The debate on Right to Education was
initiated by Mahatma Jotirao Phule almost 125 years ago when a substantial part
of the memorandum presented by him to the Indian Education Commission (i.e. 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. Things have not fundamentally changed since then. In 1911, when
Gopal Krishna Gokhale moved his Free and Compulsory Education Bill in the
Imperial Legislative Assembly, he faced stiff resistance. Instead of supporting
the Bill, the members representing the privileged classes from Mumbai,
Maharajas and other rulers from princely states and the big landlords from
feudal areas talked of the conditions in the country not being ripe for such a
Bill and that haste should be avoided. The Maharaja of Darbhanga from Bihar
collected 11,000 signatures on a Memorandum from princes and landlords
expressing concern about what would happen to their farm operations if all
children were required to attend the school! The Bill obviously could not be
approved. At the National Education Conference held at Wardha (Maharashtra) in
1937, Mahatma Gandhi had to use all the moral powers at his command to persuade
the Ministers of Education of the newly elected Congress governments of seven
provinces to give priority to Basic Education (Nai Talim) of seven years
and allocate adequate funds for this purpose. The Ministers kept on pointing
out that there was no money.
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 up to 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, rather than 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 6
years) by 1960 became an integral component of India’s Constitution. 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 children
[2] (at least 5 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 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 (about 35% of its funds are from World Bank, European Union, DFID and
other international agencies) violate the basic spirit of the Constitution as
all these are designed to co-exist with both the child labour and inequality in
society.
The rhetoric of lack of resources for
mass education has continued to dominate policy formulation since Independence.
In June 2006, the Central Government, claiming lack of resources, decided not
to present the Right to Education Bill in the Parliament in spite of it
becoming obligatory under Article 21A introduced through 86th Constitutional
Amendment in December 2002. Instead, the central government sent a highly
diluted and distorted draft Bill to the state/UT governments advising them to
get it approved in their respective assemblies. This amounted to blatant
abdication by the centre of its Constitutional obligation to give effect to the
historic Fundamental Right accorded to elementary education for children in the
6-14 year age group. The Indian State is so scared of giving children
Fundamental Right to Education that it has not even notified the 86th
Constitutional Amendment to date though it was signed by the President of India
more than five years ago.
Right to Education as Envisioned in
the Constitution
The majority comprising the upper
classes and upper castes in the Constituent Assembly ignored Dr. Ambedkar’s
plea to place Article 45 in Part III of the Constitution, thereby denying
education the status of a Fundamental Right in modern India. Instead, this
Article was placed in Part IV of the Constitution making it a Directive
Principle of the State Policy. In spite of this denial, there are five critical
dimensions of the vision of education that emerges from the Constitution which
must guide social movements in their struggle to gain Right to Education. First,
this was the only Article among Directive Principles (Part IV) that had spelt
out a time frame for its fulfillment viz. within ten years of the
commencement of the Constitution. The political leadership, irrespective of
its ideological orientation, has so far failed to meet this obligation. Second,
the children below six years of age were included in the
reference to the children up to 14 years of age in Article 45. This made the
provision of Early Childhood Care (including nutrition, health care and
balanced development) along with pre-primary education of the children from
birth to six years of age a Constitutional obligation of the State[3]. Third,
the Constitution placed the agenda of eight years of elementary
education before the State, rather than merely five years of
primary education. In this light, the attempt by the policy makers since
the 1990s, as reflected in World Bank-sponsored DPEP, to reduce this agenda to
primary education must be viewed as being violative of the Constitution’s
vision[4]. Fourth, elementary education must be provided in such
manner as not to violate other provisions of the Constitution,
especially Fundamental Rights. For instance, educational planning must be
consonant with the principles of equality and social justice enshrined as
Fundamental Rights. This has major implications that we will take up when we
discuss the agenda of Common School System. It would suffice to state here that
any programme that provides education of varying quality to different sections
of society and denies education of equitable quality is not allowed by the
Constitution. Fifth, the Article 45 should have been invariably
read in conjunction with Article 46 which directs the State to
give special attention to the education of the SCs and STs.
The discourse on Right to Education
got a new turn with Supreme Court’s Unnikrishnan’s Judgement (1993). In this
almost revolutionary interpretation of the Constitution, the Supreme Court
stated that Article 45 in Part IV of the Constitution must be read in “harmonious
construction” with Article 21 (Right to Life) in Part III since Right
to Life is meaningless if it is without access to knowledge. Thus the Supreme
Court in 1993 accorded the status of Fundamental Right to “free and
compulsory education” of all children up to 14 years of age (including
children below six years of age).
Right to Education and the Ruling
Class
The above historic declaration by the
Supreme Court in 1993 made India’s ruling class uncomfortable. The central
government undertook a series of exercises in the following years designed to
extricate itself of the implication of the judgment. The Saikia Committee
Report (1997) and the 83rd Constitutional Amendment Bill (August 1997) along with
the report of the HRD Ministry-related Parliamentary Committee (November 1997)
provide evidence of the clever ways being conceived in order to dilute and
distort the concept of the Fundamental Right to education. However, there was
public criticism of these attempts. Intellectuals, activists and people’s
organizations presented memoranda of their concerns to the Parliamentary
Committee and organized public debates engaging leadership of major political
parties (e.g. Delhi University Convention, December, 1997). Sensing this
resistance, the entire matter of Right to Education was put in cold storage for
the next four years…..
In November 2001, the 86th
Constitutional Amendment Bill was presented to the Lok Sabha (the Lower House
of Parliament). This Bill, like its predecessor 83rd Amendment Bill, too, was
flawed. It was misconceived insofar it (a) excluded almost 17
crore children up to six years of age from the provision of Fundamental Right
to free early childhood care and pre-primary education;
(b) restricted the Fundamental Right of even the 6-14 year age
group by placing a conditionality in the form of the phrase “as the
State may, by law, determine” in Article 21A; this gave the State the
instrumentality to restrict, dilute and distort the Fundamental Right given
through Article 21A; (c) shifted the Constitutional obligation
towards free and compulsory education from the State to the parents/guardians
by making it their Fundamental Duty under Article 51A (k) to “provide
opportunities for education” to their children in the 6-14 age group;
and (d) reduced, as per the Financial Memorandum attached to the
amendment Bill, the State’s financial commitment by almost 30% of what was
estimated by the Tapas Majumdar Committee in 1999.
There was widespread public criticism
of the anti-people character of the above Bill. A rally of 40,000 people, drawn
from different parts of the country, at Delhi’s Ramlila Grounds held on the day
the Bill was discussed in the Lok Sabha (Nov. 28, 2001) demanded radical
amendments in the Bill. Several Lok Sabha MPs, cutting across party lines, also
criticized the Bill. In public mind, it was becoming clear that the hidden
agenda of the Bill was not to accord the status of Fundamental Right
to elementary education but to snatch away the comprehensive right that the
children up to 14 years of age had gained through the Unnikrishnan Judgment.
Ignoring the public outcry, however, a consensus was arrived at among all the
political parties of varying ideological backgrounds and the Bill was passed in
both Houses of the Parliament without even a single dissenting vote. The
aforesaid four flaws in the Bill, now legitimized through the 86th Amendment in
December 2002, have since provided the basis for misconceiving the Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan and, more recently, the so-called Model Bill viz. Draft Right
to Education Bill (2006) sent to the state/UT governments.
It is noteworthy that the new Article
21A introduced through the 86th Amendment is the only Fundamental Right that
has been given conditionally. As pointed out above, this Right will
be given to the children “as the State may, by law, determine.” None
of the other Fundamental Rights is tied to such a pre-condition. It is
precisely this legislation that both the NDA and UPA governments failed to
finalise and present in the Parliament. The latest move of the centre in June
2006 to shelve the Bill altogether by sending a flawed draft to the states/UTs,
amounts to abdication by the Indian State of its Constitutional obligations.
Why did it become necessary for the ruling elite to incorporate such a
pre-condition in Article 21A in the first place and then not to enact the
legislation as per its requirement? In order to answer this question, we must
examine the major policy shift that has taken place as a result of the adoption
of the so-called economic reforms and the neo-liberal agenda of globalization.
One matter must be settled at this
juncture. The ruling elite imagines that, as a result of the 86th Amendment and
introduction of Article 21A, it has succeeded in divesting the children below
six years of age of their Right to Education, including right to Early
Childhood care and pre-primary education. However, the fact is that this
amendment does not negate Supreme Court’s Unnikrishnan Judgment (1993) which
directed that the original Article 45 of Part IV may be read in harmonious
construction with Article 21 (Right to Life) of Part III. This raised the
original Article 45 to the status of a Fundamental Right. In view of this, the
amended Article 45, providing for early childhood care and education, can still
be legitimately read in conjunction with Article 21, thereby giving the
children below six years of age a Fundamental Right that was snatched away by
the 86th Amendment.
Before probing the impact of the
neo-liberal agenda, let us acknowledge a rather discomforting reality. In spite
of the significant flaws of the 86th Constitutional Amendment as pointed out
above, it has taken the country more than five decades to accord education the
status of Fundamental Right. In this sense, the amendment has indeed given the
social movements a fairly powerful weapon to continue and broaden their
struggle for education with equality, social justice and dignity. From this
perception emerges a three-fold agenda viz. (a)
struggle for realizing the full entitlement made available from this otherwise
limited 86th Amendment; (b) using policy analysis (see the following Section)
as a people’s tool of struggle, expose the political economy of the amendment
with a view to reveal the class character of the Indian State as well as the
neo-liberal agenda before the masses; and (c) extend the struggle to seek
pro-people amendment of the 86th Amendment itself.
Neo-Liberal Assault on Education
Policy
Although the agenda of globalization
started operating in India from the mid-1980s onwards, its formal announcement
was made through the New Economic Policy in 1991. The new element was IMF-World
Bank’s Structural Adjustment Programme imposed on the Indian economy as a
pre-condition to receiving fresh international loans/grants. This meant that
the Indian government was obliged to steadily reduce its expenditure on
the social sector, particularly health and education. This was a rather
enigmatic pre-condition 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 who were advocating ‘Education For All’
programme along with the move towards the so-called “Knowledge Economy”. One
can’t, therefore, avoid asking the question: what was the hidden agenda? An
analysis of the declaration issued by the World Bank-UN sponsored “World
Conference on Education for All” (1990) reveals that the central thesis in the
Indian context was three-fold. First, the State must
abdicate its Constitutional obligation towards education of the masses
in general and school-based elementary education in particular, become
dependent on international aid for even primary education and work
through NGOs, religious bodies and corporate houses. Second, the
people neither have a human right as enshrined in the UN Charter nor
a Fundamental Right to receiving free elementary
education of equitable quality as implied by the 86th
Amendment. Third, education is a commodity that
can be marketed in the global market. It follows, therefore, that the education
system – from the pre-school stage to higher education – must be, as rapidly as
possible, privatized and commercialised. This central thesis has originated
from the highest echelons of the global market economy and the Indian
Parliament, along with India Inc., has unfortunately acquiesced without any
critical scrutiny whatsoever, purportedly in larger “national interest”. Prof.
Noam Chomsky, the redoubtable US scholar-cum-activist, would not have found a
more shameful example of his proposition of “manufacturing of consent”!
In smaller countries, particularly in
the ones lacking a strong base of government-funded schools, the above
neo-liberal agenda would not be hard to implement. However, in a vast country
like India, having a rich history of government’s engagement in education, the
neo-liberal agenda required a special strategy. The Indian situation was marked
by glaring contradictions. On the one hand, a whole generation of academia,
writers, scientists, doctors and engineers, civil servants, lawyers and public
figures until the 1990s had been, by and large, nurtured in the
government-supported education system. In 1991, the massive school network
comprised more than 8 lakh (0.8 million) schools (the figure has grown to more
than 11 lakhs (1.1 millions) today), 94% of which were either government/local
body or private but government-aided schools. Less than 6% were private
unaided schools. The higher education system then comprised about 5,000
colleges, 1,000 professional institutions and 200 universities. It is no body’s
case, on the other hand, that the system was adequate – either in quantity or
in quality. Half of the nation’s children (and two-thirds of the girls) were
essentially out of school (see Endnote 5) – unable to complete even eight years
of elementary education. The Constitutional goal of achieving universal
elementary education by 1960 eluded the policy makers, as it continues to do
even today. A conservative estimate showed that the number of primary schools
needed to be increased by almost two-fold while the number of upper primary and
secondary schools needed to multiply several fold. As a conservative estimate,
we needed at least twice as many qualified and well-trained
school teachers as we had in 1991 (this number then was about 40 lakhs [4
millions]).
The 1986 education policy had
resolved to raise investment in education such that it will reach at least 6%
of GDP by the year 2000. This unfulfilled resolve was incorporated in the UPA’s
Common Minimum Programme in May 2004. Yet, as percentage of GDP, India spent
less on education in 2005-06 (less than 3.5% of GDP) than what it spent in
1985-86 when the policy was passed by the Parliament. This is despite the fact
that the Government had levied 2% Education Cess and raised almost 35% of the
resources for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan from international funding agencies.
Clearly, as a result of the Structural Adjustment Programme, the political will
to mobilize public resources for education by reprioritisation of Indian
economy was at a lower level in 2005-06 than what it was 20 years earlier!
What the country needed in 1991 –
five years after the 1986 policy – was a firm resolve to first rapidly fill up
the cumulative gap resulting from continued underinvestment
and then maintain the elusive investment level of 6% of GDP in the following
decades. Nothing short of a radical departure was long awaited in order to
energise and restructure the entire education system along with its curriculum.
Yet, what the global market forces persuaded the Indian State to do in the
1990s was precisely the opposite of what was directed by the Constitution and
resolved by the Parliament in the 1986 policy. The undeclared but operative
strategy was to “let the vast government education system (from schools
to universities) starve of funds and, consequently, deteriorate in quality.” As
the 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 desperation and exclusion from the socio-economic and political space
in the country would prevail. More importantly, the people’s faith in the
Constitution and the capability of the State to fulfill its obligations will be
shaken up, thereby leading to a cynical view of the nation-state. This will lay
the groundwork for appreciation of market as a means of solving people’s
problems. The neo-liberal economist and advocates have long striven for
precisely this goal: measured weakening of the State and increasing credibility
and power of the market.
When the children “walk-out”
of the schools in protest against their poor quality and irrelevance (no
child ever drops out, the official claims notwithstanding, as explained in
Footnote 3!), two possibilities would emerge. First, low fee-charging unaided
private schools (recognized or unrecognized) would mushroom to meet the new
demand. Second, the government would have an alibi for closing
down its schools as their low enrolment would have made them unviable. The
school campuses could then be converted into commercial ventures such as
shopping malls in urban areas or police stations in rural areas, as it has been
happening all over the country. A well-equipped police force will increasingly
become the State’s priority in “Shining India” (or “Incredible India”) with a
view to protect the upward mobile middle class and the elite along with their
establishments from the unemployed poor youth who were either denied school
education or were compelled to quit without completing it. The likelihood of
growth of lumpenisation in this category of youth could at least be partly
attributed to the denial of the opportunity for socialization in
the common public space of the school, necessary for becoming part of even the
bourgeois vision of the nation. Yet, closure of schools would be unabashedly
termed “rationalization” of the school system in official reports[5]. The 1990s
and the beginning of the 21st century increasingly stand witness to this
phenomenon. The neo-liberal agenda is operating as per its original design!
The public expectations from the
government system posed another challenge to the global market forces.
Arguably, a general unrest in the country might be expected if the above
neo-liberal strategy of demolishing the government school system became too
apparent. The World Bank-sponsored District Primary Education Programme (DPEP),
therefore, took a cue from the 1986 policy’s non-formal stream for the poor. It
started promoting low quality parallel streams, rather than providing more of
regular full-time schools. From 1993-94 onwards, the DPEP pushed and eulogized
all kinds of parallel streams such as alternative schools, education guarantee
centres, multi-grade teaching and bridge courses – anything but a regular
school! The cadre of teachers was rapidly replaced by para-teachers i.e.
under-qualified, untrained and under-paid young persons appointed on short-term
contract. A new sociological principle emerged: a separate layer of educational
‘facility’ (not a school) as per the social and economic status of the child.
A Common School System functioning through Neighbourhood Schools would
have instead enabled children of different class, caste, religious and language
backgrounds to study and socialise together. This would have helped promote
equality and social justice and also an appreciation of India’s rich diversity
and composite culture. With their own children studying in the Neighbourhood
School, this would have also provided an objective basis for the more powerful
and privileged sections of society to have a vested interest in the
state-supported school system, thereby maintaining both its quality and
political credibility. However, the emerging system in the 1990s, as promoted
by the neo-liberal agenda, was designed to isolate and alienate children
belonging to different sections of society. The Indian Constitution was in
tatters.
The impact of neo-liberal agenda on
the Indian education policies must not be underestimated. Education is no more
viewed as a tool of social development but as an investment for developing
human resource and global market (see Ambani-Birla Report’s Foreword, GoI,
2000). This innocuous looking statement of the purpose of education implies a
major paradigm shift. The dominant features of education having serious
epistemic (knowledge-related) and associated implications that emerge out of
this paradigm shift may be identified as follows:
- trivialisation of the goals
of education e.g. confusing education with merely literacy (e.g. National
Literacy Mission of 1990s) or skills (the XI Plan attempts to equate
education with market skills);
- fragmentation of knowledge
into marketable competencies, as was done in Minimum Levels of Learning
(MLLs) during early 1990s;
- alienation of knowledge from
its social ethos and material base, a phenomenon that has prevailed since
independence but has been exacerbated several-fold in recent years by
rapidly growing dependence on information technology in schools,
particularly expensive private schools;
- increasingly dominant role
of the global market forces in determination of the character of knowledge
(e.g. computer companies designing syllabi, textbooks and learning
softwares);
- institutionalisation of
economic, technological and socio-cultural hegemony of the international
instruments in the formulation of curriculum, as evident in the space
being given to World Bank, UN agencies, corporate houses and their
foundations, foreign universities and externally funded researches and
projects in decision-making (e.g. Karnataka state government’s move in
2007 to build SIEMAT under the control of Wipro Ltd. which was forestalled
due to public outcry);
- introduction of parallel and
hierarchical educational streams for different social segments, as
discussed above;
- marginalisation of poor
children and youth as well as the backward regions through competitive
screening and a discriminatory system of institutional assessment and
accreditation (e.g. Pratham’s assessment of reading, writing and computing
skills of grade V children in ASER Reports of 2006 & 2007 or NAAC’s
standard criteria for categorizing colleges/universities); and
- attrition of the
State-supported and democratic structures for educational planning,
finance allocation and management, as exemplified by the introduction of
the idea of School Vouchers in XI Plan, though none of the seven CABE
committees had recommended it in 2005.
Admittedly, however, many of the
features enumerated above were evident either in rudimentary or relatively more
pronounced forms in the ‘pre-globalisation’ phase as well. This is exactly what
one would expect in view of the colonial control before independence and
hegemony of the ruling classes on the Indian State, with no significant
democratic social intervention, in educational policy formulation since
independence. What globalisation has done is the heightening and sharpening of
these pre-existing contradictions.
All these dilutions and distortions
were institutionalized in India’s education policy during the 1990s through
World Bank’s DPEP in more than half of India’s districts spread over 18 states.
None of these policy measures were formally approved by the Parliament, though
they were violating both the 1986 policy and Constitution’s principles of
equality and social justice. The much-hyped Sarva Shisksha Abhiyan packaged all
such measures into one ‘mega’ scheme and sought legitimacy first through the
Tenth Plan and now the Eleventh Plan. The Parliament was no more the supreme
policy-making body. Directions were coming from the World Bank and such other
agencies representing the global market.
What is Common School System?
The Education Commission (1964-66)
had recommended a Common School System of Public Education (CSS) as the basis
of building up the National System of Education with a view to “bring the
different social classes and groups together and thus promote the emergence of
an egalitarian and integrated society.” The Commission warned that “instead of
doing so, education itself is tending to increase social segregation and to
perpetuate and widen class distinctions.” It further noted that “this is bad
not only for the children of the poor but also for the children of the rich and
the privileged groups” since “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. . . . . . also
render the education of their own children anaemic and incomplete. (emphasis
added)” The Commission contended that “if these evils are to be eliminated and
the education 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.”
The Commission also pointed out that
such a system exists “in different forms and to varying degrees” in other
nations like the USA, France and the Scandinavian countries. The British system,
however, was based upon privileges and discrimination but, in recent decades,
under rising democratic pressure, it has steadily moved towards a comprehensive
school system which is akin to the Common School System as recommended by the
Commission. There are other developed countries as well like Canada and Japan
that practice similar systems. It may not be an exaggeration to assert
that none of the wealthy G-8 countries have reached where they are
without practicing the essential attributes of a public-funded Common School
System functioning through Neighbourhood Schools. Can India hope to be an
exception to this historical experience if it wishes to join the comity of
developed nations?
The 1986 policy, while advocating a
National System of Education, resolved that “effective measures will be taken
in the direction of the Common School System recommended in the 1968 policy.”
Since then, the concept of Common School System (CSS) has itself been evolving.
There are three widespread misconceptions about CSS, often promoted by its
detractors, which we must deal with before going ahead. First, CSS
is misperceived as a uniform school system. On the contrary, the Education
Commission itself advocated that each institution should be “intimately
involved with the local community . . . . . . be regarded as an individuality
and given academic freedom.” This guiding principle has assumed even greater
significance in recent times in view of the expectation from each school or a
cluster of schools to be able to respond to the local contexts and reflect the
rich multi-religious, multi-lingual and multi-ethnic diversity across the
country. The present rigidity of the present school system, imposed by the
Board Examinations (from CBSE/ICSE to State Boards), will be adequately
challenged when flexibility, contextuality and plurality are accepted, among
others, as the defining principles of CSS. Second, it is
wrongly claimed that CSS will not permit a privately managed school to retain
its non-government and unaided (or aided) character. Again, on the
contrary, CSS implies that all schools – irrespective of the type of their
management, sources of income or affiliating Boards of examinations – will
participate and fulfill their responsibility as part of the National System of
Education. In no case, however, a school will be allowed to use
education for profit making, increasing disparity or spreading disharmony.
The only expectation from the private schools shall be to function in
consonance with the Constitutional, in general, and provide free elementary
education of equitable quality to the 6-14 year age group, as required under
Article 21A. Third, the private school lobby has worked
overtime claiming that CSS would mean complete government control over
schools. There is no reason whatsoever to assume that government grants
necessarily lead to government control – the two need to be viewed
independently of each other. In developed countries like USA and Canada, the
school system is entirely funded by the state governments but it is entirely
managed locally in a decentralised mode. In light of the 73rd and 74th
Constitutional Amendments, decentralized management of schools with full
accountability is now a statutory expectation. This, however, does not absolve
the government from fulfilling its obligations towards financing, monitoring
and making policies.
We must also note that 86th
Constitutional Amendment (2002) enjoins upon the State to provide free and
compulsory education at the elementary stage (class I-VIII) to all children as
a Fundamental Right. This amendment in Part III of the Constitution has major
implications for the national system of education which cannot continue to
function as it has since independence. All schools in the country, including
privately managed unaided (or aided) schools, are required to act as agencies
of the State to fulfill the obligation flowing out of Article 21A regarding
equality and social justice. We must note that the private unaided or aided
schools have come up as a consequence of the failure of the State to provide
quality education and, in this sense, they are fulfilling the function of the
State. This is precisely why the private schools receive various kinds of
support or subsidies (hidden or otherwise). This means that they have to act as
genuine neighbourhood schools to provide free elementary education to all
children residing in the neighbourhood as may be prescribed by the government
from time to time. The central and state governments are hence required to take
concrete time-bound measures, including policy modification, in order to meet
the new Constitutional obligation.
Based upon the evolving public
discourse since the Education Commission’s recommendation in 1966, the
following principles have come to define the framework within which CSS is to
be conceived:
- The system of school
education is to be rooted in the vision of the Constitution. This implies
that, while being consonant with the Preamble, it must also ensure that
(a) the Fundamental Rights, especially those relating to equality and
social justice, as enshrined in Part III are not violated and (b) the
Directive Principles as ordained in Part IV are promoted.
- Education of equitable
quality is a Constitutional imperative.
- Education is not used for
profiteering, spreading disharmony or practicing subjugation.
- Schools that promote
inequality, discrimination and injustice in society are not to be allowed
to function.
The following may, therefore, be
listed as essential features of a CSS that is to be developed as the National
System of Education pertaining to school education:
- coverage from pre-elementary
to Plus Two stage;
- all schools, including
private unaided schools, to provide absolutely free
education from pre-primary to class VIII as per Article 21A and the
amended Article 45 (read with Article 21) of the Constitution; for
secondary and senior education, a rational fee structure to be ensured by
the state/UT governments and/or local bodies in all category of schools;
- all schools, including
private unaided schools, to become neighbourhood schools; neighbourhood to
be specified for each school with a view to optimize
socio-cultural diversity among children in each school; necessary
legislation to cover all government, local body and private schools to be
enacted;
- screening, interviews or
parental interaction not allowed as a valid basis for admissions;
- common minimum norms
and standards for infrastructure, equipment and teacher-related aspects
for both state-funded and private unaided schools (recognized and
unrecognized); these may relate to school land and buildings, number, size
and design of classrooms, drinking water and toilets, mid-day meals,
safety measures, barrier-free access and other requirements of various
categories of disabilities, facilities for girls at the age of puberty,
playground and sports, performing and fine arts facilities, teaching aids,
library, laboratory, information technology, number of teachers and their
qualifications/specializations along with pre-service and in-service
training, pupil:teacher ratio and others such requirements;
- common curriculum framework,
shared features of curriculum and comparable syllabi with flexibility
relating to texts, teaching aids, teaching-learning process, evaluation
parameters, assessment procedures and school calendar;
- common language policy that
takes into account the multi-lingual context of the majority of Indian
children, pedagogic role of the mother tongue and its relationship with
the state language, minority languages (Article 350A) and the increasing significance
of English in providing equitable access to knowledge, careers and
economic opportunities;
- decentralized school-based
management that ensures the necessary degree of institutional autonomy
while locating it within the broad framework of the 73rd and 74th
Constitutional Amendments relating to rural and urban areas respectively;
this requires the formation of school management committees, with the
majority of members being parents of students and appropriate linkages
with local bodies; and
- affiliation to a common
Board of Examinations for all schools within a state/UT.
We may add that the principles
underlying the concept of Inclusive Education are integral to the vision of
Common School System. In the Indian context, Inclusive Education has to go beyond
the Salamanca Declaration (UNESCO, 1994) and transcend the issue of disability.
It must concern itself with all marginalized sections of society viz. dalits,
tribals, religious and linguistic minorities, child labour and of course, the
physically and mentally disabled and particularly the girls in each of these
categories, whom the school system tends to exclude in substantial proportions.
Unless this exclusionary character of Indian education is challenged, both
theoretically and in practice, by application of the principles of Inclusive
Education, neither the Common School System nor Universalisation of Elementary
Education (UEE) can become a reality.
Further, the kind of paradigm shift
National Curricular Framework–2005 (NCF–2005) is apparently advocating can
become sustainable only when it is implemented in all categories of schools,
including the private unaided schools, in the whole of the country within a
declared timeframe through a properly phased programme. The essential linkage
between curricular reforms and systemic reforms
must be appreciated, before it is too late. Few realize that curricular reforms
in a school system founded on inequality and discrimination will increase
disparity in the quality of education. Such reforms, therefore, would be
meaningful as well as feasible only within the framework of a Common School
System.
The educational vision reflected in
Common School System has become critical for the survival of India as a
sovereign State and a civilized society since the global market forces are
rapidly encroaching upon government school campuses and also impacting on the
nature of knowledge inherent in the curriculum, with little concern for the
Constitutional principles or the welfare of the large majority of the
people[6]. Transformation of the present multi-layered school system into a
Common School System calls for a major dialogue-building nation-wide political
exercise, keeping the federal structure of the country and concurrency of
education in mind. To be sure, student bodies, teachers’ organizations, trade
unions and people’s movements must lead this campaign and engage political
parties to build up public pressure on the State.
The role of Common School System in
forging a sense of common citizenship and nationhood is yet to be appreciated.
This becomes a critical nation-building function in a geo-culturally diverse
country like India. How can the present multi-layered school system fulfill
this requirement? Today, the school system is like a nation within
nations and this is a recipe for fragmentation, rather than
solidarity. There is no alternative to the common and democratic space that is
offered for socialization by the Common School System based on Neighbourhood
Schools. An educational activist from the north-eastern region has argued that
the Common School System is the only option that provides the necessary
framework for resolving not just the complex multi-ethnic conflicts within and
across each state in the north-east but also for reversing the rapidly growing
alienation between the north-east and the rest of India. If this framework is
adopted throughout the nation, India would be in a unique position to offer a
meaningful policy alternative to its neighbours across the border. The common
space available for socialization among children from diverse backgrounds
within India could also be made available (and should be acceptable) to the
children from the neighbouring countries of the sub-continent.
Let us acknowledge that no
developed or developing country has ever achieved UEE or, for that matter,
Universal Secondary Education, without a powerful state-funded and
state-regulated well-functioning Common School System, founded on the principle
of Neighbourhood Schools, in one form or another. India is unlikely to be an
exception to this historical and global experience, notwithstanding the
misconceived ambition of the Indian State to become a ‘superpower’ by 2020!
New Assaults on Right to Education
During the past 2-3 years, the
neo-liberal forces have come up with new forms of assaults on the notion of
Right to Education and Common School System. It is critical that we learn to
identify and deconstruct these assaults. Here are three examples that should
enable us to identify all such moves that will emerge in future:
- A new diversionary tactic
was conceived and effectively used to create confusion in the debate
during and following the drafting of the Right to Education Bill, 2005 by
the CABE Committee (Chaired by Kapil Sibal, Minister of State for Science
& Technology, Govt. of India). This was about the proposed provision
of 25% reservation for weaker sections in private unaided
schools drawn from the latter’s neighbourhood. The entire debate was
diverted away from the issue of the Common School System to the problems that
the private school lobby is likely to face in finding resources for such
reservations and the cultural gap between those who pay fees (presumably
from upper castes) and those who would get the same education due to their
entitlement (presumably from lower castes). Hardly anyone was bothered
that the notion of 25% reservation implied that 75% of the children paying
fees shall not come from the neighbourhood. Does this amount to a move
towards equality or charity? Would the charging of fees from the privileged
children in the 6-14 year age group not amount to violation of Article
21A? An issue of even greater significance is about the number of children
this provision is likely to ‘benefit’. Let us make an estimate. The
enrolment at the elementary stage in the private unaided schools
(including the low quality unrecognized ones) in the whole country is
hardly 20% of the total enrolment at this stage (Seventh All India School
Educational Survey, NCERT, 2003). This means that the total capacity of
the private unaided school sector to provide elementary education is
limited to a maximum of 4 crore (40 millions) children out of 20 crore
(200 millions) children in the 6-14 year age group. If 25% of this
capacity of the private school sector is reserved for the weaker sections,
the number of the so-called ‘beneficiaries’ can in no case exceed 1 crore
children. What about the Right to Education of the remaining 19 crores
(190 millions) (including those 3 crores (30 millions) who are required to
pay fees in private schools)? Clearly, the proposal of 25% reservation in
private schools has nothing to do with either the issue of Right to
Education or Common School System. Nor does it lead us to a programme of
systemic transformation that is urgently required in order to fulfill the
obligations flowing out of 86th Amendment. Yet, the political leadership
concerned with policy formulation and the bureaucracy as well as the
media, child right organizations and even the judiciary has gone overboard
in promoting the idea of ‘25% issue’ as if the Right to Education is
realizable only through this mechanism. This apparently myopic perception
is a result of the ruling class knowing that (a) the proposal of 25%
reservation will not necessitate any changes in the national economy that
may go against its vested interests; and (b) this will only help
legitimise the ongoing privatization and commodification of education.
- The XI Plan has made a
cleverly phrased reference to the Voucher System for government
school children without any evidence of prior democratic
consultation or academic discourse[7]. What is Voucher System? The idea
was first proposed by Milton Friedman, the well-known advocate of
neo-liberal economics from USA. As per its promoters in India (the so-called
civil society groups propped up by international agencies advocating
neo-liberalism), the government will provide the under-privileged children
school vouchers that promise to pay their fees in private schools
contingent upon the children getting admission. However, the promoters are
not telling the public that the system has either already collapsed in
several countries or not made much headway. The hidden agenda of course is
to provide backdoor funding to private schools by shifting resources from
the government schools using the instrumentality of the voucher. The
market lobby knows that this will be an effective means of demolishing the
vast government school system and thus accelerating the pace of
privatization and commercialisation of school education. With the
destruction of the system of publicly funded schools, there shall be ‘free
for all’ situation wherein, not just the fee structure, but the curriculum
and pedagogy too will be guided by the market alone. This is precisely
what the voucher system lobby is aiming at – i.e. taking school education
out of the Constitutional domain!
- As explained above, the
neo-liberal forces have operated a policy design during the past 15 years
aimed at demolishing the government school system. After
already having achieved considerable success in these objectives, these
forces are now organizing so-called researches and studies on the
school system in India through partnership with NGOs and individual
academics. All these studies are designed to produce data to establish how
ineffective is the government school system in terms of poor pupil-teacher
ratio, teacher absenteeism, poor quality of teaching and low achievement
levels (e.g. World Bank-sponsored studies in Shahadara locality of Delhi
or Pratham’s all-India ASER Reports, 2006 and 2007). However, no such
report throws any light on how these schools have reached this state of
ineffectiveness and what needs to be done in order to reverse the process.
Nor do these reports tell us about the role played by the ruling class in
collusion with the market forces in destroying a school system that was
functioning fairly well only 20-25 years ago. Obviously, the compulsion to
destroy the credibility of the government schools is so overpowering for
the market forces that it does not have any space for truth whatsoever.
The Epistemic Assault and the
Emerging People’s Resistance
The Ambani-Birla Report (2000),
submitted to the Prime Minister’s office, was yet another example of how the
market forces began to erode India’s sovereignty and the democratic process of
the Parliament. It introduced several new formulations in the policy discourse
in India to convert education at all levels into a marketable commodity.
Once this is accepted in principle, a paradigm shift follows by implication.
Although the Ambani-Birla Report was never approved by the Parliament, most of
its recommendations are now being implemented in rapid succession under
disguise.
It is time that the paradigm shift in
the framework that determines the character of knowledge is recognised. The
epistemic (i.e. knowledge-related) implications that flow out of this paradigm
shift dominate the policy discourse and decision-making at all levels –
legislature, executive and the judiciary. The global market forces, supported
by the India Inc., have discovered new avenues, spaces and ways and means in
this market-oriented anti-people framework to powerfully intervene and to
further dilute and distort policies. The Indian academia and activists, by and
large, stand essentially co-opted in this process, with honourable exceptions
of course.
The goals of the market-oriented
education policy are in direct conflict with the social vision of the
Constitution. The assault by the market forces on the character of knowledge is
rapidly marginalizing the educational goal of preparing citizenry for a
democratic, egalitarian, secular and enlightened society. The Eleventh Plan’s
Approach Paper on secondary education, in the context of extending it to the
under-privileged sections of society, states that the focus of secondary
education shall be to prepare skilled workforce for the global market. In
contrast, the privileged will be given access to high value-added forms of
knowledge on a priority basis through a handful of elite institutions and thus
enabled to shift to the advanced countries and serve the global “Knowledge
Economy”. The recent announcement by the Prime Minister to set up new high
profile central universities, IITs and IIMs, multiply Kendriya Vidyalayas and
open 6,000 new high quality schools need to be seen in this framework. Nowhere
in these lofty announcements there is even an iota of evidence of political
commitment to ensure Fundamental Right to education of equitable quality for
all children or to transform the system comprising almost 11 lakh (1.1 million)
schools into a Common School System. Also, the twist given by the government to
the reservation debate of 2006-07 resulted in shifting the resources from
elementary education to the elite professional institutions in order to
increase the total availability of seats in favour of the privileged upper
castes. Establishing ‘Knowledge Hubs’ in the style of Special Economic Zones,
providing secondary or vocational education in Public-Private Partnership mode
and promoting franchise of second or third-rate foreign universities[8] are the
latest policy ‘miracles’ being pushed by the government in the XI Plan. Such
new moves point towards the growing collusion between the ruling class and the
global market forces for establishing the dominance of their joint agenda
against both the masses and national interests.
Clearly, the market assault is not
merely in terms of denying education of equitable quality to the masses but
also in terms of the social and pedagogical character of knowledge itself. This is to be
viewed as an epistemological assault on the generation,
distribution and transaction of knowledge. The question of political economy of
knowledge can’t be ignored much longer. We need to recreate new Takshilas and
Nalandas where the vision of 21st century India will have to be debated afresh
and reconstructed in the image of our 150-year long freedom struggle against
inequality, injustice and imperialism. The challenge is now being increasingly
deciphered by the people’s movements. Education is certain to be accepted as
the fourth critical resource, apart from jal-jangal-jameen (water-forest-land),
for the survival of the struggling masses[9]. Herein lies the emerging agenda
for the people’s movements to recover and redefine India’s democracy and
sovereignty!
Endnote:
1. Anil Sadgopal was Dean, Faculty of
Education, Delhi University, India. He has been Senior Fellow, Nehru Memorial
Museum & Library, New Delhi (2001-06) and member of many Commissions of
Government of India and provincial governments such as National Commission on
Teachers (1983-84); National Policy on Education-1986 Review Committee (1990);
Central Advisory Board of Education (2004-06); National Steering Committee of
National Curriculum Framework-2005 (2004-05); Common School System Commission,
Bihar (2006-07). He also chaired National Focus Group on ‘Work and Education’,
NCERT (2004-05). This is a revised and updated version of the paper prepared
for the conference organised by the People’s Campaign for Common School System
in collaboration with the Institute of Human Rights Education, Madurai, Tamil
Nadu, at Indian Social Forum, New Delhi, in November 2006 and later at the
Independent People’s Tribunal on World Bank Group, New Delhi (September 2007).
This text was also presented at the Annual Conference of Andhra Pradesh
Teachers’ Federation at Ongole, 6th February 2008.
2. These include two categories of
children: (a) those who never enrolled in schools either due to their own/
parents’ decision or due to unavailability of functioning schools; and (b)
those who enrolled but were compelled to leave schools for various reasons at
different stages of Elementary Education (Class I to VIII). It should be noted
that no child in India ever ‘drops out’ despite what the government claims. By
and large, the children are either ‘pushed out’ or simply ‘walk out’
in protest against curriculum that amounts to imposition, pedagogy that
destroys inquisitiveness, critical thinking and creativity and cultural
environment that demeans two-thirds of our children (i.e. dalits, tribals,
minorities, most backward classes, disabled and particularly girls in each of
these categories). The Hindi film ‘Taren Zameen Par’ (Director: Aamir Khan),
released in January 2008, powerfully (though only partially) brings out this
anti-child character of our school system. See Footnote 9 for further
elaboration of this issue.
3. It is this category of children
below six years of age (almost 17 crores) that was excluded from
Fundamental Right when Article 21A was introduced in December 2002 through 86th
Constitutional Amendment.
4. Eight years of Elementary
Education (class I to VIII) may have been an adequate provision in 1950 but
today it is far from being adequate. No one can get any job or enter a career
with a class VIII certificate. Even with a class X certificate, hardly any
career option becomes available, not even the low profile ITI or Para-medical
courses. There is a strong case now for extending the concept of Fundamental
Right to cover up to 18 years of age so that Plus Two education becomes
accessible to all. This will also link Right to Education with the
social justice agenda since the benefits of reservation will become available
essentially after completing Plus Two.
5. This term (“rationalization”) was
first used in 1999 by the District Collector of Indore, M.P., in his report to
the then Chief Minister Digvijay Singh to justify closure of 30 govt. schools
in one stroke, followed by their conversion into mostly commercial ventures. In
some of the schools, police stations were established. The Collector did report
data on the declining number of students in these schools but never inquired as
to where did they go. They had actually left non-functioning government schools
in disgust. Some of them, whose parents could afford, were admitted into low
fee-charging schools which mushroomed in the same locality to fill the vacuum
created by the closure of the government schools. The Chief Minister, known for
conceiving Education Guarantee Centres, too preferred not to ask such
uncomfortable questions.
6.There is ample evidence that the
capitalist lobby, working through chambers of commerce (e.g. CII, FICCI and
ASSOCHAM), is building pressure on MHRD for major changes in the school system
so that corporations and other private bodies can turn education into a
commodity and use it for profit. Powerful global market forces have either
supported or put up their own NGOs to successfully introduce the alarming idea
of Voucher System in the Eleventh Plan with the objective of shifting public
funds to private schools. At a recent CII meeting, even Prof. Amartya Sen was
constrained to advise the corporate CEOs that there is no way of universalizing
school education without a public-funded school system.
7. The reference to Voucher System in
Planning Commission’s Draft Approach Paper made in May 2006 amounted to
essentially a green signal for the idea. However, there was a widespread
criticism from various quarters. As a result, the reference in the final paper
(December 2006) was carefully made ambiguous but it was there to be pushed at
the right moment. The XI Plan (2007) again poses Voucher System as an
alternative but due to public resistance does not dare to openly advocate this
idea at the moment.
8. The global leaders of knowledge
that emerged in the wake of industrial revolution such as MIT, Harvard,
Princeton, CalTech or the likes of Cambridge and Oxford Universities are not
being franchised. Indeed, the quality, depth and creativity of such knowledge leaders
do not lend themselves to this crass commodification!
9. At a meeting of five tribal and
peasant organizations held at Harda, M.P. on 5-6 January, 2008, the grassroots
tribal activists stated that “we don’t want this kind of education as it
teaches our children to become dalals (intermediaries) of
contractors and government, thereby alienating them from our struggle for Right
to jal-jangal-jameen.” This perception led them to coin a new
slogan: “Shikasha Badlo, Skool Bachao!” (Transform education, save
schools) which implies that the struggle for transforming the political
character of knowledge in school curriculum and pedagogy has to be concomitant
with the struggle for improvement of school infrastructure, teacher quality,
pupil-teacher ratio, financing, management and other parameters of education of
equitable quality.
