Opinion No quality without equity

India’s school system changes these simple expectations into huge challenges.

The schooling system has certainly expanded to an unprecedented scale in the last two decades,but it has been a highly uneven expansion. While poor and marginalised groups living in rural peripheries or in remote tribal localities have to contend with single- or two-roomed schools with a single teacher (on contract,poorly paid and called titles like shiksha karmi or shiksha mitra),at the other end of the spectrum,the government provides well-endowed institutions such as Central schools and Navodaya Vidyalayas. In the private sector too, some high-end schools provide the best physical and human resources,while the poor have to make do with substandard low-fee schools. Then there are the NGO-run schools that operate on shoestring budgets and underpaid teachers,even though they serve clear needs among the poor. The challenge of bringing them all together to RTE standards is enormous,but not impossible,as is the task of making schools more diverse and inclusive spaces.

Whether run by the government,private sector or NGOs,it is the low-end,less-endowed schools that serve the poor and the marginalised. Therefore,the state’s response has to be more nuanced than simply ordering schools to meet RTE standards or proposing to close them down for non-compliance. First,it is essential to reestablish faith among the general public in government schools. One occasionally comes across a reverse flow of students from private to government schools when they begin functioning better. But the state needs more strategies. For instance,it must pay special attention to schools in tribal areas and highly backward localities,where private or even NGO providers are unlikely to go. Small private schools if they are located in unserved or underserved areas may be financially supported to function better with improved facilities,beyond the subvention for 25 per cent children from weaker sections. NGO schools functioning in urban slums and rural areas could be supported through grants-in-aid provisions for upgradation; this is important as many NGOs are engaged in unique and innovative programmes that deserve to be sustained and emulated.

Inclusivity is an even more complex task — the school system is splintered into many categories,and in urban areas they have become virtual islands of exclusivity or ghettos. Further,few schools volunteer to accommodate differently-abled children. Tackling this problem will take basic reforms in governance. Schools have to be treated as public spaces irrespective of their financing and management (by private,government,or NGO entities). The RTE Act imposes certain compulsions in this direction on all categories of schools. But this cannot be achieved only through legislative measures. Both government and private school systems have to be reorganised. It is often the issues of facilities,regularity of functioning,ensuring learning standards,language policy including medium of instruction,etc. that divide government and private schools.

The state cannot remain unconcerned about the choices and aspirations of parents; and nor can it mutely watch the growing social divide. While the government is primarily responsible for improving the inclusiveness in schools under its direct management and making them free from any discrimination,it cannot remain aloof to the policies and practices adopted in others. Even private providers must view managing a school as dispensing a public service rather than rendering services under a commercial contract. For this to happen,it is necessary to explore ways making good education free through charitable sources during the basic education stage. The government must reciprocate through policy measures and incentives,and the engagement of the government with the private and NGO sector need not imply control and coercion.

After all,some of the best institutions of higher learning in the country are flourishing within the government sector without serious infringement of their autonomy. A common refrain against making schools open for all is that it will affect the quality of education. But as the UNESCO Report on Quality put it,“quality must pass the test of equity” — an education system or institution characterised by exclusion and discrimination on any ground is clearly not fulfilling its mission. The future of RTE depends on how effectively we transform our schools into inclusive public spaces that not only accommodate but welcome diversity in classrooms and adopt non-discriminatory policies and practices.

The writer is vice-chancellor of the National University for Educational Planning and Administration and a member of the national advisory committee on the right to education