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India’s Tryst with Elementary Education

Opinion | Articles | Khansu Vialo Zingkhai | 14-Oct-2020

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Every year parents in India spend fortunes for the education of their children irrespective of their economic status, despite constitutional provision for free and compulsory education up to the age of 14. Following the 86th Constitutional amendment in 2002, the Fundamental Rights guaranteed by the Constitution of India was widened with insertion of Right to Education under Article 21A. Further, in 2009, Right to Education Act was enacted by the parliament, under which, all children between ages 6 - 14 are to be provided free and compulsory education. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 again is the reinforcement of this commitment, adding yet another Chapter to the illustrious journeys of legislations on education. This Article attempts to revisit how the RTE has traveled so far in terms of its implementation, purely from a layman’s point of view.

Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE)

  • Constitutional Mandate

Since independence, India’s endeavor has been to ensure free and compulsory education for all children up to the age of 14 years, which in other words is a solemn pledge to ensure that every citizen in this country received education, at least up to the primary level. Towards this end, the framers of the Indian Constitution included a comprehensive Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP) under Part IV, wherein Article 45 states that, “the State shall endeavor to provide, within a period of ten years from the commencement of this Constitution, for free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen years”.[1] However, the ten years target could not be achieved. In 1993, the honorable Supreme Court, in Unni Krishnan v. State of A.P.[2] had observed that children up to the age of fourteen years have a right to free education.

Taking cue from this observation by the apex court, education was made a Fundamental Right in 2002 by inserting Article 21A, by the 86th Constitutional Amendment. It reads, “The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such a manner as the State may, by law, determine.”2 The insertion of Article 21A no doubt invited some criticism, with the argument that it was only duplicating what was already provided for in Article 45 of the Constitution. Critics also pointed out that the article was limiting the State responsibility to children between the age six and fourteen. However, practically speaking, early childhood care and education to children below the age of six already was part of the DPSP under Article 45. Therefore, making education compulsory from age 6 to 14 under the above Article was absolutely justifiable, particularly in the light of the fact that early care and education was not be claimable in the court of law. Besides, Article 21A also was further strengthened by addition of clause (k) to Article 51A, according to which it became fundamental duty for parents to ensure education of children between the ages six to fourteen.[3] The constitution of India therefore is very clear that despite Constitutional guarantee on education, parents too are duty-bound to facilitate the implementation. The emphasis on primary and elementary education was given so that citizens are able to understand other rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution. This was highlighted in Ashoka Kumar Thakur v. Union of India[4] where the Supreme Court observed that without Article 21A, other fundamental rights are rendered meaningless because without education, the citizen will never come to know of his/her other rights. Article 21A can be also seen as an expansion of the notion of right to life and liberty enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution, as without education dignified and liberated life is near impossible. The intention of the Constitution in respect of primary and elementary education therefore, is very clear.

UEE Oriented Programmes

As pointed out earlier, as per Article 45 of the constitution, framers of the constitution had an ambitious target to achieve UEE within ten years of commencement of the Constitution. Though this did not happen, the effort to promote UEE in post-independence history was evident. An article published in the May 2019 in the International Education and Research Journal, highlights some of the major UEE oriented schemes and programs initiated by the government of India. They include, Operation Black Board (OBB, 1987), Minimum Levels of Learning (MLL, 1991), District Primary Education Program (DPEP, 1994), Mid Day Meal scheme (MDM, 1995), National Elementary Education Mission (NEEM), programs on Non Formal Education (NFE) and the popular Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA),[5] a flagship programme introduced in 2000 -2001, which may be enumerated as: (i) To provide elementary education to the children in the age group of 6 to 14 by 2010. (ii) To remove the gaps based on gender, social and regional basis.  (iii) To provide value- based education to all the children. (iv) To realize the importance of early children care and education and looks at the 0 -14 age as a continuum.[6]  Subsequently, the Right to Education Act 2009, was enacted. This act is a detailed and comprehensive piece of legislation which includes provision related to school teachers and specific divisions of duties and responsibilities of different stakeholders.[7]

  • Right to Education Act 2009

The National Knowledge Commission in its report to the nation 2006-2009, in an obvious allusion to the Right to Education Bill, endorsed the “speedy enactment of a central legislation that will ensure the right of all the children in the country to good quality education up to Class VIII, supported with financial commitment of the Central and State governments.” To give legal mandate to the fundamental Right in Article 21A, the Right to Education (RTE) Act, was thus passed in 2009. The RTE Act was landmark legislation as it ensures quality education for all children, by way of equitable elementary education in a formal school. It made it legally binding for state and local governments to follow the norms laid down under the Act. It had also empowered the states to derecognize schools that do not adhere to prescribed minimum quality, standards and rules.[8] The main provisions of the RTE Act 2009, towards elementary education includes: (i) Provision of free and compulsory education to children between the age of six and fourteen years of age, in a ‘neighborhood school’  (ii) In the absence of neighborhood school within the specified limit, the State is obligated to make provision for free transportation, residential and other facilities.  (iii)  Specifies duties and responsibilities of appropriate Government, local authority and parents in providing free and compulsory education, and sharing of financial and other responsibilities between the Central and State Governments. (iv) lays down the norms and standards relating inter alia to Pupil Teacher Ratio, buildings and infrastructure, number of working days, responsibilities and duties of teachers. (v) Provides for prohibition of deployment of teachers for non-educational assignments, other than decennial census, elections to local authority, State legislature and parliament, and disaster relief. (vi) Provides for appropriate appoint of trained teachers (vii) Prohibits physical punishment and mental harassment, Screening procedures for admission of children, capitation fee, private tuition by teachers, etc. (viii) Provides for development of curriculum in consonance with constitutional values. Such and other details form part of the plan of the RTE Act 2009. The crux of the matter being that all the safeguards required upholding the best interest of the child has been set in place. In its totality, it presents a good framework.

  • National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020)

The latest in the list of government’s effort towards education is the New Education Policy 2020, which supplemented the visions of Education Policy of 1986 and National Programme of Action (POA) of 1992, laying further emphasis on the importance of UEE. It is a comprehensive policy which envisions accompanying a child from the age of three in his/her education journey.  In a way it synthesizes and projects to put into practice the constitutional mandate of not just the Article 21A, but also actualize in some way the Article 45 and other relevant Articles of the Constitution. There is a revolutionary pedagogical and curricular structural change in the NEP 2020, with the new structure of 5+3+3+4 covering those between 3-18 years of age.[9] The emphasis on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) with a plan for a National Curricular and Pedagogical Framework for Early Childhood Care and Education (NCPFECCE) to be developed by NCERT[10] indicates the importance NEP 2020 gives to education at the elementary level. The mention of Anganwadi centers as medium for access to ECCE, the vision to have high-quality ECCE teachers specially trained to handle children at the very early stage, etc. sends a strong message on the seriousness accorded to elementary and primary education.

  1. Status-check of Schools under RTE

The policies evolved and the legislations enacted for the education of children at the fundamental level is indeed an important step. What remains as a challenge is the effective implementation of the said policies. No doubt these steps taken by the government ushered in tremendous change in making citizens of India literate. However, like any other social indicator, this endeavor too fell short of perfection as per credible statistical data collected based various indicators. The philosophy of “Seeing is believing” seems equally reliable sometimes if not more. After all that has been achieved, to this day the scenario of education in general and education at the elementary level which mostly takes place in the rural grassroots continue to be beset with various challenges and issues:

 

  1. Number vis-a-vis quality: In a joint report on the Impact of RTE Act 2009 carried out by KPMG and Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), in 2016, it was highlighted that the quest for quantity outdid quality, and raised serious concern. The Honorable Supreme Court in The State of Tamil Nadu vs. K. Shyam Sunder[11] ruled that the right of a child should not be restricted only to free and compulsory education, but should be extended to have quality education without discrimination. Whether the application of free and compulsory education under RTE is maintaining quality remains a big question to be examined.
  2. State of Government Schools: The RTE Act 2009 specified certain standards of infrastructural to be met by the schools. But the very sight of government schools in the country speaks for themselves whether this requirement has been fulfilled. The pathetic state of affairs is not confined the rural areas, but in urban settings as well. When the condition of basic infrastructure is not met, imparting decent education is almost impossible.
  3. Dependence on Unaided Private School: The private unaided schools have come in to the rescue of government failure. It has come to a situation where overdependence on the unaided private schools, have become a trend for the government from carrying out its basic obligation of according free and compulsory education to the target group. According to a study, after RTE had come into operation, over the four-year period of 2010-11 to 2014-15, the total stock of government schools in India, in 20 major States rose by a mere 16,376 government schools. By contrast, the number of private schools rose by 71,360 schools. The private schools have mushroomed and according to the same study, within the same period of time, more students abandoned the government schools and migrated to the private schools. [12]
  4. Low enrolment rate: The fact that people prefer private schools compared to the government schools gets substantiated by increase in the number of ‘small’ and ‘tiny’[13] government schools. This shows that government schools no longer are trusted as capable of imparting quality education.
  5. Issues pertaining to Teachers: Issues relating to shortage of trained teachers due to non-recruitment, therefore over-burdened teachers not fulfilling their duties etc. have become common phenomena. In many states of north east, particularly those serving in rural areas, teachers don’t get salaries in time. Hence, they look for alternative means of means to support their families, while their assigned duties are outsourced to people they hire as proxy. Many of the teachers do not want to go and station themselves in remote locations of their posting, preferring to stay either in their native homes or in urban localities. At the receiving end for such malady are the poor and deserving students who cannot afford education other than in village schools.
  6. Failure of child oriented schemes: In the prevailing state of affairs, there is a colossal failure of the child oriented welfare programs. Free ingredients of education at elementary level such as free fees, uniform, textbooks, mid-day meals, etc. have remained unutilized for the purpose they are intended for. Mid-Day Meal programs remained unutilized as the enrolments to the school are few and the scheme is not something brought to the doorsteps from the school campuses. The Anganwadi centers, centers of formation for early childhood have in most places functioned as occasional tea-time-moments for mothers and children.
  7. Government Apathy: In most states, governments have failed to satisfactorily implement the RTE Act in its true spirit and purpose. Starting from failure to monitor the provision of basic infrastructure, to delay in payment of salaries, failure to stop the rampant proxy culture, the governments seem to have failed on more counts than one. Corruption on various fronts is also one major area that led to government failures.
  8. Lack of Awareness of legitimate rights: Ignorance of the public about their entitlements is one area of concern. People are unaware of their rights to free and compulsory education under Article 21A, and unlike in urban areas, there is absence of social activism to educate the poor on this. These ills collectively thwart government’s effort to achieve the desired target of UEE. This however is not to discount that in SSA era and post RTE 2009, the elementary education sector had seen improvements for the better, though not to the desired level

  Conclusion:

 Careful analysis of the policies and legislations on improving education so far, one realizes that the government offers exceptionally good opportunity for every child to receive elementary,                       primary and even secondary level education. The country has robust, well-conceived, and well-intended policy framework for education that can achieve literacy of citizens with ease. If implemented the way it is intended, it should benefit the countrymen tremendously not just to increase literacy rate but in raising citizens with quality education. The poor need not spend fortunes in educating their children and could utilize the money spent on education for quality living. There would have been no need for private players to enter the education arena and exploit through exorbitant fees. However, the deplorable state of affairs in government-run educational institutions, particularly at the elementary level opens up the avenue for them. In other word, the corporate failure involving administrators, teachers, and the stake holders – from failures to provide proper infrastructure, free text books, uniform, mid-day meal etc. laid down in the policy documents, collectively opens a floodgate for the private players to enter and exploit.               It is unfortunate and regrettable that government schools have become the least trusted ones, especially in the rural areas where the most deserving target group live. With the kind of budgetary provisions earmarked every year, these government-run rural schools could excel had there been genuine intentions to serve. They could fulfill the objective of imparting free and compulsory education that successive education policies envisaged.

We are now at the threshold of the New Education Policy 2020, which in many ways is revolutionary, enormous, ambitious and nationalistic to the core. It promises to overhaul the system and usher in a new era on how education is experienced. The country can surely be optimistic, at the same time wary of success in the backdrop of the experience we had so far. Abandoning the past ills therefore would be biggest challenge ahead. Citizens, no doubt are tired of what they have experienced, but are not without hope, and it is this spirit that must encourage the governments to take up the challenges with determination. It is also time stake holders begin asserting and fight for their rights in order to ensure that the mission of UEE become a reality. They must ensure that government schools deliver, so that private players become redundant. Avoiding namesake enrollments must not be the sole responsibilities of the governments, but citizens as well. The collective effort should be to ensure increase in enrollment matched by quality education.

[1] this Article has in 2002 by 86th Constitutional amendment Act, subsequently been replaced with Provision for early childhood care and education to children below the age of six years.

[2] (1993) 1 SCC 645

[3] Article 51A(k) reads: “who is a parent or guardian to provide opportunities for education to his child or, as the case may be, ward between the age of six and fourteen years.”

[4] Ashoka Kumar Thakur v. UOI, (2008) 6 SCC 1.

[5] Smriti Singh, “Universalization of Elementary Education Under Different Schemes”, 5(5), IERJ, (May 2019)

[6] Indu Bala, “Universalization of Elementary Education Under Different Schemes” 2(1), IJARD, (January 2017)

[7] Ibid.

[8] Assessing the Impact of RTE Act, a Report published by KPMG and CII, 2016

[9] Part I : School Education, NEP 2020, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.

[10] National Education Policy 2020, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.

[11] The State of Tamil Nadu  v K. Shyam Sunder (2011) 8 SCC 737

[12] Geeta Gandhi Kingdom, “The Emptying of Public Schools and Growth of Private Schools in India”, in Report on Budget Private Schools in India, Center for Civil Society (2017) p.14

[13] A ‘small’ school is defined as one in which the total number of enrollment in the school is 50 or fewer students and a ‘tiny’ school is where the total number of enrolment is 20 or fewer students.

 (The Author is a Priest in the Archdiocese of Imphal. He can be reached on vialksu@gmail.com. View expressed are personal)

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