ON THE APPROACH PAPER TO ELEVENTH FIVE YEAR PLAN

Towards ‘Slower’ And More ‘Exclusive’ Growth In Education

Vijender Sharma

THE Planning Commission issued, in June 2006, an Approach Paper to the Eleventh Five Year Plan titled “Towards Faster and More Inclusive Growth”. For the transition towards faster and more inclusive growth, the Approach Paper calls for new initiatives in many sectors including ‘education services’ and “a more comprehensive restructuring” which actually would lead to privatisation and commercialisation of education.

The approach paper points out that since “only 10 per cent of the addressable global IT/ITES (Information Technology/ IT-enabled Services) market has been realised”, the remaining 90 per cent of a “global potential market of approximately $300 billion still remains to be realised.” For this purpose, India’s advantage is, apart from talent, established track record, and a geographical location, that it “provides a 24 hour working day to American professionals.” Therefore, the approach paper recommends to “work through WTO to assure access to overseas outsourcing” and “build a much larger IT workforce through an HRD plan, and improve urban infrastructure through public private partnerships.” The approach paper recommends full exploitation of private sector initiatives in higher learning for expanding capacity towards human resource development.

The entire concept towards education in the approach paper is centered around privatisation, and appeasing the US lobby interested in education that can be traded as a commodity for profit. That the higher level of education, which ensures quality, quantity and equity, in a country leads to all round development of the country does not figure at all in the approach paper. For it, limiting only the “quality of human resource development” limits the “growth process itself.” There is no concern for access and equity in education.

Chapter 4 “Strategic Initiative for Inclusive Development” is related to education at all levels. This chapter lacks vision for the educational upliftment of the whole society. The issues that restrict the participation of girls and deprived sections in schools and at higher levels have not been addressed. Overall thrust is to promote private educational institutions at all levels.

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION AND SSA

The approach paper does not give a clear picture in relation to the enrolment of the children in the age group of 6 to 14 years. It claims that by the end of tenth plan, near 100 percent enrolment is likely to be achieved. It has not taken into consideration about 10 crore children who are employed as contract workers in various sectors. Without abolishing child labour completely, children in the relevant age group cannot be brought to school.

Flawed SSA Schemes

The approach paper points out that one of the main tasks before Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is to make school a “more attractive, interesting, and a joyful place. The goal should be for all schools in India to have physical infrastructure and quality and level of teaching equivalent to Kendriya Vidyalayas, and the 11^th Plan must make significant progress toward this goal.” However, it has not been presented as to how this goal would be realised. It seems that the Planning commission while preparing the approach paper has not taken note of the prevailing schemes under SSA. One such scheme to make a school “more attractive, interesting, and a joyful place” is the ‘National Programme for Education of Girls at Elementary Level (NPEGEL)’.

Under the NPEGEL scheme, ‘A Model Cluster School for Girls’, as “a model girl child friendly school at cluster level will be opened in all selected districts/blocks where the scheme is operational. A cluster will be for about 5 - 10 villages with each block having about 8 - 10 clusters.” An existing school will be identified under this scheme for opening of ‘Model Cluster School for Girls’ having the density of SC/ST/OBC/Minority girls. This school will have the provision of an additional classroom, supply of drinking water, electrification, and toilet for which one time grant up to a maximum of Rs 2.00 lakhs will be provided. A maximum amount of Rs 20,000/­per annum will be provided to each cluster to meet the requirements of expenditure on various activities for promotion of girls’ education in that cluster including maintenance of the school and engagement of part time instructors for additional specified subjects provided that no instructor would be hired for more than 3 months in an academic year and he/she would not receive remuneration of more than Rs 1,000/­ per month. One can imagine that with merely Rs 20,000 per annum recurring grant for promotion of girls’ education, maintenance of the school and salary of instructors, what kind of education would be given.

Jeopardising MDMS and ECE Schemes

The drop out rate will decrease if the working mothers have “crèche facilities for their children at the work site” and if there are free “well run residential schools in regions of extreme poverty”.  The approach paper fails to ensure the establishment of “crèche” and free “residential schools”. In the Model Right to Education bill 2006, the central government has already dropped the provision of “free transportation arrangements to the nearest school” and the provision of “free residential schools/ facilities” which existed in RTE bill 2005.

The approach paper recommends the merger of Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDMS) with the SSA. It also proposes to place Early Childhood Education under the SSA. The Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) centers then, as proposed in the approach paper, will concentrate on inculcating good health and hygienic practices among the children. For this, it will be essential that these centers have toilets and drinking water. Given the experience of other schemes, the merger of these schemes with the SSA may jeopardise these schemes themselves.

In order to help “differently abled and other disadvantaged children”, the use of information and communication technology (ICT) has been recommended by the approach paper through “public-private participation” acceptable to the states. As pointed out in the beginning, the approach paper cannot see beyond ICT and public-private partnership. Those who drafted the approach paper should have seen the realities at the ground level. No toilet, no drinking water, no electricity, no adequate infrastructure, no adequate number of teachers, but the ICT has to be introduced everywhere in these schools through privatisation and create distortions among the children even at pre-school and elementary levels. We wish that the Planning commission would be able to identify and mainstream street children, differently abled and other disadvantaged children who are seen on Indian roads begging and selling different items to the passerby. However, no scheme has been stipulated to attract, enroll and retain these children in the school.

The pre-school education component of ICDS-Anganwadi is very weak and enrolment of under-age children and the repetition rate in primary classes is, therefore, quite high. Therefore, the approach paper suggests, SSA shall have a separate component for at least one year Early Childhood Education (ECE), which in a phased manner shall be universalised. Thus the Approach Paper has recommended giving up the ECE for the age group of 3 to 6 years.

Subsidising Private Schools

Poor quality of learning is due to lack of infrastructure and a large number of posts of teachers lying vacant, the Approach Paper points out. In many schools, there is only one teacher who has to teach all classes and do rest of the work related to the school management. In return, this teacher who is known to be a “builder of the nation” gets salary less than the declared minimum wage of an industrial worker. It is shocking that the Approach Paper, instead of offering better pay scales and other facilities to the teaching and non-teaching staff and better and adequate infrastructure for the school, finds fault as to the “quality, accountability and motivation” of the teachers. No words for the government that failed to provide for the education for all till date!

The Approach Paper has invented a “powerful method” to enable parents, by giving them “suitable entitlements reimbursable to the school”, to choose between the available public or private schools where they will send their children. This is a proposal to subsidise the private schools rather than providing adequate facilities in the hugely underprovided public school system. The Approach Paper has given up altogether the necessity of neighbourhood school or common school system.

Problems of Girls Ignored

In relation to the girls’ education, the approach paper has to say merely this: “Gender sensitivity and health education should be included in the curriculum at the elementary stage itself for developing the child’s basic attitude. To check the skewed sex ratios and stop violence against women, gender sensitisation has to begin early and beliefs about inferiority and superiority of sexes culled right from childhood.” How to attract the girl child to the school or help and enable the girls to go to institutions of higher education is not the concern of the Planning commission. With the enrolment of girls at all levels remaining far below compared to that of boys, the approach paper has failed to give a plan for the empowerment of women and ensure all round growth of the country.

Girls constitute about two-thirds of the out-of-school children in the 6-14 years age group in India. There are several problems, other than poverty, which keep the girl child away from the schools. These include non-availability of drinking water, toilets, playground, library, sports, and other facilities; and of course women teachers. Non-availability of transport and hostels is another problem that keeps the girls away from secondary and senior secondary schools and colleges because these are far away from their residences.

In this patriarchic society, the girls are often retained at home to take care of their younger siblings. It is estimated that 60  per cent of all girls in the country are involved in sibling care.  In order to attract these girls to school, it is a must to start crèches and Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and Early Childhood Education (ECE) for children for the age group 0 to 3 and 3 to 6 years respectively. Therefore, in every primary school there should be such a childcare center. In order to increase the enrolment at higher education level with equity, the education for girls up to age of 18 years should be made free and compulsory with free transport and hostel facilities. In addition, attractive scholarships should be given to girls performing well. There is no such recommendation in the approach paper and it seems the Planning commission did not even read the CABE committee report on girls’ education while drafting the paper.

SECONDARY EDUCATION

The approach paper considers a person with a mere 8 years of schooling as disadvantaged in the knowledge economy dominated by the Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The 11^th plan will, therefore, aim at a progressive rise in the minimum level of education towards high school level or Class X and providing access to all children in the age group of 6-16 years to this level. The demand for secondary education will expand significantly as SSA reaches its goal of universal and complete elementary education. Therefore, the approach paper has recommended a “new mission” for secondary education, SSA-2 to cover up to class X.

Even if we consider the arguments advanced in the approach paper as such, then in the 11^th plan period the demand will not only expand for secondary education but also for senior secondary education (that is Class XII level). Therefore, the “new mission” should be up to Class XII level rather than limiting it to Class X only.

Exclusive Private Schools Zones

The approach paper has rightly pointed out that “the state governments have nearly stopped increasing funding of public secondary schools and aided schools” over a period of last few decades. As a result, there had been mushrooming of private aided and unaided schools that now account for 58 percent of the total number of secondary schools. While recognising the “primacy of public responsibility for providing secondary schooling”, the approach paper recommends to evolve “strategy” so as to allow “scope for private schools to expand if they complement the public effort.” The fleecing of parents by these private schools is well known. Most such schools do not have adequate infrastructure and teaching and non-teaching staff. The main purpose of these schools is not imparting education, but commerce and business to earn profit. Teachers are appointed on contract basis and daily wages (as low as Rs 45 per day) and hiring and firing is the norm in these schools. It is clear that the “strategy” of the approach paper is to help private schools to expand and further commercialise school education.

The “strategy” of the approach paper does not end here. It expresses “a feeling” (read: a recommendation) that “voucher schemes can help promote both equity and quality in schooling in areas where adequate private supply exists, provided that this is combined with strict requirements on private schools to give freeships to students in economic need.” It has already been pointed out above that the voucher scheme will subsidise the private schools rather than providing adequate facilities in the hugely underprovided public school system. It has also been witnessed that the private schools do not admit children belonging to economically weaker sections. Therefore, the question of giving freeships by private schools does not arise at all. In Delhi, the High Court had ordered a few years back that the private schools that had taken land for their schools on concessional rates from the government must admit 25 percent children belonging to the weaker sections. However, the private schools have been resisting the admission of such students till date.

The approach paper has further recommended that the government must ensure that public schools are available “in areas unserved and underserved by private schools.” It means that there need not be a public funded school in an area where private schools exist. It thus seeks to create exclusive private school zones. Its consequence would be that the children of that area who cannot bear the high fees of these private schools would be deprived of secondary education. This recommendation is completely unacceptable since it is against the interests of children belonging to weaker sections and girls in particular, and promotes private school system.

Casual Approach towards SC/STs and Minorities

A casual approach has been presented in the approach paper towards the education of SCs/STs, minorities. It recommends that special efforts must be made to cater to “the educational needs of SCs/STs, minorities and girls whose enrolment depicts a wide gap.” The educational needs of these sections and special efforts to cater to these needs have neither been identified nor proposed. The 11^th plan document must propose concrete scheme for increasing the enrolment of SCs/STs, minorities and girls.

(To be continued)