People's Democracy

 SFI Formulates Charter Of Demands

National Convention On Education Held In Delhi

THE two-day all India convention on education organised by the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) resolved to intensify the students’ movement on various issues in order to pressurise the UPA government to respect the mandate of the people. It also formulated a charter of demands relating to education, which was presented to the union minister for human resources development, Arjun Singh, immediately after the conclusion of the convention (see accompanying box).

The convention, held in the Constitution Club, New Delhi, was inaugurated by renowned historian, Professor Irfan Habib on July 13 and was attended by over 150 delegates from various states of India. The convention decided to support all positive initiatives of the UPA government while not hesitating to oppose any policy which goes against the interests of the student community. The inaugural session was presided over by SFI president, K K Ragesh, who explained the significance of the convention and hoped it would galvanise the students for future struggles on students’ issues.

Professor Irfan Habib, in his inaugural speech, argued that our education sector is facing severe problems, which were not just in terms of low government expenditure on education but also related to the content of education. The role of education should be to inculcate modern scientific thought and not religious values. At the same time Professor Habib felt that the present government has made superficial changes without reversing the major policies of the BJP-led government. It has not scrapped the National Curriculum Framework which had promotion of religious values as one of the objectives of our education. More glaringly the government was hesitating to scrap the communalised history textbooks, rewritten during the BJP rule. Professor Habib called on progressive forces to launch struggles to force the UPA government to respect the mandate of the people.

Another speaker, Professor Jayati Ghosh, termed the previous NDA government as the most neo-liberal government the country had, which systematically undermined public education. It had not only pushed for privatisation of education, reduction of funds for primary as well as higher education even while thrusting peculiar subjects like Astrology and Vedic Science on the students. Commenting on the union budget 2004-05, Professor Jayati Ghosh felt the allocations for education were insufficient. The central government was not taking enough steps in order to help the state governments overcome their financial problems. She highlighted how by undermining basic subjects like history, literature and social sciences the students are not being allowed to be critical and form their independent views. This, she said, happens across the world and hence undermines change in society.

She ended her speech by calling on the student community to focus on these main issues:

• Oppose privatisation

• Re-affirm importance of humanities subjects

• Fight for more resources in education

• Fight for better quality of education

• Jobs for all

 SFI general secretary, Kallol Roy, while lauding the role of students in ousting the earlier NDA regime, also reminded that the struggle was far from over. He said that the need of the hour was to pressurise the present government to respect the mandate of the people by intensifying the students’ movement on different issues.

Former SFI president, Sitaram Yechury, and Professor K K Theeckedath were also present at the inaugural session.

Addressing the convention on its second day, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, Sitaram Yechury, urged members of the SFI to play an active role in ensuring that the present government sticks to the commitments made in the Common Minimum Programme, especially the promise of stepping up government expenditure on education to 6 per cent of GDP. While welcoming the proposal for the education cess in the budget, he said that certain proposals contained in the budget do not represent the aspirations of the people as reflected in the electoral mandate.  He said that the students and youth of our country, who played a major role in ensuring the defeat of the BJP-led government at the centre, must build pressure upon the new government through movements in order to fulfil their legitimate demands regarding a massive expansion of education in the country and generation of adequate employment opportunities. CPI(M) leader in Rajya Sabha, Nilotpal Basu, in his speech stressed upon the need for ideologically strengthening the organisation.

After detailed deliberations in the convention, a charter of demands was formulated. It was submitted as a memorandum to the union HRD minister following a procession from the convention venue at the Constitution Club to the HRD ministry. Over 500 students from Delhi and neighbouring states like Haryana, Punjab and Uttaranchal took part in the procession. The students later demonstrated at the HRD ministry against the inadequate outlay on education in the budget, especially the neglect of higher education. The immediate demand raised in the memorandum submitted to the HRD minister was to scrap the communally rewritten textbooks of the NCERT and reinstate the old textbooks instead of commissioning a totally unwarranted rewriting of books all over again.  Various other demands regarding reversing the policies of commercialisation of education were also placed. The convention decided that the SFI, while supporting all positive initiatives of the UPA government would not hesitate to launch agitations and struggles against policies that go against the interests of the student community.