What is wrong with Education? Situation after 12 Years of RTE Implementation in Odisha
By Anil Pradhan
The Right to Education(RTE)Act is being implemented from 1st April 2010 and as per the Act all schools should be RTE complaint within the period of 5 years of it implementation that is by March 30th 2015. However, 12 years have passed, and only 20% of schools in India comply with the RTE norms in terms of infrastructure.
As per the Act, all schools to comply with the Pupil Teacher Ratio(PTR)norms: all primary schools should be at least 2 teachers and Upper primary schools should be at least 3. The PTR for primary classes is 30:1 and 35:1 for Upper Primary Classes. The prescribed PTR is vital for improving the learning of children in schools. However, there is no government information available relating to the percentage of schools complying with PTR norms at present. Instead,the government is sharing state-level information relating to overall PTR status, which is irrelevant and absurd.
There was a lot of struggle by the civil society organisations for bringing legislation to make elementary education a fundamental right. It took 52years afterindependence to bring legislation into the Indian parliament and another 7 years to bring this RTE Act to implement the constitutional commitment. Researchers strongly argued in favour of making elementary education a fundamental right citing the example of other countries. How other countries have been able to curb child labour through this legislation. We also hope that this legislation will bring changes in the field of education, at least it will strengthen the public education system and the rate of spread of private schools will be reduced. After seeing the data relating to the different aspects of the RTE compliance after 12 years, it is quite disheartening to note that there is no major change on the ground. As per the U-DISE 2016-17, only 6.6% of schools in Odisha were complying with RTE parameters. The data relating to RTE compliance is not available after 2016-17. Similarly, as per 2018-19 DISE data, there were still 1745 single teachers schools. There were 188 schools without a building and 1866 schools had single classrooms. Instead of implementing the RTE Act in letter and spirit,the Odisha government is doing some peripheral activities such as Mo School and 5T school transformation for its vote bank politics which will not help to strengthen the education system as a whole rather it will help to increase inequality in providing education to its citizens. The welfare state has a responsibility to provide free and quality education to all children without any discrimination. Unfortunately, in India the state is discriminating against its citizens by creating different layers of schools, making unequal provisions for each category of schools. It will have serious consequences on the future of our society. The situation is the same here in Odisha. “Mo Schools” programme is helping schools , where infrastructure is reasonably good in condition and has an alumnae base. But schools located in interior pockets and in tribal areas have no alumnae, and there is no provision to cover them. These schools are facing the threat of school closure at present. Similarly, under the 5T school transformation programme, the Government is creating all kinds of facilities in selected schools. Only good infrastructure facilities will not help in improving learning among the children. Required number of teachers having dedication and motivation is most essential. At present, nobody is there in the system to encourage young teachers who are starting their careers. Even though they have the spirit to do something, the system is so autocratic and oppressive that they have been de-motivated quickly and doing their teaching job in a stereotypical fashion.
Government is the opening set up hostels in tribal areas for primary class children and children are being admitted there from class -1. There are no clear cut guidelines for the admission of children. As a result, children from villages having primary schools are also getting admitted into hostels. Scientifically children from an early age should not be separated from their parents. A child has to get love affection; care from the parents and society. If we are distancing them from family and their village we are depriving them of the experience of everything relating to their family and society. It has a larger implication in society. It has an impact on reducing enrollment in village schools too.
Odisha has an Multi Lingual Education(MLE) policy and a programme. Under this programme, theGovernment is developing learning materials in the languages of tribal children. But the programme is limited to around 1500 schools where around 14000 schools have 80% of children from tribal communities. On another hand the ST/SC Development department is running a programme called ANWESHA in which children of tribal communities are studying in English medium schools in towns and the government has set up hostels for them at its own cost. This is contradictory to the philosophy of the MLE programme.
The government of Odisha should have a proper mechanism to evaluate and research the impact of the above-mentioned programmes. But there is no research and evaluation on the same. Therefore, there is little opportunity to know the impact of these programmes. But the way it is being implemented will definitely have a disastrous impact on society and children.
The government never had an action plan to comply withRTE norms and as a result of which the state public education system is in a deplorable situation in Odisha. People have lost faith in government schools and those who can afford them send their children to private schools. As a result, private schools number has been increasing at an increasing rate and enrollment in government schools has been decreasing every year. The number of private schools in Odisha in 2020-21 is 8085, increased from 4350 private schools in the year 2010-11.Instead of analysing the causes of low enrollment in government schools, the Government has been trying to close down schools in the name of school closure and consolidation violating RTE norms.
If this situation continues to prevail in Odisha millions of children from the underprivileged community who are solely dependent on the public education system will be deprived in Odisha.The enrollment in Government schools is continuously declining while enrollment of children of scheduled tribes is increasing in Government schools. The people’s representatives from different political parties, and intelligentsia should come forward to protest the undemocratic and unrealistic steps of the government to save the public education system.
