,
interesting, relevant and worthwhile
and creation of a learning society
which is also rational, secular and
scientific. Eventually elimination of
child labour coupled with free and
compulsory education together
should be viewed as human rights
issues and not trade or commerce
related issues. It is not poverty
which contributes to child labour but
child labour which creates and perpetuates poverty and therefore, elimination of child labour should pave
the way for elimination of poverty
and deprivation.
–The writer is a special
rapporteur with National
Human Rights Commission
107
W
hy disabled children stay
out?
Children with disabilities have
been for ages kept out of the classrooms of the general school system.
In most countries, the school system
for children with special needs has
run parallel to the general school system with little understanding
between the two. On the whole it has
been agreed that children with disabilities are perhaps the largest
group who are out of schools in
almost all the countries of the world.
In 2006, the UN special report on
the right to education stated "while
the net enrolment rate in the primary
education in the developing world
has now increased to 86 percent over
all regions, estimates of the number
of children with disabilities attending school in developing countries
range from less than one percent to
five percent". Literacy rate for disabled women is one percent, as compared to an estimate of about three
percent of persons with disabilities
as a whole -- a reflection of the difficult road ahead in educating the disabled.
Concept of inclusive education
The concept and philosophy of inclusive education have evolved as result
of the discussions and questions
regarding the education of children
with disabilities and the disability
rights movement. It has been impacted by the international recognition of
education for all policy and the
acknowledgement of the human
rights.
The disability movement over the
last century has evolved dramatically. From a time in which children
with disabilities were locked away
Neglecting the disabled
Children with disabilities are regularly edged out of an
education system that is averse to acknowledge diversity.
Inclusion and 'eudcation for all' may be the key words in
India's current education policy, but will we find new
ways to look at the different needs of society's disabled,
asks Ravi Shankar Bhushan
108
and shunned from the society, India
is now accepting that those with disabilities have the same rights as the
rest of the population. This shift in
attitude is reflected in not only the
law, but also in the emergence of special needs schools. However, this
movement is not complete. There are
still many issues faced by the disabled that must be addressed in
order to ensure equal opportunities
for them in all aspects of life, especially education.
With this movement for equal
rights of those with disabilities,
many questions have arisen, most
commonly the question of what
defines a disability? A disability is
not just a deficit of a limb, motor ability, or cognition, and cannot be
defined in a percentage. Surely a
child with a hearing impairment of a
loss of 59 decibels is entitled to the
same special education facilities as a
child who has lost "sixty decibels or
more in the better ear in the conversational range of frequencies" as outlined by the Persons with Disabilities
(Equal Opportunities, protection of
Rights and Full Participation) Act,
1995.
On the positive side, this question
about what constitutes a disability
has highlighted the recognition for
equality for the disabled. Moreover,
the movement has put persons with
disabilities at the centre of the development process as active and important partners rather than passive
recipients.
In India, policy development has
been extremely positive for the education of children with disabilities.
Legally speaking
Even before the constitutional
amendment that gave every child the
right to free elementary education,
disabled students already got this
benefit within The Persons with
Disability Act, 1995.
Section 26A, under the chapter on
education in the Act states, "The
appropriate governments and the
local authorities shall ensure that
every child with a disability has
excess to free education in an appropriate environment till he/she attains
the age of 18 years."
Unlike the constitutional amendment, the law does not limit the right
from six to 14 years. Instead it gives
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the disabled student the right from 0
to 18 years of age.
The 2006 policy for persons with
disabilities promises that a) Every
child with disability has an access to
appropriate pre-school, primary and
secondary level education by 2020. b)
Three percent reservation for persons
with disabilities in admission to
higher educational institutions shall
be enforced. c) Special emphasis on
making
schools
(buildings,
approaches, toilets, playgrounds,
laboratories, libraries etc.) barrier
free and accessible for all types of
disability.
Apart from this the Act promises
curriculum adaptation and support
in education with a special emphasis
on educating girls with disabilities.
Meanwhile, the national curriculum framework review of 2005, the
most definitive review of the education system in our country, has for
the first time included a separate
chapter on the status of children with
disabilities within the education system. At the implementation level, the
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the
flagship programme of the Indian
government on education, has the
specific aim to include children with
disabilities in the government school
system. Of the six major objectives of
the SSA is bridging all gender and
social category gaps at the primary
stage by 2007 and the elementary
stage by 2010. This goal includes the
girl child, children from the Schedule
Castes, Schedule Tribes and children
with disabilities.
Despite strong policy endorsements and increasing statistics on the
enrolment of children with disabilities in the government school system,
it is apparent that there is very little
documentation and analysis of the
participation of children with disabilities within the school system.
Very little is known about the experiences of such students in government schools, including how teachers involve them in the learning process and how the school accommodates their needs.
Inclusion involves processes that
must be fundamentally changed
within the system for it to be successful. It involves "changes and modification in content, approaches, structures and strategies with a common
vision that covers all children of the
Despite
strong policy
endorsements and
increasing statistics
on the enrolment of
children with
disabilities in the
government school
system, it is
apparent that there
is very little
documentation and
analysis of the
participation of
children with
disabilities within
the school system.
Very little is known
about the
experiences of such
students in
government
schools, including
how teachers
involve them in the
learning process
and how the school
accommodates
their needs
109
appropriate age group and a conviction that it is the responsibility of the
regular system to educate all children".
(UNESCO
Conceptual
Paper, 2003).
Since inclusion is a process and a
philosophy, it is important that we
constantly review children within
the system to understand the ways in
which the system support and often
fails children with disabilities.
Factors of access
There are many factors that can affect
the participation of a disabled child
in the learning process. Within the
school, the curriculum and how it is
taught is known to have a profound
affect on the retention of the child in
the school system. Factors of accessibility become important to students
with disabilities, as do the attitudes
of peers and teachers. The adequate
supply of teaching aids that are disability specific such as Braille, or
affirmative action in exams and subjects can make all the difference for
the child.
The knowledge and attitudes of
teachers and parents are equally
important which is reflected in the
following Salamanca statement, SSA,
and all other policy statements that
recognise the importance of parents
in the education of children with special needs. "The education of children
with special educational needs is a
shared task of parents and professionals. A positive attitude on the
part of parents favours school and
social integration. Parents need support in order to assume the role of a
child with special needs."
Parents who support the schooling of those with disabilities result in
higher attendance levels, improvements in punctuality, provision of
learning resources or securing of
school premises, and repairs of
school infrastructure and furniture.
(Pg 40, child friendly and inclusive
for All?)
Often when we think of children
with disabilities we tend to focus on
factors related to the deficit of the
child. However, we cannot forget the
relationship between disability and
poverty and those most disabled students will belong to the poorest families in a community. Off the six hundred million people with disability in
the world, over 70 percent live in the
110
Factors of
accessibility become
important to students
with disabilities, as
do the attitudes of
peers and teachers.
The adequate supply
of teaching aids that
are disability specific
such as Braille,
or affirmative action
in exams and subjects
can make all
the difference
for child
developing world. Eighty two percent of these live below poverty line.
The World Bank estimates that twenty percent of people with disability
are poorest of the poor. Disability is
both a cause and consequence of
poverty. Researches in rural India
reveal families with disabled members are poorer than those without
disabled members. They have lower
total assets, smaller holdings and
larger debts. (ERB and Harriss white; outcaste form social welfare;
2002)
The national focus on systemic
reform for curriculum change
(National Curriculum Framework
Review 2005) recognises that many
poor students are first generation
learners. The school system is intimidating and un-welcoming for these
learners and their family situation
puts them at further disadvantage.
Children find it difficult to cope and
are humiliated to be as slow learners,
and are classified as non-achievers.
In India, the majority of students
with disabilities are first generation
learners, and at this point in education history, they have to contend
with the fact that they are entering
the first generation of accessible
schools in the country.
Role of UNCRPD
Recently the UN Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities
(UNCRPD) was held which provided
a holistic and comprehensive
approach to disability rights for all
affected. Thirty articles outline the
various rights of those who are disabled, in particular interest are
Articles 7 and 24 relating to rights of
a disabled child and the right to education.
Article 24 outlines that state parties shall ensure that 1. Persons with disabilities are not
excluded from the general education
system on the basis of disability, and
that children with disabilities are not
excluded from free and compulsory
primary
education,
or
from
secondary education on the basis of
disability.
2. Persons with disabilities can
access an inclusive, quality and free
primary education and secondary
education on an equal basis with
others in the communities in which
they live.
3. Reasonable accommodation of
the individual's requirements is
provided.
4. Persons with disabilities
receive the support required, within
the general education system, to
facilitate their effective education.
5. Effective individualised support measures are provided in environments that maximise academic
and social development, consistent
with the goal of full inclusion.
Article 7 importantly outlines,
"in all actions concerning children
with disabilities, the best interests of
the child shall be a primary consideration."
The UN thus have made it very
cleat that a child centred approach to
providing disabled children with
quality and free primary education
should be the approach taken by the
State for special needs education.
The UNCPD has recently been
ratified by India. However, the next
stage involved in the disability
movement involves the implementation of this Act to make the disability
movement progress to its maximum
potential. In terms of strategies, programmess, and planning for inclusive education we need to keep all
these factors mentioned in mind as
these issues are equally relevant to
children with disabilities, as they are
to all children.
–The writer is senior program
officer, Human Rights Law Network
Tender voices from the margins
Children from various states and voluntary organisations narrate before the judges
their harrowing experiences of how at such a tender age they were exploited as
child labourers instead of holding books and pens in hands. They also speak about
the dismal conditions of schools in their villages.
Pragya: My name is Pragya. I study in class VIII and have come from Hyderabad. My mother was
working for a family before she died of cancer. My father had also passed away earlier. So the
employer asked me to continue to work in my mother's place. I was five years old when I was
enrolled for work. I escaped from the house twice or thrice but was always brought back. But as I
grew older the family told me that I did not have to work for them anymore. They sent me to a
place where they thought I had come from and I started working for an old man there. I was very
badly treated by the old man who used to beat me with a belt regularly for not performing well.
When the old man fell sick an NGO volunteer got in touch with me who said that I had an opportunity to study. But the tyrant employer would not let go of me. However, my determination paid and I went and
joined the bridge course camp of the MV Foundation. I studied in the camp for a year and passed the Class VII board
exam and am now in Class VIII studying in a government hostel. I got admission in a government residential school
but the authorities there said they required a caste certificate and as I did not know how to obtain one I lost that
opportunity.
Vijay: My name is Vijay. I am studying in class VIII and I am enrolled in a public school in Delhi.
Before this I used to stay at the New Delhi Railway Station where I was addicted to drugs and carried out petty anti-social activities such as stealing etc. This was about six years back. I have been
to all the government observation homes and my entire childhood has been spent like this. I
always had a will to study but did not get an opportunity to turn my dreams into reality. Facing
difficulties everywhere I finally found an opportunity to study which came by a stroke of luck.
Initially, the children and teachers at the school used to look at me very differently thinking that I
and many more like me were street children and what kind of habits we would have. But the outlook changed once we worked hard and gave good results. Earlier we did not have an aim in life but now we do and
want to do well.
Sandeep: My name is Sandeep and I have come from Maharashtra. I want to tell you about the situation of education in my village in Melghat. The first thing that we see in our village is that there
is a lot of difference between the tribal children studying in government schools and the children
being educated in private schools. It is to be seen that in government schools, despite the fact that
the children are Class X pass-outs, they cannot read and write properly and cannot speak English
whereas a Class V student in a private school can speak in English with much fluency. I study in
Class IX at Ghari in a government school. We do not have concrete buildings and during the monsoons the structures disintegrate. Neither we have furniture to sit at nor do we have proper drinking water facilities. We do not have toilets either. A lot of government officials come and ask us
what problems we face. We tell them everything but to no avail. We do have teachers who teach well but the fact that
all the students from Class I to V sit together means that the teacher cannot give proper attention to each class. We
have 24-25 teachers in our school which is a district level high school.
Poonam: My name is Poonam Dwayre. I am currently studying in Class VII and come from district Jalaun in Uttar Pradesh. There is a primary school up to class V in my village. There is no middle school not only in my village but in the nearby villages also. We have to travel five kilometers
to go to the senior school in the Padampura village. My school has no classrooms and we sit under
a canopy getting drenched during the rains. There is no separate toilet for girls in my school and
thus, my sisters and I have to go out in the open to urinate. As a result, girls do not come to school
and sit at home after passing Class V. In our region there is no residential inter college. There are
places like Mirzapur where there are schools which do not have teachers for the last five years. If
a residential girls inter college is opened in Bail district then the future of girls like me would brighten up. I want to
study and become a doctor but with so many difficulties how can I fulfill my dream?
Anonymous: I stayed in a government home but I could not study properly there. The food quality was so bad that
even on seeing it I felt like running away. I was there for five-six years. Then I came to Aman Biradari, an NGO where
I met a very good worker with whose guidance I performed well in studies. He enrolled me in class X with National
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111
Institute
(NIOS).
of
Open
Schooling
Avinash:
My
name is Avinash
Kumar and I am
from Bihar. My
school does not
have
proper
drinking water
and toilet facilities. There is no concrete roof and
we have to bear the scorching heat
in summers. Since not many children come to school, all the classes
are held in one big hall. There are
300 students in one class and students have to jostle for space.
Jackie: My name is Jackie. I ran
away from home but was put in a
juvenile home. I saw many children being severely beaten in front
of my eyes in the juvenile home. If
one boy did wrong, all the boys
were beaten. Four-five guards
would accompany us to school to
prevent us from running away.
Nobody guided us in studies. I
have spent time in the shelter
homes of many voluntary organisations but was never provided
with proper education. As a result,
I ran away and started living at the
railway station. But there I became
addicted to substance abuse. Then I
met a social worker who told me
that if I continued to live like this I
would die by the time I turn 30.
Now I am doing my class X
through the NIOS.
Anonymous: In the governmentrun juvenile homes children are
always kept locked inside. Maybe
they care for the children but why
are they locked up? The place
where I live is also run by an
organisation but we have independence. We read and write there.
Even if we make big mistakes
nobody beat us. Whereas, in government homes the children feel
that they have been incarcerated. It
is my request that you take care of
the children. Their future is in your
hands. If you will not look after
them, who will? They just need
support. A lot of children can do a
lot in life. ■
112
L Joshi
D
he Nuapada district in Orissa has
been hogging the limelight for all
the wrong reasons -- for its droughts,
famine conditions, starvation deaths
etc. But the issue that has indiscriminately affected the district administration and people as a whole is that
of migration. Nuapada is a very
small area that was carved out of the
Kalahandi district in the Kolapur
region in 1993. The total population
of the district is 5,30,000, of which 35
percent belongs to the Scheduled
Tribes, constituting the majority, 14
percent belongs to the Scheduled
Castes population and 17 percent to
the OBCs. The level of poverty in the
district at the time it was created was
86.77 percent. This has since reduced,
on a minor scale, to 78 percent. From
this western part of Orissa, thousands of families normally migrate to
the brick kilns of Andhra Pradesh
and
to
the
farmhouses
of
Chhattisgarh, Surat and Mumbai, to
work in rear sectors seasonally.
Loka Drishti, a not-for-profit
organisation is working in Nuapada,
advocating and instigating many
forums at the district level. The district administration, however, contends that migration is a positive
indicator for the people in the region.
It must be understood that this is not
voluntary migration, this is distressed migration.
Last year, the district administration of Nuapada conducted a study
into the patterns of migration that
resulted in some very interesting
findings. It discovered that approximately 30,000 people migrated last
year alone. That year was a normal
year, i.e., there was no drought. Of
the 30,000, 50 percent were STs,
approximately 41 percent were OBCs
and SCs constituted 9.24 percent. The
district administration was finally
compelled to acknowledge the fact
that migration is a real grave issue in
the district. A further shocking result
of the finding was that infants (10.41
percent) and child labour (12.66 per-
T
istressed
isplaced
e-schooled
cent) constituted around 23 percent
of the total migration. Distressed
migration constituted around 88 percent of the total group migration.
These distressed labourers migrated
not for a better standard of living but
just to earn a square meal. With the
beginning of the harvesting season in
the months of October and
November, they migrate to different
places and return by early monsoons.
One of the casualties of this seasonal mass migration is the high
dropout rate of children from
schools. Children accompany their
parents when they migrate. Further,
children are preferred in the brick
kiln sector because of their little
frame, they are given jobs like to collect bricks and arrange them.
Moreover, it is a global phenomenon
that children are cheaper to employ
than their adult folks and because of
these advantages they are preferred
by the employers. Families are
bound by an advance capital amount
to work at the principal agrarian festivals in other parts of the country
and children have to migrate with
their parents. There is no provision
of education in the working place
and children remain out of school for
a period of six to seven months.
According to the District Primary
Education Programme (DPEP)
Survey of Orissa for year 2003, 65.68
percent of children were out of
school in the district. However, in
2008, the government claimed that
the number of out-of-school children
had fallen to 32.32 percent. It is probable that the statistics did not include
the 12 percent of children in the district who migrate annually and who
are essentially dropouts. This is a
serious issue and must be viewed
very critically.
The conditions in the government
schools in the district are abysmal.
Even with the intervention of the
DPEP, primary education in rural
areas is below standard. Loka Drishti
has witnessed that the demand is
being generated from the community
for better services but there is no
reciprocity and no infrastructure
support to accommodate that
demand. Law is there in letters and
enforcement agencies exist but there
is no proper implementation. The
level of migration in the district is
huge but there is no visibility of the
district level officer in the area. The
most absurd thing is that on record
there is no migration from the district. If the government is not able to
tackle, check or at least reduce this
migration, there should at least be a
provision for the migrating people.
They should be facilitated to migrate
on record so that they can receive the
rightful due as per the Interstate
Migration Act.
In one village that Loka Drishti
visited in the accessible pocket of
Nuapada district, Soravadu plateau,
the school building had collapsed
and the roof had been taken away.
About 40-50 children, with their bags
hung on their shoulders, were found
waiting for the teacher to come. The
school was in an impossible condition to accommodate children. It had
not been used for months; there was
cow dung and other filth lying inside
the school and inappropriate writing
was on the school blackboard. When
asked about the teacher, the children
responded that the teacher never
comes to school. They rarely saw the
teacher but one young member of the
community had taken it upon himself to gather the children and walk
them to the school veranda. This was
the classroom used by these village
children and the practice had been
ongoing
for
many
months.
Surprisingly, the boy in question
does not take any money, he believes
that it is his social commitment and
social priority to teach the children
and out of this he just manages his
meal out of the mid-day meal system. This is the scheme of things in
the rural areas and there is a lot of
dichotomy and irrationality between
the urban and rural areas as far as the
school infrastructure is concerned, as
far as teachers in position are concerned and many other factors.
Loka Drishti took all these factors
into consideration and with the intervention of a funding partner America
India Foundation, in the year 200405, experimented with the idea of
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residential care centres for the children of migrant labourers. The
experiment was implemented in only
seven villages of the seven most
migration-prone districts. The children of migrant labourers stayed in
the residential care centres for sixseven months and attended a day
school in a local village. The first year
was very successful and so the model
was replicated by the DPEP in 200506 in 16 other villages in the adjoining blocks successfully. Parents were
leaving their children in the care centres and returning later to receive
them. A bridge course and preparatory school were also provided to the
children who were not living in the
residential care centres and those
who continued to accompany their
parents. In the year 2006-07, this was
accepted as model for the whole district. The DPEP people directly
implemented the residential care
centres and hostels for the migrant
children; NGOs also assisted; the
block resource centre coordinator
(BRCC) and the cluster resource centre coordinator (CRCC) implemented
the model very successfully in all the
blocks of the district. Unfortunately,
this year the model was subject to
some confusion and delay. The opening of the school year is always crucial because the migration starts in
the month of October-November
soon after the harvesting season is
over. As per the usual practice, the
authorities gave verbal orders that
the NGOs and the BRCC may start
the centres. The Joint Director came
to the districts and in the presence of
the District Coordinator directed all
the NGOs verbally to start the centres and at this time the centres were
reopened by Loka Drishti and other
NGOs also. However, in January The
Orissa
Primary
Education
Programme Authority (OPEPA)
decided that NGOs would no longer
be entrusted with the responsibility
of running the residential care
Centres (RCCs) but that BRCCs,
CRCCs and the DPEP would run it
directly. This institutionalisation of
the model by the government would
have been welcomed had it not
occurred 3-4 months into the school
year. Loka Drishti organised district
level rallies and more than 700 children participated in a peaceful
demonstration on the 30 January.
They handed a memorandum to the
District Administrator and to the
Collectorate with a three-fold
demand. The first demand was for
the immediate release of funds that
had not been released properly in the
previous years, which amounted to
thirty lac rupees for the Loka Drishti
share. The second demand was the
reimbursement of all expenditure for
the current year until January 31.
The third demand was that in the
first week of February the model
would be transferred to DPEP and
the DPEP was bound to accept all the
children of the RCC, the parents having already migrated to different
states. All three demands were
accepted.
Despite the district collector
agreeing to these demands, there
were still many problems. The DPEP
and
the
Village
Education
Committees (VECs) were not mentally prepared to accept the responsibility so abruptly which resulted in
much confusion. In Amguda village,
an assessment carried out by Loka
Drishti showed that there were
eighty children in the village but the
DPEP refused to qualify the village
for an RCC. These 80 children had to
forcefully submitted to the care of
relatives as their parents had migrated 3-4 months previously. A further
example is the village of Dabri where
17 children had been in RCCs. The
113
parents of eight children returned to
the village for health reasons but 9
children remained in need of care.
The DPEP said that they could not
qualify Dabri village because eight
children is too few a number to
necessitate the running of a RCC.
Even when the DPEP did takeover
the administration of the RCCs there
were issues. A girl named
Lacchamani Majhi fell ill in a centre
in Khariar block on February 2, 2009.
There was no response from the VEC
or from the BRCC and she was not
taken care of. After three or four days
the information came to Loka Drishti
who immediately intervened. She
was in a very critical stage of health
and was hospitalised. After treatment, she was stabilised and
returned to her village.
There are certain issues with the
RCCs that must be raised. The RCCs
are replicated models regulated at
different villages but they are run in
the village cluster wise and when it
accommodates many children on a
residential basis, the infrastructural
necessities such as electricity, drinking water, boundary wall, toilets etc,
must at least be created at the central
level centre school so that it can easily and comfortably accommodate the
children. Another issue is the huge
invisible child labour force that is
neither taken in the account of the
receiving nor sending state. Surveys
should be conducted to include these
nowhere children into the data so
that the DPEP data can be corrected
and they be included meaningfully
into the statistics. A final issue, evident in the neighbouring district of
Behrampur, which is also plagued by
this problem of migration, was the
strategic closure last year of all the
RCCs in favour of a large RCC. When
the RCCs were running on a small
scale of 7-10 children in a village
there were few problems but when it
was replicated on a huge scale more
problems emerged. The necessity of
RCCs on a large scale translates as
mass migration of parents. The people are migrating due to a lack of
infrastructure and support programmes in the area which are factors needed in running an RCC, particularly on a large-scale.
Multitasking teachers
he
Sarva
Shiksha
himself engaged in maintainAbhiyan commenced in
ing all the records. He has to
Uttarakhand in the year
keep records regarding the
2000. It is a time bound and
programmes namely, continambitious programme that
uous and comprehensive
aims to meet certain objecevaluation
programmes,
tives in the proposed durateacher diaries, preparation
tion, including 100 percent
of data and information, etc.
enrollment and retention;
addition to working on
Anil Nautiyal In
secondly, the completion of
education related governqualitative elementary education for ment projects, teachers are often
the age groups 6-14 before 2010; and expected to conduct other governthirdly, to remove the social conflicts ment duties such as election tasks.
from active participation of the com- These "official" responsibilities occumunity in the school management. py them throughout the day and he
Further provisions govern the num- or she is left with little time for teachber of teachers to be supplied allowing. Single teacher schools run a high
ing a single teacher for 40 students in risk of being closed as a result of the
the state primary schools and three excessive non-teaching related workteachers for 100 students in the upper load. When the teacher is finally free
primary schools.
from all these activities, how can he
In Uttarakhand, the majority of or she be capable of completing the
primary and upper primary schools syllabus in the limited time availare in deep and remote areas. There able? The quality of the education
is a single teacher arrangement in 17 provided diminishes and it is the
percent of the 12,684 state primary children who suffer most.
schools. In upper primary schools
Despite these disruptions to their
the figure is 2.5 percent, 116 schools schooling, both the teacher and the
out of 4,599 schools in the state.
students are expected to participate
The serious question that arises is in the evaluation process. Students
how can a single teacher manage or are examined in all their subjects in
conduct the aim of quality education one day and the teacher is expected
in the state primary or upper prima- to grade the exams that same day as
ry schools under the prestigious gov- demanded by the school grading sysernment project when the teacher is tem. These exams include monthly
T
with Loka Drishti, Orissa
114
tests, half yearly and annual tests,
project tests and practical exams.
Under the National Elementary
Education Vision (NEEV) programme, the teacher is required to
compile a report with a pre test and
post test held in school with the
proper documentation and formalities for presentation to the Cluster
Resource Centre (CRC) Coordinator.
Teachers are also obliged to identify
weaker students in the school,
through evaluation, and provide
remedial teaching to such students in
addition to their responsibilities to
the other students. These are all timeconsuming tasks. Teachers are also
required to evaluate programmes
such as the Computer Aided
Learning programme(CAL), MidDay Meal Scheme(MDM), Room
Training Programme, Inclusive
Education Programme (IE), National
Programme for Education of Girls at
Elementary
level,
Community
Training
programme,
Cluster
Resource Group (CRG), Block
Resource Group (BRG), District
Resource Group (DRG) community
programmes etc. that are followed in
Uttarakhand under the SSA.
Teachers are also subject to evaluations from Village Education
Committees
(VEC),
School
Management Committees (SMC) and
the Mother Teacher Association
(MTA). It is impossible for an individual to be expected to complete all
these tasks and also teach a full curriculum?
In my own research, which is
supported by the government, I have
discovered that on average, teachers
spend 173 days a year conducting
non-teaching activities. A teacher
spends a minimum of 20-30 days on
Seva Shiksha Prashikshan, a minimum of five days on Bal Ganana, at
least two days on VEC and each year
they must conduct a census of all the
children in the age group 6-14 in the
community, which can take up to ten
days. Teachers need to spend more
time teaching and less time working
on government projects. It is imperative that teachers are spared of additional work to ensure quality education for children.
–The writer is an educationist
from Tehri, Garhwal
www.combatlaw.org
School development &
monitoring committees
ommunity participation
arate kind of government
began in Karnataka after
order or as a parallel institua government circular in
tion. The SDMCs should be
1988. The opportunity was
part of the Panchayati Raj
given to elected representaprocess. A draft of a model
tives, politicians, the local
by-laws to encourage comSarpanchs and such people
munity participation was creto air their opinions but
ated and submitted to
no forum was provided to
Kumaraswamy the National Law School
parents who were sendand disseminated to uniing their children to school. There versities and NGOs across the state
was no space provided for parents to for their comments and suggestions.
be involved in decision-making relat- The model by-law was approved by
ing to the schooling process. the state government in June 2006.
Subsequently, the circular was modiThe model by-laws were chalfied and the only major change was lenged in the Karnataka High Court
that one parent was given represen- by the people who had been acting as
tation. However, this representative presidents of the SDMCs and earlier
was to be locally elected and this led school management committees but
to political interference at the school
level. The council continued to represent the people from the upper castes
and also the people who were economically powerful, still not allowing ordinary parents a say.
In 1990 an education task force
was created to examine all the issues
related to universalisation of education. The task force made a recommendation to replace the existing village education committees with the
school development and monetary
committees (SDMC). This led to a
paradigm shift in the entire process
of community participation. From
2001, in each school, a nine-member
parents' council was constituted.
This council is the highest supreme
body in the entire legislative process.
The positions are elected and of the the high court upheld that opportunine members, three must be women nities should be given to the parents
--one must be from a scheduled of school-going children. It is very
caste, one from a ST, one from a important to understand that these
minority -- and the remaining three model by-laws give complete power
places are general categories. All the to the community to participate at all
members of the council must be par- levels of schooling. In fact, they have
ents of school-going children. This is even given power to sanction four
to ensure social justice and commu- days leave to a teacher. The model
nity participation. One of the mem- by-laws are succeeding in their aim
bers is to be elected as president for to devolve power to the people in the
the entire SDMC.
community and to activate the panThe aim is to integrate the school chayats local governance.
development and monitoring committees with the panchayat institu–The writer is convener of the
tions. They should not work as a sepCoordination Forum, Karnataka
C
115
Goa Children's Act
Desmond D'Costa
Here floats the hope
Judge, Goa Children's Court
oa is the only state that has
passed a law and has declared
the Covenant on the Rights of the
Child, which India is party to, as the
law of the state. The Goa Children's
Act is a unique piece of legislation
that, if engaged with by the activists
and those who are connected with
the children's rights in different parts
of the country, can help the initiation
of the law to strengthen the rights of
children. One of the major problems
facing child rights' activists is that
there is no consistent definition of a
child in the laws enforced in India.
This can lead to confusion as to
which law has precedence. The Goa
Children's Act, for example, defines
the child as a person who has not
completed 18 years of age. However,
if an offence of rape is committed, the
Act defines a child as a person who
has not completed 16 years of age.
This discrepancy arises because
under Section 375 of the IPC, the concept of statutory rape is defined as
when intercourse is done with a
female under the age of 16 years,
with or without her consent. The
result is that if a 17 years old girl is
raped in Goa, she is not protected by
the Goa Children's Act.
The Juvenile Justice Act ensures
that all alleged criminal offences
committed by juveniles are examined
before the Juvenile Justice Board
throughout the state of India. The
Goa Children's Act has broadened
this idea by creating the Children's
Court. Any offences committed
against children, whether it is murder, rape or any criminal offence
under any law, will be tried by the
children's court in the coastal state.
The Goa Children's Act has also
expanded on the IPC and other Acts
which make certain actions offences
and has added to the list of offences
executable against children. Child
abuse is one such offence. It is not
defined in any other law but the Goa
G
116
Children's Act defines child abuse
making it a criminal offence to mistreat children or commit any form of
abuse against a child, be it sexual
abuse, physical abuse, emotional
abuse etc.
A further offence included in the
Goa Children's Act is that of grave
sexual assault, i.e., a sexual offence
against a child. While the offence of
rape is dealt with under the IPC, it is
primarily limited to adult intercourse
and does not adequately consider
offences against children. The Act,
however, uses a concept of grave sexual assault that includes intercourse
of any kind. It is a very wide, liberal
concept. There are specific offences
detailed in the Goa Children's Act
but it also empowers the court to try
all offences whether they are in the
Act or under any other law. The only
issue that arises is when an offence of
rape is committed. In these cases, the
children's court turns to the judgements of the Supreme Court and the
High Court on the question of rape
and is able to make use of the same
principles while applying it to the
understanding of the offences under
the Goa Children's Act.
The Act further recognises that a
child, when he or she comes to court,
has to undergo again the trauma
which he or she already underwent
during the incident. For this reason
there is a deviation from the general
procedure of law in the Act. When a
child is brought into the court to
depose, the law itself provides, by
the statutory provisions made, that
the child shall not be exposed to the
presence of the accused. Therefore,
video conferencing is availed of in
order that the accused may not come
into sight of the victim. In addition,
when a child comes into the court,
he/she is brought in through a separate entrance and a curtain is drawn.
The advocate, the public prosecutor
and the judge sit on one side of the
curtain while the child and the
accused sits behind the curtain. The
victim, during his or her deposition,
does not have to view the accused.
Another child-friendly provision in
the Act is that the cross-examination
of children can be controlled by the
court. It is well-known that crossexamination can be a highly pressurised experience and often witnesses, and in particular children,
can break down in such situations.
Allowing the court to control the
cross-examination protects the child
from undue stress.
A further child-friendly and
important provision is regarding
burden of proof. This is the first law
in the country where the burden of
proof is placed on the accused with
certain provisos. If the child was in
the custody of the accused during the
commission of the offence, the burden of proving that he did not commit the offence is on the accused.
This matter was challenged before
the Bombay High Court of Goa but
thereafter the High Court, keeping in
mind the objectives of the Act, advocated to return the petition. The Goa
bench with the Bombay High Court
held that this provision is not in
breach of law because it is made
specifically to enforce the rights of
children. This goes completely
against general law as the accused is
always presumed innocent until he is
proven guilty beyond reasonable
doubt. The Goa Children's Act sets a
new precedent that is fair and suitable to children.
Under the Indian Evidence Act
every witness is a competent witness.
However, the delicacy of the situation must be taken into consideration whenever a child comes to the
court. There have been cases in the
children's court where children of
just five years of age have been victims of rape. Such situations are very
difficult and challenging because
under the Indian law, oath is not to
be taken by children below the age of
12 years. It is only after finding the
competency of the witness that he or
she will be able to take the oath.
The Goa Children's Act is
designed to protect children as far as
possible. As a provision of this, the
name of the victim is not mentioned
in any of the judgements. The court is
constantly in contact with the media
to prevent them from publishing any
details, which could lead to the identity of the child being revealed. The
preamble of the Goa Children's Act
highlights the Act's protective
nature. It is "an Act to protect, promote and preserve the best interests
of children in Goa and to create a
society that is proud to be childfriendly".
Much was achieved under the
covenant of the Rights of the Child,
which was adopted by the United
Nations in 1989, and to which India
is a signatory, but the protection of
children's rights is an ongoing process and the Goa Children's Act is
just one step along the way. The Act
should be implemented nationwide,
across all states. The protection of
child rights is a mission, which has
been set, and it has only just begun.
The Act came into force in Goa on
April 7, 2003 but even before that,
much had been achieved under the
covenant of the Rights of Child and
the process in still ongoing. ■
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Musahar Tribe in Bihar
Aliens within the marginalised
t is a matter of embarrassment that even today education is inaccessible to the
children of the Musahar tribe
in Bihar. The other backward
castes in Bihar have been
engaging in particular occupations for generations but
this is not the case with the
people of the Musahar Akshay
tribe. The community does not follow any traditional occupation. To
date, there has been no research or
study on the conditions of this particular tribe. Whenever there is a discussion among intellectuals, about
the scheduled castes and tribes of
Bihar, the Musahar tribe is never
mentioned. There is a large population of this tribe in the villages and
districts of Bihar and they are facing
many obstacles. Schools have been
set up for the children in the backward areas of Bihar through various
government schemes and policies
but these are unknown to the people
of the Musahar tribe. The social and
geographical factors make these
schools inaccessible to them. Thus,
geographical inaccessibility is one of
the major reasons for education
being out of their reach. Moreover,
the people of this tribe are apprehensive about the teachers, the facilities
of these schools and the kind of treatment that would be meted out to
I
their children by the children
of other castes. All these factors must be borne in mind
to allow education to penetrate down to all the backward castes of the society.
It is heart-rending that
the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
and other schemes have
Kumar long lists of successful
endeavours on paper but in reality,
much of the most needed work is not
undertaken and backward tribes like
the Musahar tribe continue to remain
deprived of the benefits of the government education schemes. The
evaluation reports are not available
and there is no administrative and
financial accountability. Though pots
of money are being sanctioned for
the welfare of these backward tribes
and castes, the resources are rarely
fully utilised. An application under
the Right to Information Act was
filed but no information regarding
the efforts made for the education of
the children of the Musahar tribe has
been provided. Equality and
advancement of all sections of society
is often talked of, yet the Musahar
tribe is deserted. The lack of a sense
of responsibility and the negligent
attitude among officials worsens the
already sad situation.
There is a pressing need to create
awareness among the people on
issues of basic human and child
rights' violations. Failing to do so
would result in the commodification
of education. The complacency of the
government to the present state of
affairs leads to the creation of futile
and unsuccessful schemes. The lack
of political will has resulted in limiting the scope of intervention. Unless
education becomes a real social issue
in the country, the government will
not be motivated to act. However, the
scenario is now changing as mounting public pressure is leading to the
formation of political will power and
real political agendas. In this regard,
the judiciary has a vital role to play.
To keep up with this current trend,
activists need encouragement from
the public. Whenever the question of
117
Pots of money are being sanctioned for the welfare of these backward tribes and
castes, the resources are rarely fully utilised. An application under the Right to
Information Act was filed but no information regarding the efforts made for the
education of the children of the Musahar tribe has been provided. Equality and
advancement of all sections of society is often talked of, yet the Musahar tribe is
deserted. The lack of a sense of responsibility and the negligent attitude among
officials worsens the already sad situation
curriculum is raised, the public
needs to think of the underprivileged
and poor children for whom schools
and education are beyond reach.
Unless the real life experiences
and true culture is accommodated in
the common curriculum, all the government initiatives, such as the midday meal scheme, Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan, EGS etc. will be irrelevant.
The poor people have already been
ostracised and depriving them of
quality and equitable education will
only compound their sufferings.
They cannot be allowed to be discriminated against by other castes.
Having a project based intervention
and initiating policies and schemes at
the macro level are two different
things. On paper, policies and
schemes seem to solve all problems
and are feted but in reality, these do
not address the issues faced by the
people on the ground. If the Right to
Education Bill is legitimised and
passed, the government will have an
118
easy escape from its fundamental
responsibilities in a lawful manner. If
the bill is passed, a lot of misconceptions will emerge and will be formed
against those underprivileged children, who are out of school. Long
speeches will be delivered and essays
will be written on them. Also, it will
become even more difficult for the
uneducated people to voice their
concerns and grievances.
Private schools have long operated outside the government sphere
and have rarely engaged in educational discourse. The bill is closing
the divide; the private sector will
now be much "closer" to the government. The bill is creating space for
the private ownership of education.
Opposition to such private partnership is made in a very subtle manner
that still allows perpetuation of the
private institutions in the pedagogical arena. It is clear that the government is passing on their responsibilities to the private sector. Ironically,
while the government is exerting
more power over the private sector, it
is also relieving itself of its chief constitutional responsibility. It is transferring the provision of education of
a large sector of society onto the private sector without enacting any
methods of monitoring the education
provided.
The state is not making any
efforts willingly; it is the constitutional promise of education for all
that compels the government to act.
Those in power in the State live with
the misconception that they are
enriched with experience but actually they are devoid of all understanding. The grassroots activists have
experience because they have learnt
from the Musahars and live the
ground realities. Unfortunately, they
are consistently denied a voice in
the society.
with Lokshala in Bihar
Little hope for disabled children
y epistemic
position has
always been to
understand
disability in the context of gender and
education, which
expands
my
understanding
on
Anita Ghai
what exactly the
right to education means. Within the
dominant Indian cultural ethos, the
fate of the disabled is characterised
with labels such as langda (crippled),
andha (blind), behra (deaf), surdaas
(one who is blind or partially blind)
and so on. Disability is looked upon
as a disease, a deficit and a lack. The
issue is that society does not even
look at disability in a social model
approach, an approach through
which problematic areas can be identified and dealt with. The question
arises as to who or what are the problematic areas -- disabled children,
disabled people or the structure in
which they have been placed?
The National University of
Educational
Planning
and
Administration's (NUEPA) report
relating to the availability of ramps is
quite interesting. Of 10 ramps in the
city, seven were difficult to mount. A
ramp is nothing but a token of accessibility. The Persons with Disabilities
(Equal Opportunities, Protection of
Rights and Full Participation) Act,
1995 introduced the term "minimum
degree of disability" that relates to
severe disabilities. Certification and
measurement of disability is important but the manner in which this has
been introduced is regretable. It is
difficult to fix a legal limit to determine the degree of disability. The difference between 80 percent and 79
percent is too minuscule to warrant
labelling one person as legally disabled and another as non-disabled.
Understanding the degrees of disability is a grave issue.
The primary issue with regard to
education for children with disabilities is access and availability. How
does a disabled child reach school?
The Right to Education Bill, 2008 is
also just a token literally adding on
the ramps to dilute the fundamental
M
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right of the children to education and
nutrition etc. What about the disabled children's right to education?
The Indian education system has
always been dual in nature. Disabled
children are thought of as "special".
Why are they special? It is because
somewhere they have been coded as
disabled children, hence, deficient
children. Many people in the department of education talk about several
burning issues that prevail in the
education sector but disability is
never identified as one of the core
issues to be addressed or redressed.
There is little hope left for disabled
children. Even though there has been
an increase in the number of disabled
children with access to education, the
meagre amount of Rs 1,200 allocated
per child annually to improve infrastructure limits the access to schools
for many disabled children.
Another issue relates to the concept of diversity, which means different things at different levels. In the
psychological domain, it denotes the
varied learning styles of an individual. A teacher who lacks skills in
imparting education differently to
students with different learning abilities is more at fault than the students. Severely disabled children are
often confined within the four walls
of the house in the absence of any
support system, such as education,
which is essential to ensure their
development into independent
beings.
As we raise the issue of free and
compulsory education for all children between 6-14 age group, it is
important to look at the fee structure
in public schools. A crucial question
that arises is, "Is disability to be
talked about in an elitist fashion
whereby parents with material
wealth can integrate their children in
mainstream schools by donating
money?" Where will that section of
disabled children go whose parents
are impoverished and cannot pay for
such facilities for their children? I
know a rag picker couple with a disabled daughter who has not been
granted admission in school for the
simple reason that the child must be
dropped and picked from the school.
It is impossible for her parents to
facilitate such arrangements.
Disability and poverty is a vicious
circle. My concern is that we understand disability as not just one single
marker but linked with gender, caste,
class and numerous other social, economic and occupational markers.
There is a need to consider and
strategise on bringing these disabled
children into the school system. How
can they truly be integrated
and included into the conventional
society? This will also open the
debate as to what an "inclusive" society really means.
–The writer is Reader,
Department of Psychology, Jesus
and Mary College, University of Delhi
119
Discriminating against
mother tongue
Minati Panda
ultural tools such as language,
institutions, artifacts and practices mediate our thinking. A child
learns by participating in these cultural activities and develops his
thinking through concepts embedded in his/ her cultural milieu
(Panda, 2007). The same thing can be
said about the classroom learning. A
child will learn more if he/she participates in classroom activities/discourse, which in turn is possible only
when the child understands and
relates to the concepts ingrained in
those discourses. Unless children
participate in the classroom interaction, they will neither learn nor stay
in the system for long. In other
words, no meaningful learning will
take place unless a child indulges in
the academic discourse of the classroom. A child cannot be cogently persuaded or coaxed to participate in
classroom activities; he/she has to
willingly participate in them in order
to learn (Dorfler, 2000; Panda, 2007).
Assuming the above, can any
meaningful and sustainable education be imparted without ensuring
that a child’s diverse cultural
resources, including his/her language(s), are central to the teaching/learning processes in the early
years of his/her schooling? Moreover,
haven’t we learned from the human
carnage at Godhra and Kandhamal?
These xenophobic attacks exposed us
to the adverse social, educational and
political consequences of continuing
with a system that undermines a
child’s cultural and linguistic diversity. This system deprives the children
of their identity or, at the most,
imposes on them a politically constructed homogenous identity of a
tribe, caste, religion or speaker of “a
language”, which only increases
their distance from others.
The Right to Education Bill, 2008
needs critical evaluation before its
enforcement. Any bill that does not
C
120
accept a child’s multi-linguality and
plurality as a resource for classroom
learning and does not address the
consequences faced when these
resources are undermined, cannot be
effective.
Mother tongue &
classroom learning
Most pedagogues and policymakers
argue that education in early years
needs to be imparted in the child’s
mother tongue (MT) or in his/her
first/strongest language. Large-scale
overviews and studies, (e.g. May &
Hill 2003, Ramirez et al., 1991,
Thomas & Collier 2002, SkutnabbKangas, 1999, 2000, 2009) including
our multilingual education (MLE)
study in Saora and Kondh areas of
Orissa (Panda & Mohanty, 2009)
show the importance of teaching in
MT/child’s strongest language, and
the disastrous results when it does
not happen (Tove, Nepal Report,
2009). The studies reveal that the
impact of mother tongue medium
education has proven to be more
important than any other factor in
predicting the educational success of
children from minority and disadvantaged communities. In terms of
both general school achievement and
the learning of the dominant language, the best students were those
who had the longest number of years
of learning in their mother tongue
alongside a good curriculum
(Skutnabb-Kangas, 2009).
Two recent expert papers for the
United Nations permanent forum on
indigenous issues (Magga et al. 2005,
Dunbar & Skutnabb-Kangas 2008)
term the official language-medium
education for indigenous minorities
(IM) children as genocide, according
to two of the five definitions of genocide in the United Nations’ 1948
Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide [i] (the “Genocide
Convention), and also as a crime
against humanity. [i] E793, 1948; 78
UNTS 277, entered into force on
January 12, 1951; Paragraph (b) of
Article II defines genocide as ‘causing serious bodily or mental harm to
members of the group’, and II (e) as
‘forcibly transferring children of the
group to another group’. Any forced
assimilation programme for indigenous minorities children amounts to
genocide.
My recent book on Multilingual
Education for Social Justice (Mohanty,
Panda, Phillipson & SkutnabbKangas, 2009) argues that high drop
out rates of minority language speaking students are common due to
alienation from their cultural heritage and the language of parents
and the community. It is educationally and economically wasteful to have
schools in which children do not
learn. A system of education that a
child does not participate in, does not
identify with or identifies at the cost
of his/her self, language and culture
creates a politically volatile, psychologically unhinged and economically
subservient state. Rather it will be
economical and socially rewarding
and politically sustainable to incorporate a child’s language and other
cultural resources, such as a child’s
narrative traditions and his/her
everyday knowledge of mathematics
and science, in classroom transactions and learning.
My association with the children
of the Saora tribe (Panda, 2006; 2007)
has witnessed that the Saora children
showed a very intense aptitude for
early mathematical concepts and
ideas. Use of Saora experiences of
numbers, quantities, and algorithms
through folk games and everyday
activities, including transactions in
local markets, helped children appreciate both universal and Saora number systems earlier and better. Use of
the game called “Apphuchi” in class
VIII helped these tribal children
engage in a discourse on chance and
probability. Because of the use of folk
games, the children were able to
evoke numerous modal logic terms
like “would”, “should”, “could be”
in their discourse which helped them
proceed in the discussion on chance
and probability. In fact, in almost all
our studies, we found that the Saora
children easily acquired a conceptual
system of mathematics as well as the
conventional mathematical symbols
in those classrooms in which the
teacher allowed continuous use of
everyday experiences and used them
carefully to encourage the students
to move from the realm of everyday
to academic mathematics discourse,
which is sometimes counter intuitive.
One of the major objectives of formal instruction, according to
Vygotsky, should be to provide chilwww.combatlaw.org
dren access to scientific concepts that
enable them to reconceptualise their
everyday experiences. Gradually, the
scientific concepts need to replace
children’s everyday notions so that
they can begin to work within the
more formal and generalised conceptual frameworks associated with
schooling. This not only leads to better cognitive and academic achievements but also provides additional
theoretical and conceptual tools to
the children that make them aware of
their rights, duties and justice.
While arguing for greater use of
children’s language and everyday
cognitive-cultural resources, we caution ourselves of two points: one, the
danger of promoting the notion of “a
language” over multilinguality; and
two, privileging children’s everyday
knowledge over scientific knowledge
uncritically or vice versa. When we
use the terms mother tongue (MT) or
child’s first/stronger language, we
should not treat them as pure languages frozen in time and space as,
in reality, languages co-exist and
grow in the company of each other
(Agnihotri, 2006). According to
Agnihotri, “multilinguality and variability are constitutive of human
existence. Even when we take the
existence of an innate language faculty as given, we regularly construct a
multilingual space in which, through
a dynamic dialogic interaction with
others, our identity and multilinguality are constructed.
People often sustain their food,
dress, death, and wedding customs
to assert their distinct identity; in the
same way they assert their linguistic
identity through their own variety of
multilinguality. Just as biodiversity
enriches the life of a forest, linguistic
diversity enhances the intellectual
well being of the individuals and
groups, both small and large.” (2006,
p. 185). In other words, multilinguality is a norm rather than an exception
in this county. What is an exception is
monolinguality, which is politically
constructed and maintained by the
majority-centric universal (mass)
education system. As a child comprehends and controls the world
through language(s), multilinguality
constitutes his/her identity and self.
Social and linguistic plurality and
development of his/her being are coconstituted and neither can be under-
stood or grow in isolation of each
other.
The best and the most natural
environment in which a child’s language, thought and identity grows
optimally and harmoniously is
where there is a place for different
languages and cultural experiences.
However, homogenisation is valued
in all formal-official-political spaces
in this country as this makes some
individuals and groups visible and
others invisible; some the unmarked
norm, others marked and negative
(Agnihotri, 2007; Skutnabb-Kangas,
2009). This is, therefore, the most valued project of the majority, which is
sustained at all cost, by an authoritarian, rigid, predetermined knowledge approach of a majoritising,
dominant-culture-centric education
system.
Choice of “a language” and “a
knowledge system” has historically
created a minority of or distorted
some individuals, groups, phenomena and relations while creating a
majority of and glorifying others
(Mohanty, Panda, Phillipson &
Skutnabb-Kangas, 2009). If this is
true, defining languages as mother
tongues and privileging one language or mathematical system over
the other in a multilingual and multicultural classroom on the basis of
sheer number of speakers of the languages (currently occurring in all
states where the state’s official language is treated as the default mother tongue of all children - MLE programmes of Orissa and Andhra
Pradesh being no exception) may
result in the homogenisation of subgroups within a given population
(Agnihotri, 2007). When Oriya is
accepted as the mother tongue (MT)
of all children in Orissa, all other
minority languages become nonOriya and non-standard languages,
which are conveniently kept out of
all
official-formal
spaces.
Consequently, the rich linguistic and
cultural resources of minority children are also kept out of these formal
official spaces, including classrooms.
The end results of a homogenising, majority-centric, minimalist education programme were seen in the
recent past in the Kandhamal district, Orissa. The socio-politically
constructed identities such as Panas
and Kandhas were internalised by
121
the people of the district through
sporadic political hostilities in the
past several decades; frequent use of
these categories in the social, legal
and educational spheres; non-recognition of multilinguality of people in
all important forums including education; and lack of respect for themselves (in our view, any group that
persuades an individual or a group
to convert or reconvert to religion ‘A’
or ‘B’ is considered to have very little
respect for that individual). Both the
groups were sufficiently dehumanised as well as homogenised by social
and legal processes. Adding to this
social-political crisis, the literacy
models adopted in primary schools
both before and after the District
Primary Education Programme
(DPEP) eroded the historically developed cultural and psychological
tools of the communities co-habiting
in the region. This gave rise to the
political minefield that erupted out
of all proportion at the smallest
instance of communal disharmony.
The current multilingual education
(MLE) programmes in Orissa use
children’s language and cultural
resources in the classroom but do not
reveal to these indigenous children
and the teachers the real causes of
their poverty, economic insufficiency,
implications of ongoing practice of
conversion, reconversion and the
conflicts arising out of both. Such
programmes, in a way, are reproducing and contributing to the dominant
discourse that legitimises the
exploitation and domination of the
indigenous peoples as cheap labour.
The conventional model of bilingual/multicultural education based
on the notion of “a language” does
not spell out reform. It rather retains
the idea of language and cultures as
separate entities based on difference.
Such philosophy of difference leads
to compensatory policies and policies of positive discrimination for
certain groups. By doing this, it
maintains power relations that are
already in force between these people and does not question them
(Tubino, 2003). Such processes can be
countered if we build a society (that
includes the institution of education)
where there is space for everybody,
their happiness, satisfaction and
peace; a society that ensures an
autonomy of mind and reflection,
122
and of care and respect for others; a
society that builds on plurality of
language, knowledge and ethnicity
(Agnihotri, 2007).
will, therefore, increasingly become
meaningless and counterproductive
if some of these issues are not discussed, debated and used for evolving the right kind of curricular and
pedagogic goals for school education. Chapter V of the bill needs to be
redrafted to include the correct perspective for devising curriculum and
pedagogic principles for all schools.
It needs to move away from “something is better than nothing” philosophy towards a demand for a good
quality common education system
that respects every child and every
community. The right to education
needs to be linked to the right to
receive education in one’s preferred
language (LHR), acknowledging
multilinguality of children and plurality in knowledge systems they
have and using them as potential
resources for learning in the classrooms, real participation of every
child in the scientific academic
discourse, freedom from discrimination in all areas and levels of education, freedom of thought, conscience,
religion and belief, sharing the benefits of indigenous and scientific
progress etc.
A good academic programme for
school education should aim at
developing strong multilingual competence and identity and a few vital
collective processes that respect and
sustain the linguistic and eco-cultural diversity of society (Agnihotri,
2009, Skutnabb-Kangas, 2009). Any
institution or social process that tampers with or undermines eco-cultural
diversity, including multilinguality
of children, will reproduce colonial
power structures. To counter this
process we need to make the learning
and development of critical consciousness and respect for plurality
in language, culture and identity central to any enterprise of education.
We also need to build on the sustained dialectical tension between
home and school knowledge systems. This is possible only when
there is a more regular give-and-take
between the children’s cultural and
linguistic resources at home and in
the classroom, without romanticising
or privileging any one form of discourse. Such practices can make
school learning more meaningful
and engaging for all children, including indigenous and minority children (Panda & Mohanty, 2009).
–The writer is Associate
Professor, Zakir Hussain Centre
for Educational Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University
References
Agnihotri, 2009,
Chomski, 1968
Dorfler, 2000;
Mohanty, Panda, Phillipson & SkutnabbKangas, 2009
Panda, 2007
Panda & Mohanty, 2009
Skutnabb-Kangas, 2009
Tubino, 2003
Vygotsky, 1978.
May & Hill 2003,
Ramirez et al., 1991, Thomas & Collier
2002, Skutnabb-Kangas, 1999, 2000, 2009
Endnotes
1. In a world of rhetoric, talking about obvious is more difficult than the exception.
Most school education policy documents and
the programmes in this country, whether they
are good, bad, effective or ineffective, have
used the terms like quality education, child
centered, activity based, joyful learning. So,
any critical review of any policy document
needs to go beyond looking for presence or
absence of these key terms. I experience the
same difficulty while attempting a critical
reflection on the chapter V of the
Fundamental Right of Children to Free and
Compulsory Education Bill, 2008, the sole
chapter on the curriculum and quality issues
related to school provisions for these children in the document.
2. We do not undermine the power of academic mathematics and science discourses
for changing the quality of human life, the
ability of communities to decide what is
good for them as well as for the wider society, and to facilitate their socially and politically informed participation in micro- and
macro-cultural resource allocation and decision-making. But the politics of knowledge
and issues of epistemology need to be understood so that ‘validated’ scientific knowledge
does not function as a basis of oppression.
Education, when it works as critical transformative praxis, may expose new modes of
colonialism. It can, therefore, be used to
empower the marginalised tribal and indigenous communities.
In MP its a double edged
sword for Dalits, Adivasis
Avinash Jhade
he Madhya Pradesh Shiksha
Abhiyan is currently working
in 13 districts of the state with
an objective is to improve the provision of education for three social
groups, namely, the Adivasi community, the dalit community and the
urban poor communities. Initially,
the scheme estimated the number of
out-of-school children in the districts
and after the survey was complete, it
commenced work towards enrolling
these children in schools. First, the
Abhiyan aims to improve the functioning of the present status of government schools in Madhya Pradesh
and then it will focus on providing
quality education to the children
from the three above-mentioned
communities. In 2006-2008, 825 children were discovered to be out of
school. Over 214 children who had
never enrolled themselves in schools
remain deprived from opportunities
to seek formal education. Under the
present situation, the Abhiyan does
not see any opportunity to enroll
these children in the education system.
The Madhya Pradesh Shiksha
Abhiyan has 408 schools under its
charge. Of these, 117 are under the
universal
education
guarantee
scheme (EGS). This is an emerging
problem in Madhya Pradesh as EGS
is a cheap alternative to education. It
promises to reach out to the Adivasi
and dalit regions at one-third of the
cost of education in government
schools. Unfortunately, the standard
of education provided under the
scheme is of a much lower standard
even than the one in government
schools. Under this model, over
28,000 schools were established in
Madhya Pradesh for the Adivasis
and dalits. The system involves one
teacher, one room as arrangements
for imparting education. Gradually,
the government, in its wisdom,
realised that the EGS system is not a
full-fledged school and does not pro-
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vide adequate education, so it should
be transformed into the government
primary schools. The government
has commenced upgrading of
schools under the EGS and some
minor improvements have been seen.
Schools now have two teachers
instead of one and proper school
buildings are provided for. Only 35
percent of EGS schools in Madhya
Pradesh have now been upgraded.
Single teacher schools are a matter of deep concern for Madhya
Pradesh Shiksha Abhiyan. In
December 2007, there were 76 single
teacher schools in the state. In 2008,
all single teacher schools were converted to double-teacher schools
despite the fact that the government
has not adopted any appointment
procedure to do so. All Adivasi and
dalit schools were "gifted" with additional teachers. These double-teacher
schools have one teacher on record
and the other is hired on contract
basis and is known as a guest teacher. In primary schools, the guest
teachers are paid Rs 100 per day
whereas, in middle schools, they get
Rs 150 daily. This approach in providing access to education to children in Madhya Pradesh and in India
dates back to 1953 and the government has received international
acknowledgement for the scheme,
for providing education to all children at a lesser cost by employing
guest teachers.
Research shows the standard of
education being provided to the children in these areas was disappointing. In the name of education, children are being provided only with
basic literacy and not full-fledged
formal education with respect to contemporary needs. Madhya Pradesh
Shiksha Abhiyan feels that the state
government has not taken any strong
step towards imparting quality education pertaining to contemporary
needs of Adivasi and dalit children.
does not inspire any hope for quality
education for the children of these
communities because there are only
two teachers up to 60 enrollments
and 50 percent schools have less than
60 enrollments. It seems that the grim
situation of education system in
these regions is going to persist as it
is with no change whatsoever. It is
probable that the Adivasi and
dalit children will be stuffed with
literacy and starved of good quality
education.
There are 62 private schools in
dalit areas of Madhya Pradesh that
are administrated by the non-dalit
community. Not a single child from
the dalit community is enrolled in
these schools. This bears testimony to
the level of disparity prevalent in our
society despite the high ideals of
"equality"
enshrined
in
the
123
Constitution of India. It seems that
the often repeated cliché "equal
opportunities for all" and the efforts
to bring the backward classes at par
with more privileged ones will never
be achieved in reality. There seems to
be no scope for improvement in these
government schools. A study of different states at a national level indicates a gradual increase in the number of privately managed schools
from 2003 to 2008. In 2008, 19.88 percent of all schools in India were privately managed. While the statistics
in Madhya Pradesh reveal an
increase in the number of private
schools in the state from 16 percent to
17.5 percent in 2006-2007, the
increase in the quantity of private
schools is indicative of the people's
lack of confidence in government
schools. Unfortunately, it is the dalit,
Adivasi and urban poor communities which suffer since they cannot
afford to send their children to these
expensive private schools and will
have to continue making their children study in government schools
that offer a sub-standard education
aligned with poor infrastructure.
Moreover, the appalling conditions
at government schools in the state
expose the "efforts" of the government to impart education to the
marginalised sections of the society.
The MP Shikha Abhiyan is currently undertaking a survey to look
into the measures taken by the state
government to fund schools with
quality education facilities in dalit
and Adivasi areas. Facts reveal that
72.22 percent of schools lack facilities
of separate toilets for girls, 82.9 percent of schools have no boundary
walls and in 47 percent of schools
playgrounds are unavailable.
Madhya
Pradesh
Shiksha
Abhiyan has also conducted a study
into the results of children studying
in class V, in which a board examination is conducted. Nine percent of
children did not appear for the examinations and 26 percent failed. As a
result many students will have to
repeat the same class. The Adivasi
and dalit families do not have sufficient funds to enable their children to
repeat a class, especially in the case
of girls, who are usually not allowed
to repeat a class and instead are
made to stay back home. The Indian
mindset that girls are not the bread124
winners for the family pervades and
parents shirk from spending money
on education of their daughters. All
surveys and research reveal that the
facilities for education of children of
dalit and Adivasi settlements are
sub-standard and it appears that no
effort is being made by the government to improve the situation. In a
child labour campaign that MP
Shiksha Abhiyan conducted, 300
boys and 525 girls were identified
who remain deprived of education.
Moreover, children are reluctant to
go to school as they question: "Why
should we go to a school where there
are no teachers? Why should we go
to a school where the children do not
have separate classes? Why should
we go to a school where there are no
separate toilets for girls?' It is not
difficult to answer these questions;
the unfair education system is too
evident.
It is difficult to understand why
the government has implemented the
Kendriya Vidyalaya system. This
school system is contrary to Article
14 of the Constitution, which aims at
equality, equal opportunities for all
and no discrimination whatsoever. In
Madhya Pradesh, these excellency
schools employ the top teachers of
the district and have all the necessary
facilities available to them. These
same facilities are lacking in the
schools in the villages of MP, particularly in the schools of dalit settlements.
In the schools where dalit children receive education, 16 percent of
teachers are guest teachers and are
hired on a temporary basis for four
months. There is no system of
replacement and recruitment of them
at the completion of the four months'
tenure and the schools again become
empty. The issue of recruitment and
appointment of teachers in the
schools in dalit areas needs to be
addressed immediately. Not only
such children face a shortage of
teachers but often they are denied
access to health services also. A
recent survey revealed that 13 percent of children of dalit community
do not have access to services from
the Anganwadis. This is despite the
directions given by the Supreme
Court to make Anganwadi centres
universally available and a centre per
40 children in Adivasi regions.
Article 45 of the Constitution
talks of free and compulsory education while the Unnikrishnan judgement in 1993 and Article 21A reiterate the promise of free and compulsory education to all children. If
these are adopted as binding force,
no government school will be able to
charge fees of any type. Article 6(1) of
the Madhya Pradesh Jan Shiksha
Adhiniyam, framed in 2002, reads,
"No tuition fee shall be charged in
respect of a child attending a state
government school or local body
school". At the same time, Article 6(2)
reads, "A school development fee
may be levied in the state government school or local body school or
school receiving aid from the state
government with the consent of the
parent teacher association. The fee
may be levied in schools located in
rural areas with the prior approval of
the education committee." The laws
of the state ensuring free and compulsory education have been contradicted by other laws allowing fees to
be levied on poor children. A girl
studying in class VI in a government
school in Bhopal has to pay a total of
Rs 214 a year for her education. A
section of Shiksha Sanhita also carries a provision of charging fees. The
PTA also demands money as fees
ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 350. This
varies from village to village depending upon the resolution of PTAs for
the school. There is no such thing as
free education in the state. Madhya
Pradesh Shiksha Abhiyan filed a
petition to address this issue to the
education secretary and as a result,
the latter surveyed 10 districts of the
state. The different responses from
the district collectors clearly revealed
that a fee of Rs 49 is charged at the
middle school level but if the PTA
wants, it can pass a resolution
against the acceptance of other educational expenditures.
The Right to Education Bill does
not fully protect the rights and needs
of children wholeheartedly, rather it
promotes inequality by encouraging
a multi-tier system of education. It
appears that children of dalit, adivasi
and poor urban communities will
never be in receipt of free and quality education.
–The writer is working with
Madhya Pradesh Shiksha Abhiyan
Multiple
failures
in the
northeast
he problem of lack of quality education is central to whole of India
and the northeast is no exception.
Despite a rich pool of over 200
dialects, in about three states namely,
Mizoram, Nagaland and Meghalaya,
English has been adopted as the
medium of instruction. The situation
now is such that even parents are
desperate for their children to be well
versed in English so that they too can
stand a chance like the children of the
rich and the elite. This is segregating
children from their culture, ethnicity
and mother tongue.
In Manipur, the state is converting government schools into private
schools. In Meghalaya, more and
more government-aided schools are
failing to meet the criteria set by the
state and their grants are being withdrawn as a result. The government of
India is, either intentionally or unintentionally, withdrawing support
from the school education system.
The Right to Education Bill has
done nothing to address and redress
this issue. If the government fails to
provide to its people their fundamental rights what other options are
available? If people are interested in
schools, they establish schools. If parents are not interested in sending
their children to school, the classrooms remain empty. This does not
mean that parents are not interested
in education. The problem is that the
public notion of education is not
compatible with the government's
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Surjit Singh Thokchom
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concept of education. Parents ensure
that their children learn at least the
basic minimum skills of reading,
writing and arithmetic. However,
they see little advantage in providing
their children with further education
as they do not believe that same
career opportunities are available to
their wards as to the children of the
privileged families. Hence, children
are withdrawn from school and these
children should not be labelled as
'dropouts'. Poverty does not lead to
dropping out. These children are
withdrawn because their parents
believe there is no reason for them to
continue with education since opportunities are not available to them.
Children do not drop out of schools,
rather they are compelled to withdraw by the inaction of the government. All children have the right to
free and quality education leading to
equality of opportunity.
The Right to Education Bill
encourages a tiered system of education and therefore, is unconstitutional. To be liberated of the colonial
legacies and equal access to quality
education is imperative regardless of
the socio-economic, cultural and
ethic variations. The common school
system can help achieve these goals
by drawing children towards their
rich heritage.
–The writer is an activist
from Synroplang for Social
Transformation, Meghalaya
125
eth Bheema Ram is Sarpanch (village head) from a tribal village in
Chhattisgarh. There is a main road
nearby that connects the state with
the neighbouring state of Andhra
Pradesh. Nearly 15 percent of the village borders that road. The interiors
of the village are very far away from
the tehsil and district, approximately
30-40 kilometres. People stay in hilly
and forest regions. Many teachers do
not come to the village and it is difficult to know how they receive
salaries. The panchayat has a population of two to three thousand people
and a few children go to school.
The panchayat has been receiving
support for educational purposes in
the village since last year only. Some
pundits and priests came to the village and advised on the importance
of education. They brought the village leaders, including Seth Bheema
Ram, to Andhra Pradesh for training
and were demonstrated teaching
methods that had not previously
been used in the schools. The priests
further explained many methods to
improve the quality of education and
the children benefited a lot.
There is an ongoing conflict
between the state-run Salwa Judum
and the Naxalites in Chhattisgarh
leading to a substantial number of
casualties. The government does not
maintain records of these deaths
because both the police and the government are scared of the Naxalites.
This is life in all the tribal and forest
areas in Chhattisgarh. There are no
courts and no infrastructure. As a
Sarpanch, Seth Bheema Ram often
went to the then Chief Minister Ajit
Jogi to voice his cries about the dying
people and to ask the chief minister to
build roads in the region but the government is rarely helpful. Recently, an
ashram was also constructed and
nearly six to seven hundred children
from adjoining areas came to be
enrolled. The sarpanch could admit
only a few of them, approximately
three hundred. The government was
unable to make the necessary
arrangements and thus the remainder
had to return home. Some left after
studying until the fifth grade. Many
children who were being drawn to
anti-social activities by the Naxals
tried to escape from them and came
to the village. The village tries to help
some of the children and everyone
S
Voices
from
below
Seth Bheema Ram
Sarpanch, Chhattisgarh
P Ramulu
Sarpanch,Andhra Pradesh
V Yadaiah
Head (mukhiya)
Roopkhanpet village,
Andhra Pradesh
126
contributes by creating a common
pool of rice as they do during
weddings and other celebrations.
They also had their recent expenditures met by a visiting team
from Delhi.
In the village the panchayat tries
to protect and educate children. The
panchayat formed a committee to
address the issue and faced many difficulties. There are many children in
the state of Chhattisgarh and the
committee has been trying to provide
them with help ever since the conflict
began. However, there are many poor
people and even the government has
not been able to make arrangements
for their food. The gurujis are unwilling to work forty to sixty kilometers
away from their village. That is why
many children stay in the village in
the care of the committee. The three
hundred or so children who are
under the protection of the committee
are scared that if they leave the village the Naxals will take them.
Recently a team of women came from
Delhi and the children were crying
because they were afraid that the
team was going to take them away.
They felt that they would have
nowhere to go if they were removed
from the village's care. The village
wants to build a future for these children and teach them good things so
that they will study until the twelfth
grade and become good people.
P Ramulu has been a sarpanch in
Andhra Pradesh since 2001. With the
help and support of an NGO, MV
Foundation, he has been able to bring
every child back to school. When he
began as sarpanch, there were 115
students out of school, more than fifty
percent of the area's children. At present, there is not a single child who is
out of school in this gram panchayat.
In 2004, he rescued a young student in class V from child marriage.
With the help of youth organisations,
he informed the local police and the
marriage was about to be solemnised
but it was prevented through the
gram sabha. The girl has finished
class X and she is now assisting in the
schools as a primary school teacher.
In his village, the school originally
only catered up to class V but this
was first extended to class VI and is
now to class X. However, there are
not enough teachers to man the
school. It is through the MV
Foundation's contribution that they
have been able to attract eight volunteers to teach in the school but he
thinks that this is not sufficient as
there are only five regular teachers.
He donated two acres of his own
private land for construction of
school buildings and now the school
and the high school is on those two
acres of private land.
V Yadaiah is the Head (mukhiya)
of the Roopkhanpet village of
Rangareddy district of Andhra
Pradesh. In his village, there is a primary school for students of grade 1
to 5 and a District Administration
Secondary School for students of
grade 6 to 10. In total, 406 boys and
girls study in both these schools.
There are 195 students in the primary school and 211 students in the secondary school. In both these schools,
collectively, there are 13 teachers. The
total population of the village is
3,100. Some of the children go to
other villages to study. The total
count of students in the age group of
0-18 years is 514.
The Gram Panchayat has taken a
positive step for the improvement of
educational services. Since some children leave school before the completion of their schooling, the panchayat
has made a committee comprising
Gram Panchayat members. This committee goes to every house advising
parents on the importance of education so that children can be again
brought back to school. For providing quality education to students
from class I to V, the Gram Panchayat
has made a sub-committee that looks
into the problems faced by schools
and provides solutions. It has solved
problems related to water, sanitation,
security, education etc. For educational advancement, it holds parents'
meetings for which it takes help from
youths, doctors and teachers of the
village. This has resulted in fewer
dropouts in the village. The mid-day
meal scheme is carried out properly
in the village and steps are being
taken to implement it more effectively. In addition, the Gram Panchayat
frees child labourers from work and
get them admitted in school. The
Gram Panchayat has facilities for registration of birth and marriage. The
village is working to do whatever it
can to bring the country on the path
of development and progress. ■
www.combatlaw.org
One day in a primary school
in Bhilangana valley
The students association of Chetna Aandolan has commissioned
a survey in different schools at different intervals in the
Bhilangana development block of Tehri district in Uttarakhand.
The results have led them to conclude that engaging teachers in
non-educational activities on a large scale has lead to deterioration
of quality of education provided in schools. Teachers are compelled
to spend time working on various projects and as a result cannot
give adequate attention to education and often miss school entirely.
Below is a page taken out of a report on one day visit by a volunteer of student association to a local school.
n Monday, October 13, 2008, I
reached the school at 9.30 am
as all the students were arriving
there. The gates of the school were
locked so the children had left their
bags at the veranda and were playing in the fields. The word spread
that the teacher was ill and would
not be attending school today. Two
of the students, Punam and
Parmila, went to the teacher's house
to collect the keys of the school.
They were informed that the key
was with another student Vikas.
When the gates were opened,
the children began to clean the
classrooms and the veranda. At
10.25 am, the students were finally
seated in their classrooms. A total of
ten students were present. I asked
the students of class I and II to write
the Hindi alphabet and class IV and
V to practice writing. After this, I
checked the copies of all the
students.
The same day a meeting with
the pradhan and the cluster resource
centre (CRC) was meant to be held
in the school. The pradhan reached
the school by 10 am to discover that
none of the teachers was present.
The pradhan waited in the school for
one hour and the students arranged
O
for a chair which was brought from
the ailing teacher's house. The
headmaster eventually came to
speak with the pradhan. He
explained the condition of the
school and the lack of facilities for
the children. The headmaster
requested the pradhan to release
funds to purchase chairs.
Afterwards, the teacher took
attendance. Attendance for the previous Friday was also marked. The
teacher proceeded to teach a poem
from a Hindi language book. Some
students were not paying any attention in the class nor was the teacher
paying any attention to the students. The teacher did not seem to
know the names of all the students.
Lunch commenced at 12.30 pm but
no mid-day meal was served. Some
of the boys returned home for
lunch while others remained in the
school, playing. At 1.45 pm the
teacher entered the classroom. Prior
to this, he had been roaming on the
veranda and had asked the children
to count to one hundred. None of
the students were listening to him.
Some were fighting; some were
wandering around the school. The
teacher does not take responsibility
for the students. ■
127
Remembering Neera Desai
rof Neera Desai, a pioneer of Women's Studies in India and creator of a model
women’s studies centre that combined the ethos of women’s studies and women’s
movement at the SNDT University, Mumbai, passed away on June 25, 2009 at the age
of 84.
P
In Vadodara, I started attending a study circle on Marxism by Dr. A.R. Desai in 1970
during each Diwali and summer vacation. In the process I got introduced to his wife,
Dr. Neera Desai, in 1972. We invited her to our organisation Study and Struggle
Alliance and she spoke to us about Status of Women in India Committee. When
Towards Equality Report came out in 1974, she gave a detailed talk on the issue. Till
then my reading of women's liberation was only about western feminists such as
Eveleen Reed, Mary Alice Waters, Kate Millet, Betty Frieden and Simon de' Bouvoir.
She was happy that I had translated several essays of Reed in her book "Problems of
Women's Liberation".
(1925-2009)
It was in 1979, when I went to see her with Madhu Kishwar, armed with the first issue
of Manushi, when she confronted us sharply. In the reading list published in Manushi,
we had mentioned Altekar, M.N. Srinivas and all those who had published books on
women. We had an animated debate on their works. She gave us a copy of her book,
Women in Modern India. After reading it, my relationship with her took 180 degree
turn. From a sympathiser of the left movement, she became a fellow feminist. She
also taught us that we needed to get out of abstractions and generalisations and needed to examine our own reality and evolve the intellectual tools rooted in our society.
She also convinced many women activist like me that for an effective women's movement, we needed strong analytical skills and must orient our energies towards
women's studies. To construct knowledge on women with women's sensitivities, sensibilities and women's prism, we needed five arms- Panch Mahabhootas -teaching,
training, documetation, research and action.
Young women activists and researchers named her as "mothers of women's studies"
as she was always available to four generations of women with her wisdom, intellect,
information, advice and sharing of experiences. What we liked in her was the relationship of mutual respect. She never preached. With her there was a bond based on
equality.
Neera Desai was one of the founding members of the Indian Association for Women's
Studies, Gujarat Association of women’s Studies and Maharashtra Association of
women’s Studies. She was one of the mainstays of India Centre for Human Rights and
Law in Mumbai, Centre for Women’s Development Studies (CWDS), Delhi. She was
closely associated with feminist groups such as Vacha (Mumbai), Astitva (Valsad) and
Sahiyar (Vadodara). During 1990s, she was on the advisory board of CEHAT
(Mumbai) in its formative years. She was a member of the consultative Committee of
Sophia Centre for women's Studies and Development, Sophia College, Mumbai.
Neeraben occupies a unique position in our institutional and individual memory
because she not only built institutions; she also built feminists and women’s
studies scholars!
–by Vibhuti Patel
128

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