(This from February
2019 issue of New Democracy, an Article by Mrigank)
Ever since AAP
government has taken over the reins of National Capital Territory of Delhi, it
has been propagating its achievements in many fields including education and
health. Many progressive individuals too are taken in by this trumpeting. The
Government claims that it has reformed the school education system and now government
schools are doing better than private schools and results have improved. Since
so was not visible in reality, an investigation into the claims was warranted.
In this light, PDSU has done a survey in two schools of Sagarpur, Delhi. There
was also some information available on the sites of education directorate and
some other sources on the web. These are the basis of the facts used in this
article.
Stratification
Some of the main
changes done by this Government includes stratification of students right at
the age of 10 or 11 i.e. class VI onwards. Children have been divided into
three groups, initially called Pratibha, Nishtha and Vishwas. This was done
based on a separate examination testing their ability to read and write
English. Better students were put in Pratibha section, middle ones in Nishtha
and lower ones in Vishwas. Later Vishwas was termed neo nisthta and then merged
with Nishtha. Students were thus put in separate sections with different
teachers. Not just different teachers but with different syllabi too, and
different examinations. While he Pratibha children are taught full syllabus
with prescribed books, Nishtha children are taught less numbers of chapters.
They are given books called ‘Pragati’ books, which are basically activity and
workbooks. They were initially published by an NGO called Pratham. Now they are
prescribed by the Government in schools of entire Delhi. The profit of the
publishing NGO can be seen clearly. The supposed idea behind this was to help students
to improve their levels.
This
classification has many disastrously adverse effects. One, this enhances the
discrimination already prevalent. As it is the people from poorer
socio-economic background are forced to send their children to government
schools, where despite well qualified teachers, teaching standard is poor due
to lack of facilities. And number of such children forms majority of school
going children.
Secondly, it
discounts child psychology. When children living in the same locality, studying
in same school are labelled as meritorious and non-meritorious it will only
generate complexes in the children. Some students will consider themselves
better than others and others will inculcate an inferiority complex. These
students will not see eye to eye.
With different
syllabi and different examinations, students in different categories and
sections of the same class (e.g. 6th Standard) will learn differently. Students
who were not so good in the beginning will be stamped forever as poor students
as they will not get a chance to be better as they will be taught differently.
And after VIII when they will reach the next class, they will have to face the
full syllabus, which is designed with assumptions that students have learnt
entire syllabus of the past. They will find it difficult to cope and their
backwardness will be perpetuated. We usually see that in class IX marks wise
top strata gets science, next commerce and bottom one opts for Arts and
humanities. But now, effectively, this selection will be done in class VI
itself. Selection of streams will be done right from the children of the age of
10-11 years itself when they might not even be knowing what is happening.
Moreover, its
declared objectives that it will enable children to improve does not seem to be
coming true in practice. (See Table 1) One would expect that this classification
will result in getting more students in Pratibha section in next classes. But
the data reflects otherwise. The data show that this number is either constant
or worsens. We have seen that schools nearby working-class localities, slums
etc. are even worse off. In many schools Pratibha section has not even formed
or is very small.
Thus, this
stratification has only increased discrimination already present in the
education system and it will lead to unnecessary superiority complex to some
and dejecting inferiority to most, and will lead to dehumanization of children.
It reminds one of colonial era. This is a new apartheid policy.
Pushing Children
out of regular school system
Another big
change that has been done has resulted in pushing the students out of regular
school system. An upper age limit has been imposed after ninth class. Children
failing in IX were forced to register for ‘patrachar” system of Delhi govt.
This was done without actually explaining to the students or parents. They were
asked to sit with class IX students. But patrachar exam that was held was of Xth. Anyone with some common sense can
see that students who failed in IXth, sitting again in IXth and giving exam for
Xth will obviously fare badly. And this is exactly what happened. In year 2017
result was merely 4% and in many schools 100% students failed. But now these
students are not students of regular schools. For readmission they have to seek
Transfer Certificate (T.C.) from Patrachar and they cannot be admitted in X,
and for IX they are overage. Thus, they are forced out of the school system.
Delhi government has an agreement with NIOS and students are asked to register
there. While Delhi Government bears expenses for registration, examination fee
is to be paid by students.
Among working
class, there is a common problem of moving to and fro between native place and
Delhi. This adds lag years in children’s education. With this upper age limit
in force, these children too are getting out of regular school system. And
conditions are worse for girls. When they are forced out, many parents do not
even think it necessary to enrol them in open schools. But they are either sent
back to native place or parents try to marry them off.
Now the screened
and filtered children reach class X so results will obviously be better. These
are results after throwing out majority of students. The AAP govt pats its back
for this apparent improvement in results. Let us further analyse the results.
Table 2 shows results of class X and Table 3 that of XII. It can be easily seen
that number of students appearing for class X is constantly decreasing. And in
2018, results were also only 68.90%. but if we compare with 2013, number of
students passed in 2018 is about 47.83% of number of students that passed in
2013, which is less than half. Even in 2017 it was 72% only. The reason for the
apparent better figure is obvious, students have already been filtered. And all
this is after Minister of Education has spent months in Finland, and many
selected Teachers have been trained there. One can easily see where the
education budget is being spent.
Similarly, if
one glances at the results of XII, many interesting facts can be revealed.
Result of class XII is always worse than that of X. If we compare the number of
students who appeared in X two years ago, we can see that number is constantly
decreasing since 2015, the years of effect of the present ‘reformed system’.
Some basic
issues ignored for show off
Amidst this
propaganda, certain basic issues have not been addressed. What is apparent is
that at many places new buildings have been erected. Though they made
unnecessary rooms at places, but did renovate old creaky buildings and
increased capacity of some. But in these beautiful buildings, basic facilities
are not available. Toilets used by students are not useably clean. There are
more students than the designed capacity of rooms and number of desks
available. In many schools three to four students have been forced to sit at
the desks meant for two. In this congestion, they are not even able to write.
In a school in Bindapur, there was a complaint of leaking of a roof. Tender was
floated for replacing the roof of the entire school. The result- now four roof
are leaking. One is well aware of the corruption in civil department.
There is
absolutely no attempt is seen to improve Students Teacher ratio. As we can see
from above para, a class as usually about 60 to 100 students which is far more
than the ideal ratio of 1:20 or a maximum of 1:35. How are they being taught;
how will they listen to the teachers is not the bothering the government. There
ae many schools which do not have teachers of particular subjects. Many times,
the same teacher is asked to teach in two schools due to shortage of teachers.
The effects of this do not need an explanation.
All the students
are given Mid-Day meal up to class VIII. The quality of the same has been
questioned many a times. Many times, children fell sick, rats jumped out of
food. But there is no improvement seen in this. Some NGOs are given the
contract of supplying Mid Day meal. Instead of this if women of areas are given
this job, and it is made compulsory that teachers and principal will eat the
same food with students, it will be helpful.
Another issue is
of the School Management Committee (SMC) which is mandatory under RTE Act. It
must have the local MLA into it. But usually it has a representative of MLA,
who is a local domineering person, with very little idea about education. But
it interferes in teaching and insults both teachers and principal.
Adding layers
This is another
dreadful feature of AAP Govt.'s education reform. While all the time
progressive section of people have been fighting for “equal education for all”
and abolishing dual education policy (actually multi-layered), this government
it out to increase layers. First in announces opening of 54 Model schools. Now
they have opened five “schools of excellence”. These schools will have 2
sections per class- up to 8th class 25 students per section and after that 40 students per
section. That means only 250 students in lower classes and 400 students in
higher classes. Here, students from other areas can also be taken. It will
further add to discrimination and will enable influential people to get good
education for their children at government expenses. This will add a further
layer to this education system, that too by government as a matter of policy
and “reforms”. There is also talk of infiltrating NGOs into these schools. This
will mean a clever introduction of PPP system.
Pushing Agenda
of WTO/WB
The Delhi
Government has started a Mission Buniyad. They give basic training of reading and writing in summer and
extra time. This may look good at first glance. During this mission teachers
were asked to execute the training manuals provided to them strictly and they
were monitored. Idea here is it merely makes the children literate and not
educated. Language cannot be learnt in isolation. It has to be learnt with
experiences and reading different things. This is part of the imperialist
agenda and worldwide such programmes are on. The idea is to create literate but
not educated students, who will serve as cheap labour force to MNCs.
Secondly, there
is added emphasis on vocational courses. It only helps children to acquire some
skills. They are deprived of learning of different subjects which may impart
some intellectual content. Students coming from working class background are
likely to be part of the same. It implies that children of working class will
never be part of higher echelon. They will only learn skills which are required
to work in MNCs. Division of mental and physical labour has been done right
here. Ministry of HRD runs a program called National Skills Qualification
Framework (NSQF). This is likely to be made compulsory for jobs in unorganized
sectors in future. And children leaving schools system before VIII or after XI
will not get this certificate. So, all of them will be categorized as unskilled
labour and will be out of jobs, even if they have acquired some skill otherwise.
AAP government has been promoting this. It has opened many proclaimed “world
class” skill development centres. Here again, NGOs are being given a bigger
role.
Infringement
This government
plans to install CCTV cameras into class rooms to monitor teaching. And parents
will be given a smartphone app to see online the teaching process. This is
infringement of a teacher’s right to teach. Teachers will be scared and will
only formally or mechanically be teaching. Any creativity, innovation,
imparting of values will be done away with. While it may be all right to have
CCTV cameras in the campus for security purposes, having them in class rooms
and online transmission is highly undesirable.
Increase in
budget and PPP
Another boast of
this government is that it has increased education budget significantly. While
this is a fact but a large chunk of it is not being spent in education. A
whopping Rs. 670 crores are kept for CCTV cameras. Another 75 crore is kept to
buy tabs for the teachers. Govt. has started siphoning off money to NGOs and
coaching institutions in the name of improving ‘poor students. BCL has been
contracted to teach spoken English. Many schools’ grounds have been given to
these coaching institutions for running coaching classes on holidays. These
institutions are asked to coach 50% students free and the rest can be charges
for making profit.
Government has
not bothered for fee waiver of examination fee charged by CBSE and NIOS.
Instead of providing assistance, it has magnanimously opted to be guarantor for
education loan. This will both help and legitimize high charging private
institutes for higher learning, it will help both financing banks and
Institutions.
Pratham has
already been mentioned for its books. Many other NGOs have been given a
prominent place in policy planning. Pratham officials have been given a very
prominent and decisive role. This too is interesting that some officials of
Pratham are also advising Union MHRD. Govt. has engaged a
private organization Centre Square Foundation (CSF) to prepare grading reports
of schools. CSF propagates that government should not run schools but schools
should be left to market. government can give some coupons/vouchers to poor
students to partly meet the education expenses.
Conclusion
It can be seen
that the claim of improvement is actually only a propaganda. Delhi Govt. has
further destroyed school education. Meaningful education is going further out
of reach of common children of Delhi coming from working class and lower middle
class. As it is, elites have dominated use of good education as they can send
their children to expensive private schools. And for most of the rest,
government schools were the only option. In government schools, despite good
qualified teachers, due to lack of proper facilities and atmosphere education
was not up to the mark. These students were always behind students of private
students not because of abilities but because of lack of facilities. But now
with stratification, the scenario will be worse. Most will never be able to
compete with elite students in higher classes and shall be cursed to be
backward. And this stamp will be put at the age of 10 years. Children who
already had poor chances of going ahead, will now be further pushed into
backwardness.
Secondly a very
big section has been put out of the regular school system, much in the line of
prescription of WTO/WB. And Delhi government is sacrificing students to
artificially raise its results.
In fact, this
government is much too keen to follow the liberalization agenda under different
garbs. It has transformed the system to produce only literate students- cheap
workforce for MNCs, encourage PPP and NGOization of Education. It is not
addressing real issues like proper student teacher ratio, availability of
sufficient teachers of all subjects and classes nor is bothered about
recruiting permanent teachers. Availability of basic amenities like clean
available toilets, teaching aids, well equipped labs, computer labs etc. is
also not ensured. It has not even bothered to think as how can one improve the
standard of all the kids and improve entire education.
Some model
schools, “schools of excellence” and new buildings are only for showcasing and
covering up the real issue. It has no vision for quality free education
available and accessible for all.
|
Table 1
PDSU Survey of 2 Schools in Sagarapur |
||||
|
|
School 1
|
School 2
|
||
|
Class
|
Pratibha
|
Nishtha
|
Pratibha
|
Nishtha
|
|
6
|
166
|
157
|
82
|
167
|
|
7
|
150
|
149
|
52
|
184
|
|
8
|
83
|
172
|
53
|
183
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Table 2
Result of Class X |
|||
|
Year
|
Total
Students
|
Pass
%
|
Pass Students
|
|
2013
|
197934
|
99.46
|
196858
|
|
2014
|
180203
|
98.81
|
178067
|
|
2015
|
140086
|
95.81
|
134223
|
|
2016
|
140638
|
89.25
|
125526
|
|
2017
|
155263
|
92.44
|
143525
|
|
2018
|
136663
|
68.90
|
94160
|
|
Table 3
Result of Class XII |
||||
|
Year
|
Total Students
|
Pass %
|
Students in X two tears ago
|
Difference in absolute and %
|
|
2013
|
139003
|
88.65
|
|
|
|
2014
|
166257
|
88.67
|
|
|
|
2015
|
140191
|
88.11
|
|
|
|
2016
|
131354
|
88.91
|
|
|
|
2017
|
121681
|
88.27
|
140086
|
18405 (13.13)
|
|
2018
|
112826
|
90.64
|
140638
|
27812 (19.77)
|
