Impending Danger on School Education

Impending Danger on School Education

 

23rd April, on this day, two years ago we lost our senior member and convenor of RTE Forum, Ambrish Rai Ji. Today, on his second death anniversary, we have organized this Webinar in his remembrance. As you all know the entire school education system is in a dangerous situation and we decided to have a discussion in this context and then we can strategize as to how we plan  to implement upcoming campaigns. I would like to welcome all our participants to this webinar.

 

Our speakers

Professor Muchkund Dubey, President, CSD and Former Indian Foreign Sectretary

Dr C Ramakrishnan

Professor Gopal Pradhan, Ambedkar University

Professor Anita Rampal, Delhi University

 

I'd welcome and request our newly elected national convenor of RTE Forum, Gautam Bandhopadhyay to say a few words and begin the program.

 

Gautam Bandhopadhyay

 

Today is Ambrish Ji's second death Anniversary and it's a like Pledge Day for us. We welcome all on this occasion and,

" Sabko Shiksha

Behtar Shiksha"

A pledge with which this forum started and wr are still at it but given the condition of the education currently we all need to decide it's future. We will begin with the keynote address of Mr Muchkund Dubey and hearing speakers like Dr C Ramakrishnan, Professor Gopal Pradhan, and Professor Anita Rampal and all the participants from across the nation who are concerned about our education system, education activists who have been fighting this battle. A fight for education is a fight for democracy, a fight to create a nation. When we talk about education, we talk about its Constitutional rights and it gives us  a hope for better quality education for all. The inequality in the education sector has to eradicated, only then can se remove the inequality in the society. One is not possible without the other.

 

Today's Webinar, we agree that RTE Act is not our last goal, but we also accept that this Act will help us remove issues in education, administration and other levels. It will help us conjoin districts.

 

The condition of education is deteriorating day by day and we need to plan and pledge as to how we can improve education system and it's quality and how we can provide the children with their Constitutional rights to education.

 

Mitra Ranjan

 

Thank you Gautam Da. With this I would request Professor Muchkund Dubey, President, CSD and Former Indian Foreign Secretary to speak. He has been present and supportive since the founding of CSD and he has been with Ambrish Ji too since a long time.

 

Professor Muchkund Dubey

 

Thank you so much Mitra Ranjan Ji. This meeting has been organized to pay tribute to Ambrish Rai Ji on second year after his demise. Much has been said about him soon after he left us and also on the first anniversary of his death, therefore I'm not going to repeat those things. I think picture that has emerged that he was a  unique personality in several ways and this has been demonstrated by the fact that even two years after his demise, we had a hard time finding  a substitute for him. I very much wish that your experiment will work and will be successful and RTE Forum will be able to acquire the same dynamism and energy displayed when Ambrish Ji was amongst us.

 

In these two years, large numbers of policy measures have been announced in the field of education. Particularly in states which have governments of the Ruling party. They have made changes of the very drastic measures and which cma have a deterrent effect on the education and future of our children. This measure has pushed the goal of universalization. The central government's policy in the field of education amounts to all events time to time it has now geared to achieve this goal and mobilizing all the resources needed to achieve this goal. Inspite of these measures, we have not seen much of  a protest at the national level on the announced policy measures. The RTE Forum has lost its momentum, dynamism and even it's relevance. To take an honest view of the situation, in the last decade and a  half the only game in the field of school education has been the RTE Act and jg seems that the main purpose of the policy that we are pursuing is to bring that game to an end and start on an uncharted path for objectives that are vaguely defined. For which  there are neither resources adequate enough to revive them nor the manpower needed to implement them.

 

Before the RTE Act was adopted, many of us were working for establishing a  Common School System in India, but when the RTE Act was adopted, there was a choice before us whether to continue working for the

Common School System and dismiss the RTE Act as truly inadequate for the purpose of realising the Common School System or concentrate on only the implementation of the RTE Act for sometime and through its implementation try to rescue the Common School System established in India. RTE Act was unit piece of  legislation which had following features:

 

- Right to free and compulsory education to children

And education as public could recognize and it was also implicit that it was incumbent upon the government to make the Act's implementation successful.

 

- It was based on set on norms which are essential and important for ensuring equality because they are applicable to all the schools across the country and are also important for ensuring quality

So basically it's about achieving quality through the pursuit of equality.

 

- Third most important thing about the Act was that it had a time limit for implementation - 5 years. These 5 years are over and need to legally set a new target but there is no indication from official quarters of moving in that direction.

 

The Act also enumerates a large number of laws and practices which are unfriendly to children and among these are imposing various examinations on them at the elementary level. The Act had abolished ot but it has been brought back again unfortunately by an Amendment.

 

Where do we go ahead from here?

In my opinion, it is very important that we have  a kind of a program or a set of activities which we can pursue at the state and national level. We should attach priority to 2-3 most important matters like :

 

1. To implement the RTE Act

2. To get a new time frame for its implementation

3. To insist on getting the resources need for the effective implementation of the RTE Act

4. Extend the Act to pre primary stage children and those at secondary level which had been excluded from the RTE Act

 

I think that if these things can be achieved then perhaps we would closer to the goal of achieving the common school system in India. It's extremely important as no other country in the world can claim to have reached the stage of being developed without having a publicly financed and publicly operated.

 

Ambrish ji was a special person in my life and his absence can be felt by us all.

At the central level, many policies were made at national level and there has been less activities. New perspectives also came through and help us sail through.

 

We hope that before RTE act, we used to work for Early Childhood Education and will continue to do so. State and national forums need to come together and pressurise the govt to work on them.

 

2030 - supposed date for implementation of RTE Act properly.

Budget for education changes according to the convenience of fiscal govt

 

Bad economics and ethics n morality - believing that budget for education can only be increased through increase in GDP. With this hope and belief we move forward.

 

 

Prof. Anita Rampal

 

Namaste friends, with time new policies are coming along with RTE and they need our attention. They are state's responsibility but centre is taking a crucial role in it.

 

New PM schools to be created have asked for full assurance that all policies of RTE Act should be followed, only then funds will be provided.

 

With advent of NCF, its true purpose has been lost.

 

SDEG (SC, ST, OBC, Minority groups,all have been clubbed into one under this)

New NCF is diluting so much in the name of convenience of option.

 

Policies suggests 'Multipathways' which are against the RTE act.

 

Even at 11th class very few students get the chance to choose from subjects like sciences, barely 300 schools have them, so they don't have the choice to take them.

d

 Schools complain that they don't score enough to get science

 

Foreign countries provide a period of 10 years of education for the child to catch up and improve but this new policy has created a  new structure (8th to 12th - Secondary Stage)

 

10th classs students will have to take 16 subjects, given the current scenario (sports teachers teaching maths , etc)

 

Teacher educators refuse to teach science

 

Home science which has been revised, have been aligned according to new industries, it only has theoretical questions, not practical experience or physical application. It's been taught at it's base level.

 

Out of those 16 compulsory course (sports, Yoga, etc) there are some interdisciplinary courses which has subjects from Indian Knowledge System.

 

UGC has provided that credits from these wwill be accepted for college admission in universities.

 

Reasonable choices - 1 course will be from mainstream subjects, 1 from sports, and 1 more interdisciplinary, 1 language will be allowed to be choosen and can come under registered school.

 

 Imagine the knowledge level that will ve imparted to the students going to such schools.

 

Work based courses are not being made but vocation based. It's opening up opportunities for questionable organizations to attain secondary school certificates and run.

 

At 8th class, weak students are given separate exams, taught separate syllabus.The basic knowledge which a

child should get are being taking away.

 

NCF with its detailed guidelines of  650

pages, is only trying to control the school system,giving unnecessary details like duration of the morning assembly.

 

 We need to be aware of this discrimination and division and how we need to fight against the deteriorating quality of education.

 

Mitra Ranjan

 

Education's political economy and democracy needs to be  foicused on. Ambrish ji felt it to be really important , the socialisation of education.

 

Professor Gopal Pradhan, Ambedkar University

 

On 13th April, 2021 a program was held and i had a conversation with Ambrish ji. In the development policies, education related issues are usually not on the agenda of the communist Party, given our history with communism.We decided to create a document focusing on the this matter. Two days after this conversation, I heard of his demise. It feels like a loss to the society as I felt inadequate to prepare that document myself. He had the appropriate qualities which required for it.

 

With the upcoming RTE Act, the kind of excitement that was there in MP when Mulaayam Singh and Maayawati came into power together. Whenever there is an attempt to uplift the marginalized section of the society, an uproar takes place. The caste composition that is formed for the beneficiaries, is evident.

As professor of Hindi, I'll talk about what I understand of it. A book came out , post cobid, called Pandemic Pedagogy which talked about the authoritarian govt all the world started taking decisions regadinf the syllabus which were affected by their religious attitude. Another example is Rationalization of Education. The reduction of the syllabus, being another example, those people who have been removed from syllabus werewere actually an integral part of the nationalist movement.

 

A systemised way of creating a new history in the minds of the upcoming youth as favoured by the current government. A process of creating synthetic memories in place of original memories. Social movement, democratic rights etc are aimed to be removed from its roots. Darwin's theory for evolution has so been removed from Social Science syllabus. The base of students will be extremely weak in these subjects which they lose out.

 

The government claims to promote the subaltern through adding all indian languages of the nation like Hindi, but which hindi? The word itself was formed after Mughal Invasion. It's impossible to remove Urdu from the current Hindi. They aim to teach in Sanskritiaed Hindi. Tulsidas 's Ramcharitamanas was alleged to be written in poor man's language instead of Sanskrit. A language which has kept a big section of this country under illiteracy. I would like to thank all listeners and Mitra Ranjan Ji for giving me this opportunity.

 

Dr C Ramakrishnan

 

At first I would like to offer my hearty tribute to Ambrish Ji as we worked together. We all working together for RTE are at crossroads and we need to work together as it's butchering which address the needs of the large population of students of the nation.

 

They are harming the entire fabric of education and creating long documents. It's actually to strategy to distract

As per Sartak document, 2030 they plan to change RTE altogether.

 

They are just creating policies and are implementing through various organs and not through direct orders as they could be challenged in court. They are baiting the state governments through funds.

 

They are bulldozing and using the state governments to fulfill their agendas.

We need to formulate different policies to push for compulsory education till 18 years of age. What should be the feature of Kerala for school education, we are expecting more than 3000 to arrive in this meeting with 1000 people speaking.

 

National Education Agency, 30th April to be organized on how to get education jn their neighborhood  , how govt  is trying to cheat them of their needs.

 

 Niti Aayog is proposing to close 9 lac schools approximately, only thinking of the resources, and transferring those funds to the remaining schools under the name of PM schools.  Schools under 15km radius asked to be closed. 125000 to 9500 schools.

 

Ambrish ji's vision was correct, the govt is handing over the public property and resources to the private sector through the ignorance of the the citizens.

Fighting against the systemic reforms and against cultural reforms. We need to work on them together. Learn it, locate it, fight it in decentralised way and go ahead. Thank you for giving me the opportunity for speaking.

 

Mujahid

 

Remembering Ambrish Ji on his second death anniversary today, I would like pay tribute to him. Hearing all the members who spoke today, they talked on very important points and they have our support if we plan to move ahead for mobilisation or any other movement.

 

Himmat Singh

 

If Ambrish Ji had been alive today, how he would have thought and taken action against the current situations. It's not that the current govt doesn't think about education but they think in their own way. We need to understand and circulate that who are hindering this progress and why. This is such a  big forum that if we want we need to spread this all over the nation, we can. It's  a great political task to do this. As to educate them them that why these students are being cheated of their right to education. We can depend on the nation's strength and the citizens for this change.

 

Surendra

 

Students at younger classes should be given multiple chances and they should be passed and not failed. But there are not enough teachers in the first place. At Delhi level, we should do something for children and they should not be forced into child labour , I would like to request RTE forum members to think over it and take into action.

 

Aatreyee

 

As Gopal Ji said that every party has developed it's own views on all issues, except education. It's the result of that we are having a govt which is making such grace decisions for the NCF. As a forum we all need to think of it deeply. Even we do not have exact details that what all is about to be removed, as understood from the various articles, so if a detailed report could be availed, we can take it to the villages in all corners and mobilize them and create a agenda for it.

 

Sanjeev Sinha

 

From elementary education to higher education, changes are taking place , as heard from other speakers, but can all these people from different backgrounds, can they be brought together to find alternative ideas? I feel we need such a people's movement for it, we cannot wait any longer. We need to bring them all together, acamedicians, feminists, labour groups, student unions, etc. It cannot be remain limited to small meetings and movements. Because the ongoing movement is going on at a very large level, created at a very systematic level and people are being brainwashed at a great level. Moreover the current power system is feeding on the fear of the people. There is  a need for  a push towards creating a platform for bringing together the nation. I would request Gautam Da to plan  a meeting soon regarding this and find a solid solution for it.

 

Gurcharan Sharma

 

If RTE forum can be created at district levels, then it can take the form of a national movement. A great platform is indeed needed for it. For example there is grave issues for teachers in Bihar and the preference of guest teachers over regular ones. Old ones being forced to guven exams is really sad.

 

Vote of thanks by Raghu Tiwari

 

This meeting today and talk on education kn the second death anniversary of Ambrish ji acts as a great Tribute to him. From the the talks today, the specific points were :

- Changes in NEP

- Politics involved in it

 

The detailed framework just shows that igs an attempt to control as I understood from Anita Ji's world's. Gopal ji focused on the politization of the matter. The government's involvement which is influenced from the Western policvies is evident. The attempt to earse history is also visible. If the context is lost, all is lost.The loss of education for the common man is at its last point. C Ramakrishnan  emphasized on how  that Kerala govt is taking small steps towards making a  difference.

 

From all we heard here, we need to realize that we are in harder battle than in which Ambrish Ji left us and we require much more efforts. I would like to thank all present here who spoke today and helped organised this meeting. Who are attempting to give a new strength to the RTE Forum.

 

Mitra Ranjan

 

Thank you Raghu Bhai. By giving the tribute to Ambrish ji, I would like to end this meeting. I would like to thank Nancy for creating the meeting link and all other participants : Angela, Namrata, Prabeer, Rekha, Sanjeev etc We all will reach out to you all through the Sankalp patr which will be created. Thanks to Aekta, Gautam Da and Anita Ji for translating the points.

 

Rekha

 

Many things came up today in which we can do something actively. I've seen some articles which spread the ideas, and we also need to write nad spread some. We need to take assistance from Alliance more and involve more people in this movement.

 

Mitra Ranjan

 

Very rightly said. Thank you all present today.