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.
