Staff shortage, fund crunch, dismal facilities: Survey sheds light on poor state of elementary education in Jharkhand

The survey covered topics such as the condition of the school infrastructure, teaching methods, midday meals, obstacles to better quality education, remedial measures initiated to help children affected by the Covid-19 crisis, and teachers’ views on various matters.

The report said: “The dismal state of the schooling system in Jharkhand reflects decades of state apathy towards elementary education. This apathy is both a mistake and an injustice. It is a mistake because quality education for all could transform the economy and society of Jharkhand. It is an injustice because it keeps oppressed classes and communities where they are.”

The report said that para-teachers accounted for a majority of teachers, 55 per cent, at the primary level (classes 1-5) and 37 per cent at the upper primary schools (classes 5-8). These teachers have ‘lower qualifications and less training’ than regular teachers. “…it is doubtful that they are more accountable. Also, this split teaching cadre, where para-teachers have much lower salaries and less regular pay, is not particularly conducive to mutual cooperation,” the report said. The survey pointed out that this was at a time when the teachers pointed out that “most” pupils had forgotten how to read and write by the time schools reopened in February this year after the pandemic.

Shortage of teachers 

The survey pointed out that shortage of teachers was one of the most “frequent and emphatic complaints” expressed by the teachers themselves. “In many schools, one teacher is occupied most of the time with record-keeping and other non-teaching duties (at the time of the survey, for instance, work related to caste certificates for SC/ST children was absorbing a lot of the teacher’s time). That leaves very few teachers for educational activities,” the survey report said.

According to the Right to Education (RTE) Act, all schools should have at least two teachers, yet a “shocking 35% of primary schools in our sample (20% of all schools) had a single teacher”. “The state of single-teacher schools is awful,” the report said. Many teachers are just “holding the fort” in a difficult situation. Even those who have a strong capacity to be good teachers (and there are quite a few) end up doing little educational work in this demotivating environment.

Consider some of the findings in schools run by single teachers in the sampled districts:

Nauka area, Garhwa district: This school had 24 students enrolled, but only 18 were present. The premises are not clean. There is no playground. The students do not get eggs. They have not been given uniforms and no scholarship money has been sent to their bank accounts. Everything is happening according to the teacher, nothing by the rules.

Dhanbasha area, Dumka district: This school is located in a very remote place inside a jungle. There is no approach road. The villagers have made a trail through the jungle to move around. The conditions of the school are not great. The students sit on the ground since there are no durries. They should have two teachers, but there is just one para-teacher who is here as an administrator.

Infrastructural deficiencies

The survey pointed out that none of the schools had functional toilets, electricity and water supply altogether – facilities that ought to be available in every school by now. It said that only half of the sample schools had a satisfactory water supply, and 15 per cent had no water supply at all within the premises. Where water is short, it becomes difficult to maintain toilets, ensure good hygiene, and run the kitchen. A shocking 64 per cent of primary schools and 39 per cent of upper-primary schools have no boundary wall. In many schools, the roof was cracked or even in danger of falling. The survey said that U-DISE data of Jharkhand was misleading vis-a-vis functional toilets, as 15 per cent of primary schools and 5 per cent of upper-primary schools had no functional toilet at all.

Consider these:

Baria area, Palamu district: “There is water seepage from the ceiling in one of the two classrooms. Students from KG to Class 5 all sit in the same classroom,” as per the survey report.

Bogai area, Ramgarh district: “Due to a lack of a boundary wall, animals keep entering the school premises. Sometimes wild elephants even come in. This causes some danger to the students during school hours,” the report said.

Majdiha, Dumka district: Water supply is from a hand pump which does not work most of the time. Toilets are dysfunctional and there is no boundary wall or playground.

Post-Covid crisis and midday meal problem

The survey pointed out that the schooling system in Jharkhand, which was already weak, suffered a heavy blow during the Covid-19 crisis. “Recent recovery measures are grossly inadequate. Safeguarding the well-being and rights of Jharkhandi children calls for a major investment in the schooling system. Most schools are yet to comply with the Right to Education Act 2009,” the report said. Although the respondents of the survey said that a “special learning material”, the centrally sponsored material, had been distributed to children, the survey said “it had little to do with the Covid-19 crisis, or with the Jharkhand government.”

Attendance of pupils was just 68 per cent in primary schools and 58 per cent in upper-primary schools on the day of the survey. This is significant as it indicates that many students. may have dropped out.

The report said that a large majority (two-thirds) of the respondent teachers said that the school did not have adequate funds for the midday meal scheme at the time of the survey. “What most of them meant is that midday meal funds had not been received for months. This forced them to arrange the midday meal by taking credit from local shops or borrowing from other sources. It is not difficult to imagine the effect on the quality of midday meals,” the survey said. Even though eggs were said to be provided twice a week, the report indicated that informal discussions with parents/children revealed that it was not the case and that many schools seem to be using the money for eggs to buy pulses and vegetables when midday meal funds are delayed.