Opinion: It is political will that matters in education

Government schools and the Corporation schools face a perennial problem of low enrolment, poor infrastructure, less teachers and an environment not conducive for imparting education. Their premises are misused after the school hours by the anti-social elements. 

Barring few schools in the cities that are having moderate infrastructure and producing good results, most of the government schools are facing more problems than what they could solve. The public has a poor image of the government school in spite of its teachers being qualified and free education with uniform, books and bag. 

It is the marginalised sections of the society who largely comes to government schools. Parents by working hard and in most cases combining the income of both the parents, by pledging jewels (during the admission time and academic year beginning) taking loans from money lenders and from their own place of work send their children to private schools. A private school may not be able to give all the expectations of the parents but try to fulfil some of the following like infrastructure, teaching standards, English medium instruction and safety for the children. 

SSA (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan), the flagship programme of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, brought children to school in large numbers (for both government and private schools) is merged this year (May 2018) with Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan to create Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (holistic approach to treat education as a whole). The success of SSA was to bring every child to school including children of migrants from other states. By this merger, the focus of primary education for all may get diluted by the states in India. The evictions that are taking place in the city of Chennai are alarming. Chetpet, Chindraripet, Thousand lights, Aminjikarai and Nugambakkam are places from where in the last three months a big chunk of people have been evicted. The alternative sites allotted to them (Kannagi Nagar, Perumbakkam, Semmencherry, Navalur) are places without any infrastructure that is needed for a school. Some of the tenements are joined together for the purpose of having a school.

Before eviction children in the city slums received education in the government and corporation schools. But, now either they have no school or have to travel a long distance for which transportation facilities are inadequate.

Delhi is experiencing a ‘revolution in education’. The government since taking office in 2015 prioritised education and built more than 8,000 schoolrooms and equal number of classrooms they are planning in the next two years. In order to strengthen the school infrastructure, the government has planned 100 new schools in the coming years. 

A glance through budget allocation for education will tell the story of success: Rs 9,836 crore was allocated in 2015-16, 2016-17 budget allocated Rs 10,690 crore and in 2017-18, it is 11,300 crore, which is 24% of the budget.

The overhaul started with infrastructure (reviving, adding classrooms and new schools), but the quantitative change was accompanied by qualitative changes. In the first phase when the schools were selected for a pilot project, they asked the school principals to spell out the vision for the school and based on that the changes started. Problems identified in the schools were, besides infrastructure, the schools were lacking teachers and quality of education (learning outcome) was poor. Around 50 per cent of them were first generation students.

All the 1,029 government schools in Delhi went through the overhaul. A renowned educationist, Atishi Marlena, was appointed advisor on education to the AAM Aadmi Party. She got a dismissal order in April 2018 following an advisory from the Union Home Ministry. She accompanied the teachers in their mission to improve learning skills of primary, secondary and the Teacher Development Programme aimed to create peer learning among teachers. She was also instrumental in introducing ‘Happiness Curriculum’. Teacher’s training is a priority for the government besides introducing new pedagogies for students. Classes in creative writing, dance, theatre and fine arts have been introduced with the help of Delhi Government’s cultural wing Sahitya Kala Parishad. 

Delhi schools have created a record of sorts by appointing an Estate Officer, who looks after the buildings and cleanliness of the campus including wash rooms.

The two stories are about the government and its handling of the subject education. Delhi is able to do so well and they are on the expansionist path and bridged to a greater extent the divide between private and government schools. The message that the Delhi model gives is that children from marginalised sections of the society also needs infrastructure, quality teachers and new teaching and learning methods. Every child has to be treated equally and given the same opportunity to pursue their education.