People's Democracy

DELHI

DYFI Campaigns for Equality in Education

Sidheshwar Shukla

THE Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), Delhi state committee organised a week long campaign for ‘equality in education’ from May 25 to June 1 to commemorate the highest ever membership achieved by the organisation in the year 2002.

The week long campaign included conducting street corner meetings and public meetings, performing various cultural programmes with the help of Jan Natya Manch and Act One, and organising a state level jatha.

The jatha, which was inaugurated at a public meeting organised by the north west Delhi Committee, covered almost all important areas under the units of various district committees of DYFI. The jatha was led by Sanjeev Rana and Munna Singh, both vice presidents of Delhi state committee and Basudev state committee member, DYFI.

While the growth of population in Delhi from year 1991 to 1998 has been 48 per cent, the growth of schools in Delhi has remained at 30 per cent. This has led to stagnation in the education field, affecting the children from weaker sections, workers, minorities’ women and dalits. These sections have virtually been thrown out of education system. The budget for education, along with budget for all other social sectors, has been shrinking rapidly as per the dictates of the World Bank and IMF. This has further affected the opening of new schools, poor infrastructure, lack of teachers and other basic educational facilities. The Congress government in Delhi has totally adopted these liberalisation policies for the education system.

In such a situation, the DYFI Delhi state committee took up the issue of ‘equality in education’ across Delhi.  Among the demands raised as part of this campaign were:

• provide admissions to all the students passing 12th class from Delhi in the Delhi University colleges
• all the schools should run in two shifts
• open new  colleges
• open both morning and evening shifts in all colleges
• reserve 20 per cent seats for students passing from government schools,
• reserve 5 per cent seats for students passing from aided schools
• reserve 20 per cent seats in private schools for poor students
• rationalise the fees in public schools and bring then under the reach of lower middle class
• fulfill all the seats reserved for SC/ST students in Delhi university.

The week-long campaign and jatha concluded in a public meeting at Sndarapani at Karol Bagh district. Addressing this meeting CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Prakash Karat said that the economic policies implemented by successive Congress and BJP-led governments has seen the shrinking of educational facilities for the poorer sections of the society. He congratulated DYFI for taking up this kind of issue in Delhi.