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Journalism of Courage
Recently, on a trip to a village in the region, I had walked into a government-run village school on a working day and had met the only teacher on duty out of the total six in that school. He was about to begin the morning prayer session on the school ground where about 400 students had assembled. There was a large stick in his hand which, he said, was often needed to deal single-handedly with such a large gathering.
After the prayers the student monitors of the respective classes got busy filling the attendance registers and quite enthusiastically carrying a few rickety chairs from the staff room to the class probably in the hope 8212; if chairs come, can teachers be far behind?. There was no supply of electricity in the school that day and so not a single drop of water in the tap. Finally, some students got busy fetching water from the nearby tubewell.
We often pass by these familiar trifles indifferently, never caring to acknowledge that the state of schooling system in many, though not all, villages in India is downright terrible.
The problem might be enormous in weight and significance, but it fails to knock us like a blow. This silent8217; emergency resulting from the defunct village system continues to exist as accepted and hence fails to trigger any political debate, whatsoever. On the other hand are the loud emergencies8217; like terrorist attacks and soaring prices which take a major chunk of the privileged attention of policy makers. Not that pious objectives to expand educational opportunities in villages are not voiced. Just that the actual achievements hardly ever coincide with the stated political intentions and goals. The politicians easily get away by blaming the moribund village school system on parental apathy towards child8217;s education and parents8217; lack of participation in the school management through the Panchayati Raj institutions which, the government had so earnestly formed with the objective to infuse life into the dead village schools.
It8217;s strange that the goal of providing free basic education to all children up to the age of 14 has been repeatedly stated in various official records: first by 1960 according to the Constitution, then by 1995 as per the National Policy of Education 1986, and now by the 21st century according to the revised policy of 1992. And each time what happens is a postponement in realisation of the objective as the deadline approaches. No wonder the result has not shown up and the state of village schools continues to be pathetic.
The vital question is why is the government at any level not concerned. Why the provision of facilities in schools is a non issue in every way. Public expenditure on education has remained below expectation for a long time now.
Higher education may get some favours but basic education is still on no one8217;s mind. Only recently the share of elementary education in the education budget has started increasing, but to no help as a major part is going into paying emoluments to rural teachers. Thanks to government inaction, growth in the number of teachers has also slowed down causing a disturbing increase in teacher-pupil ratio. Not to miss a mention that there are several single teacher schools especially at middle and primary levels.
The irony is that lofty rhetoric in this regard never seems to end and this has resulted in creating a perception in the public mind that a lot of political effort is going into stemming the rot. This manufactured impression has deflected our attention in this regard and what has instead taken the front seat is that it8217;s the rural parents who lack demand for ensuring that their wards are duly attended. Here we forget that those in question have not chosen the way they want to lead their lives. Further if this lack of demand bothers us to that extent, why don8217;t we create such conditions which would help the rural parents choose what8217;s good for them? What our demand-related argument ignores is that left with acute poverty and other related impediments, people in rural India don8217;t even think that they can access the so-called free basic education8217;.
The problem thus remains and the only solution lies in positive intervention of the state. The most binding pre-condition is to break the spell of political slumber vis-a-vis the pathetic condition of schooling in the Indian villages.
It8217;s time to rediscover the lost political will.
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