The other day the great
entrepreneur Mr. Narayana Murthy observed (see The Times of India, Bengaluru edition, 17.11.2015) that whereas RTE
(Right To Education) is a progressive step, it is unlikely to yield the expected
results. What is needed, he rightly said, is that the government schools, where
the children of the poor study, must impart quality instruction.
I have never been very optimistic
about RTE. I have talked to quite a few who are directly or indirectly
connected with school education and have noted that hardly any of them seriously believes that this
initiative will yield results. It seems the best that can be said about it is
that it is well intentioned. For the successful implementation of RTE, the social
environment has to be conducive, which is not the case as of now. The reasons are
many but are rather too obvious to need a detailed telling. Schools may be
opened but if parents are disinclined to send their children to school because
they contribute to the family’s earnings, what can be effectively done by the
State? No legislative solution, say, in the form of an Act that would force the
parents to send their children to school, can work because it is immensely
difficult to implement the relevant law when the poor are concerned.
But where are the schools in the
first place? In many parts of rural India children have to walk considerable
distances to reach their school braving all odds including hostile weather, bad
pathways, etc. The Odia television channel, OTV, has, quite a few
times, shown children walking on a rope bridge made of just a couple of ropes
in order to cross a small river in spate to reach their school. And in all
likelihood this situation may not be specific to Odisha. And in such areas more
often than not schools have leaking roof. So goes the Odia proverb “nahi mamu tharu kana mamu bhala (better
to have a blind uncle than have no uncle)”, that is, something is better than
nothing. But when it comes to the roof, one is not sure whether, when it rains
and when it comes to children, the
difference between no roof and a leaking roof is really all that great!
Coming to teachers, where are the
teachers? Then where are the class rooms? Almost without exception in the rural
areas in particular, the number of teachers in our primary, upper primary and even
high schools is grossly inadequate. Sometimes there is just one teacher at a
primary school. He teaches students of various classes in one room. If he is
absent one day, the school becomes non-functional. School teaching is a
low-salaried job, so it is not a career option for a young, qualified person;
it is often a compulsion. Living conditions can be challenging in the interior
rural areas; so no teacher wants to go there.
The children there enjoy the privileges of RTE only technically.
For some years now, in Odisha,
as a matter of policy, no student, till the Board examination in class X, is being detained because of poor performance in the annual examination. Promotion
to the next higher class is automatic. And mid day meal system with an egg for
every child has been introduced, which is some real affirmative action. There
is, however, no clear evidence that the egg market as flourished to the extent
expected as a consequence, at least in Odisha. Going by OTV again, the mid day meal scheme isn’t
working even satisfactorily, let alone “well” - for the children, that is. The
monitoring of this well intentioned scheme is by no means a small matter.
However, the “no-detention policy” has been very successfully implemented. Fear
of examination and anxiety about promotion to the next higher class has
disappeared and so has teaching and learning. The teachers and the taught are
both relaxed at school and the former have time to get engaged in other
lucrative activities. Teaching is now done at the teacher’s home or the
coaching centres in the form of private tuition. But this is a learning
facility that the poor and the marginalized cannot afford. (It seems the
government of Odisha is presently reviewing the no-detention policy, as is the
government of Maharastra.)
One can go on enumerating the
problems, but there is no need. Not just that. It would amount to engaging in
an act of self-pity, which can be destructively comforting. The school situation
is known to everyone. And everyone has the same solution as Mr. Narayana
Murthy’s: the government must act to improve the situation. Let us be absolutely
clear about this: for the government to act, no fact finding committee needs to
be set up, no survey is needed, statistical data are not necessary - there is
no reason for comfort if one knows from the report of such a committee that,
say, seventy percent, not eighty percent of our schools are in particularly bad
shape. No research is needed to arrive at significant ideas; there is no need
for insights from social or pedagogical theories. The issue here is not about availability
of information or knowledge creation; it is about doing what is doable effectively.
As for money, it is certainly needed;
plenty of it, but it is not that there is a serious dearth of funds today. It
is just that it is not reaching where it is meant to reach – the familiar
problem!
What is needed is will – social
will, not just political will, as the cliché in modern discourse goes. Governmental
intervention will always prove to be inadequate without people’s sincere involvement.
Conscious effort must be made by all those who have benefited from education to
contribute in some way to the task of increasing the awareness of the people
living in remote areas with regard to the empowering potential of education. With
awareness will come involvement. But this is only the necessary condition.
Positive change in school
education, it must be strongly emphasized, cannot be brought about by the
government alone. For even some noticeable improvement to take place, active
participation of all those who have been in positions of privilege in our
society is needed. Instead of setting up their own private schools, the most privileged and the most visible must sincerely
cooperate with the government for setting up government schools where needed
and for the improvement of the quality of instruction in the existing government
schools. One thing is certain: well meaning words are not enough, neither is purely individual effort. .
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