- Jyoti Devi, a Dalit student of std. V and President of the Bal Panchayat, conducts a student council meeting in her primary school. Photo: Natasha Badhwar
- A mid-day meal of chappatis and a curry of soya nuggets and potatoes in the school verandah. Photo: Natasha Badhwar
- Morning Assembly in the Primary School, Village Bada Lewa, Hamirpur, Uttar Pradesh. Photo: Natasha Badhwar
The application of the 2010 RTE Act leaves much to be desired. But the initiatives at the primary school in Bada Lewa village, Uttar Pradesh, inspires optimism.
They call it tracking. A
group of 12-year-old students of the Primary School in Village Bada
Lewa, Hamirpur, walk into their village during school hours, looking for
children who are enrolled but have not been coming to school regularly.
They will counsel the parents and get the children to attend school
regularly and offer support and solutions where required. The word
‘tracking’ is now part of their everyday vocabulary.
On
one such tracking mission, Jyoti, Dharam, Gomti and three others have a
list of five absentee students whose homes they will visit. They run
into seven-year-old Anjali, wearing her school shirt and balancing her
younger sister on her hip. Jyoti takes the lead in confronting Anjali’s
grandfather who is sitting in the verandah.
“Dadaji, why haven’t you sent Anjali to school today?”
“It is harvesting month. Anjali’s mother is away in the fields. She has to look after her younger sister.”
“Dadaji,
Anjali will miss too much in school and then she won’t be able to catch
up. Why don’t you handle the baby till the mother returns?”
“I can’t handle the baby.”
“You
are our elder, Dadaji,” Jyoti reasons. “Anjali is still a small child.
She needs to be regular in school. Please help her to go.”
“Whose child are you?” the old man asks, trying to place Jyoti.
She
names her father. She tells him where her home is. One of the boys in
the group is patting the buffalo. Eventually the elderly man asks his
grandchild to run along to school. He nods approvingly at the children,
who seem to be ushering in a new age in the village. The children move
on to the next home on their list.
This
government-run Primary School in Hamirpur district in Uttar Pradesh is
one of the eight per cent of schools in India that comply with most of
the norms and standards stipulated in the RTE Act. The RTE Act that came
into being on April 1, 2010, casts a legal obligation on the Central
and State Governments to implement the fundamental right of children to
free and compulsory education. It lays down detailed guidelines for the
development of curriculum, training of teachers and pupil-teacher
ratios. Furthermore, it emphasises child-centric and child-friendly
learning and an environment that is free of fear, trauma and anxiety for
children. It has been exactly five years since the RTE Act came into
being, and only a fraction of its promise has been fulfilled across the
country.
Even that fraction throws up impressive
statistics: 110 million children are served meals in the mid-day meal
scheme making it the world’s largest school-feeding programme; 199
million children are in schools and studying. A study by the Azim Premji
Foundation, quoted in the report released by the RTE Forum recently,
shows that in semi-urban and rural areas, the belief that private school
education is better than government schools is a myth. This was
reflected in the experience of the parents in this village in Hamirpur
too.
Gurudayal is the President of the School
Management Committee in the Bada Lewa school. This committee comprises
parents, teachers, elected members of local government and educationists
or NGO workers from the area. They meet once a month to oversee the
infrastructure and administrative needs of the school.
Gurudayal
contrasts the present scene in the school where children of all castes
sit together, as they are served meals, to a decade ago when the Dalit
teacher in the school was not even allowed to sit on a chair throughout
the day. He reiterates that parents in the village have taken their
children out of local private schools and enrolled them in the
government school because the quality of education has improved
tremendously. “Don’t even ask me about the time when I was studying in
this school,” he says. “Times have changed dramatically now.”
Just
like the School Management Committee is a voluntary body of adults, all
the children of the primary school are members of a Bal Panchayat that
meets once a month to discuss their issues. The students who go tracking
in the morning are leaders of the Bal Panchayat. Aided by their
teachers and trained in workshops conducted by Samarth Foundation, an
NGO based in Hamirpur, these children are encouraged to be assertive and
proactive about addressing and fulfilling their needs.
Jyoti
Devi and Gomti Devi are President and Vice President respectively of
the Bal Panchayat. They have travelled to Lucknow to attend workshops
organised by Oxfam where they learnt how to set agendas and follow up
issues when they conduct meetings. Other posts include Education
Minister, Cleanliness Minister and Mid-day Meal Minister.
The
students make a list of infrastructural needs like a broken tap and an
open window that needs the panes restored. They reiterate the four
rights of children as laid down by the Convention for the Rights of
Children and talk about the duties and responsibilities of students in
the school.
Spending time in the school and village
of Bada Lewa inspires an optimism for the outcomes that are possible
when parents, teachers, local authorities, non-government and state
agencies come together on a small scale to invest in making quality
education a reality for their own children. Almost everyone in Bada Lewa
village has a version of the before and ever since RTE norms have been
enforced in this primary school.
The nationwide
scorecard on implementing the RTE Act leaves much to be desired. Six
million children are still out of schools and 75 per cent of them belong
to Dalit, tribal and Muslim communities. The most deprived and
marginalised communities have received the least benefits. Half the
children who enrol in schools still drop out before Std. X.
Deepak
Xavier leads the Haq Banta Hai Campaign at Oxfam India that is
campaigning for full implementation of the RTE Act along with the RTE
Forum. “Education is the greatest equaliser against inequality. By
ensuring full implementation of the RTE Act, we can achieve both quality
education for all children and a reduction in inequality,” he says.
India
is going to be the world’s youngest country by 2020. The Kothari
Commission recommended in 1966 that public spending on education needs
to be at least six per cent of the GDP in 20 years. Today, nearly after
50 years of accepting this recommendation, public spending on education
has been stagnant at three per cent for the last 15 years.
The
RTE Act is substantial and well thought out but it needs the will of
the state and sustained resources to be implemented to its full
potential. The children of Bada Lewa village, tucked away between the
Yamuna and Betwa in Bundelkhand, are a fine example of how empowering
and well received the benefits of the RTE Act are.
When
asked if they are scared of speaking up before their teachers,
12-year-old Dharam Singh, says in a small voice, “Yes, I am.” After a
pause, he adds, “But our teacher says, ‘Don’t be scared of me. I have no
right to hurt you. I will not hurt you’.”
Natasha Badhwar is a film-maker and a columnist. natasha.badhwar@gmail.com.
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