Gurumurthy Kasinathan, with editorial inputs from Sadaf Wani
In 2009, India enacted the Right to Education Act(i), making education the fundamental right of every Indian child between the ages of 6 to 14 years. An annexure to the Act mandates minimum requirements for schools, including allweather school building, adequate classrooms with barrier-free access, sports equipment, library, safe drinking water, compound wall, separate toilets for boys and girls, etc. However, the Ministry of Education has revealed shameful statistics, according to which, even 13 years after the Act was passed, no state has even 50% of compliance with the Act. Tamil Nadu has the highest
compliance at 49%, whereas Karnataka’s score(ii) is a meagre 23.6%, below the national average. Karnataka also currently has the dubious distinction of having the highest number of teacher vacancies nationally (57.7%)(iii), a significant barrier to quality education. Jhaiv cautions us that the RTE must not
be interpreted only in terms of its compliance with physical infrastructure, but also in ensuring equitable quality in schools. This can be made possible only when the teachers’ knowledge, skills, attitudes, the pedagogies practised, and the school culture are also taken into account while evaluating RTe implementation. She states that it is important that the teachers don’t start labelling children from marginalised sections as “slow learners” and start neglecting or discriminating against them. Instead, such children should be provided with much higher levels of support than other children who receive support from home.
When schools re-opened post Covid-19 pandemic, the state government decided to suspend the regular curriculum in schools. Through the Kalika Chetarike (education recovery) program, the government creditably tried to address the education deprivation students had suffered due to loss of two years of structured learning. The program made the curriculum flexible and provided for a range of competencies, so as to meet the learning requirements of all children in the classroom. However, the materials reached schools after a delay of a few months and the teachers did not receive adequate training on how the material was to be transacted. While monthly cluster-level meetings were held with the teachers, there needed to be more focus on identifying challenges in implementation, and ways of resolving them through diverse pedagogy, using multilevel materials.
Additionally, some regressive steps were taken. One was the restriction on girls wearing the Hijab from writing exams in the PU grades. It is reported by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL)(v) that thousands of young women who wanted to study could not, because of this restriction. When data available says that Muslim women find it difficult to pursue education due to socio-cultural and economic barriers, it is concerning that the government is hindering them rather than helping them overcome these barriers. Other worrying developments include rewriting of school textbooks by people whose expertise in the education sector is questionable, removing progressive ideas and bringing ideas of Hinduism
like the reading of Bhagavad Gita, the practice of dhyana (meditation), or the painting of schools in saffron colour. Such ideas are violative of the secular character of the Indian republic as they
push one religion and ignore others. Further, as students are already struggling to keep up with their grades following the loss of institutional learning during the pandemic, they need
additional support and care from teachers and anything in the nature of distractions are best avoided. In
conclusion, the government has not acted to significantly comply with RTE in the last five years; we know of no noteworthy programs nor any special budgetary allocations. However, what is required to be done is extremely clear – increase the budgetary allocation for education so that every school can get the physical infrastructure required.
Filling up existing vaccines in schools at the earliest and ensuring new vacancies are filled up on time, instead of waiting for months to get replacements. Conducting programs for teachers’ professional development that are not only content- or pedagogy-based, but also focus on sensitizing teachers towards the needs of children from marginal backgrounds, and enabling them to meet the learning needs of all. Capacity building of school management committee members in the nature of conscientization about their rights as custodians of schools. All this is quite doable, but needs political will, which means all of us in society need to make a strong demand for making meaningful and quality education a reality for every child.
