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Education Act finally to be notified on April 1

Come April 1, children in the 6-14 age-group will finally get their right to education.Minister of Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal has decided to notify the Rightof Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009

The Right to Education Act (RTE) that was passed by Parliament in August 2009 afterseveral abortive attempts is all set to become a reality with the Ministry of Human

Resource Development (HRD) expected to notify it on April 1. Though the Act wasgazetted soon after its enactment, a separate notification was mandated in the body ofthe law for it to actually come into effect.

According to Section 1(3) of the Act, ?it shall come into force on such date as thecentral government may, by notification in the official gazette, appoint?. That date hasnow been fixed for April 1, 2010.

The Act that promises free and compulsory education to all children aged between 6and 14 years was stuck over Centre and state negotiations on who will bear the

implied financial burden: a staggering Rs 1.71 lakh crore in the next five years.

The HRD ministry is learnt to have zeroed in on a 65:35 Centre-state fund-sharingformula to implement the ambitious provisions of the Act, it is learnt. A huge allocationto facilitate its further implementation is also in the offing in the next Union budget,ministry sources say.

The notification will bring to an end the long journey which saw its first official milestonein December 2002 when the fundamental right to education was enacted. While effortsto bring compulsory education for children in the age-group 6-14 out of the directiveprinciples of state policy and make it a fundamental right predate 2002, governments insubsequent years have made several attempts to pass the Right to Education Act -- alaw to operationalise the fundamental right to education.

While discussions on the funding formula have been on for months now, with stategovernments reluctant to shoulder too big a share, some states suggested a 90:10Centre-state fund-sharing arrangement. Marathon meetings between the HRDministry, Planning Commission and the PMO finally led to a consensus on a 65:35

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formula.

A 75:25 formula proposed by the HRD ministry and a 60:40 fund-sharing approachwere also being considered. A final meeting with the prime minister late last month islearnt to have helped arrive at a 65:35 funding pattern.

What this will imply is that all the states put together will have to pitch in with Rs 30,000crore or so over the next five years, which the Centre considers feasible. Stategovernments, however, may not find the formula very agreeable but will have to bebrought around to the view that states must prioritise education.

The Centre will be allocating a substantial amount for RTE implementation in thisbudget through the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) programme that will serve as animplementation channel for the Act so that construction of buildings and recruitment ofteachers can begin.

An amount of Rs 34,000 crore has already been allocated to the SSA for the next twoyears of the Eleventh Plan period. With the recession constraining resources duringthe plan, a larger allocation towards implementation of the provisions of the Act willcome only in the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, say ministry officials.

The model rules for implementation of the Act, as approved by the HRD ministry andcirculated to all states last month, highlight the responsibilities of state governments,local authorities, school management, parents and teachers.

The rules say that state governments or local authorities will determine neighbourhoodschools by undertaking household surveys and school mappings. Such agencies shallensure that no child is subjected to caste, class, religious or gender abuse at school.

Local authorities will conduct household surveys and maintain a record of all children intheir jurisdiction. The record will contain detailed information on children and theirparents, and will specify whether they belong to a weaker sections or disadvantagedgroup, or have a disability.

The state government or local authority will identify children with disabilities andchildren from disadvantaged groups every year. Unaided and private schools shallensure that children from weaker sections and disadvantaged groups shall not besegregated from other children in the classroom, nor shall their classes be held inplaces and timings different from classes held for the other children.

Such children shall not be treated differently from the rest of the children in any mannerpertaining to entitlements and facilities like textbooks, uniforms, library, ICT facilities,extra-curricular activities and sports, the rules say.



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The school management committee or local authority will identify drop-outs or out-of-school children above six years of age and admit them in classes appropriate to theirage after special training. The duration of the training shall be for three months and canbe extended to two years. After admission, these children will continue to receivespecial attention by teachers for their successful integration into the class

?academically and emotionally,? the rules say.

The state government and local authorities will establish primary schools within awalking distance of 1 km from the neighbourhood. In case of Class VI to VIII children,the school should be within a walking distance of 3 km from the neighbourhood.

Private schools will reserve 25% of their seats for poor children, and provide freeeducation to them. The government will reimburse the cost according to the per-childexpenditure fixed by it.

The rules prescribe a formula to calculate per-child expenditure. The annual recurringexpenditure incurred by the state government on elementary education in respect to allschools established, owned or controlled by it or by the local authority, divided by thetotal number of children enrolled in all such schools, shall be the per-child expenditure.

In the absence of schools in small hamlets, the state government shall make adequatearrangements like free transportation and residential facilities. For physicallychallenged children, the state government will make arrangement for their smoothtransport and schooling.

The states are now expected to draw up their own rules based on these model rulesfor implementation of the Act.

However, many organisations like the All-India Forum for Right to Education (AIF-RTE), which has been concerned over the rapidly deteriorating state of the educationsystem from the pre-primary stage to higher and technical education, are critical of theRTE Act.

?It is designed to enable the state to abdicate its constitutional obligation towards

providing elementary education (Class I-VIII) of equitable quality to all children in the 6-14-year age-group,? the Forum has said in a press release issued in New Delhirecently.

Primary objections to the RTE Act 2009 include:

It will demolish the entire government school system except schools in certainelite categories (for example, kendriya vidyalayas, navodaya vidyalayas, theEleventh Plan's 6,000 model schools, and similar elite schools of states/UT



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governments). The Act will provide neither free education nor education of equitable quality.

Rather, it will legitimise and maintain the multi-layered school system builtthrough the World Bank's District Primary Education Programme (DPEP)during the 1990s, and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) in the current decade.

The central agenda of the Act is clearly to privatise and commercialise theschool system through neo-liberal schemes such as public private partnerships(PPPs), school vouchers, adoption of schools by corporate houses, religiousbodies and NGOs.

The Forum wants the government to replace the RTE ACT 2009 with a new Act draftedin the framework of a 'common school system based on neighbourhood schools' inconsonance with the basic spirit and principles enshrined in the Constitution, andreview the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act (2002) with a view to providing the

fundamental right to free and compulsory education of equitable quality to all childrenuntil the age of 18, that is, until Class XII, including early childhood care and pre-primary education.

Moreover, it wants the government to incorporate a constitutional guarantee within theAct for providing adequate funding to the entire school system, including earlychildhood care and pre-primary education.

Source: The Indian Express, February 13, 2010 Press Trust of India, February 13, 2010

The Hindu, February 12, 2010 http://www.indiaedunews.net, February 2010



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A school for everyone

By Anuradha Kumar

A new take on private schools in developing countries, which sees them not as money-making machines exploiting the poor, but as a much needed asset that can help fulfilthe goal of a decent education for all

The Beautiful Tree: A personal journey into how the world's poorest people are

educating themselves, by James Tooley, Penguin India, 2009, pages 302

In his autobiography, My Experiments with Truth, Mahatma Gandhi writes of the visitof a school inspector. The teacher was anxious that every pupil he tutored got hisspellings right and so when the young Mohandas misspelled the word 'kettle', theteacher did his best to prompt him or hint that he cheat from a classmate who had thecorrect spelling.

The school inspector's visit has formed a motif for several stories in the subcontinent.Once a year, government school inspectors continue to make their mandated visit togovernment schools and teachers make students brush up their knowledge. Theschool inspectors make up one rung of the private school system ? a very powerfulrung. School inspectors have the responsibility of visiting every school in their

jurisdiction to ensure that these run according to set government regulations.

Among many other things in his very evocative book on the world of private schooling,The Beautiful Tree, James Tooley talks of these regulations in relation to the world ofprivate schooling as he sees it across various countries of the developing world.

His wide sweeping gaze begins with India, and moves over Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana andalso China. Wherever he begins his story, he notices the overt denial on the part ofgovernment or education officials of the existence of private schools, and theostensible absence of such schools. But everywhere the evidence that greets him aftera detailed, close search is the same: private schools exist, and in total contradiction towhat experts believe, such schools appear to be always the first and the mostpreferred choice of poor parents.

Where public schools fail

Tooley chanced on private schools in Hyderabad while on a research visit. Theinitiative, dedication and enthusiasm shown by the small private entrepreneurs who ranthese schools tucked away in hidden parts of the old city, impressed him. They were



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genuinely driven by the need to do something to promote learning and poor peoplebenefited most from these private schools.

Poor parents, as Tooley learnt wherever he went, were willing to pay a price becausein government schools not only was the infrastructure bad or poorly maintained, but

teachers were frequently absent, and worse, the teaching was abysmally poor. Theteachers just did not have time to attend to every child's needs. As other studies on thefailure of public schools in the developing world have brought out time and again,teachers are absent or are not motivated; the pupil-teacher ratio is not conducive;teachers are not accountable to the school and function in rigid unions and thus, moreoften than not, children are often abandoned to their own devices. Also, governmentschools simply do not exist or are non-functional in remote, relatively inaccessibleregions such as tribal dominated areas. Teachers are not willing to travel to farawayareas. They also have government duties to perform, such as during elections or

gathering census data.

The NGO, Pratham conducts an annual state of the education survey (the ASERreports) and its reports almost uniformly present a disturbing image of the limitedattainments of children in public or recognised schools. These aren't children in theexclusive and expensive private schools but those everywhere else, in functionalgovernment schools or even smaller recognised private schools. Even at the age ofnine, children in several states in Orissa, Bihar and even relatively better developedKarnataka, were not able to spell their own name, as a Pratham report of 2008 bringsout.

Tooley details his surprise visits to schools in Nigeria and Kenya where he chanced onclasses where the teacher was either blatantly napping, reading the newspaper, orotherwise just not there. Strangely, Tooley also finds that private schools exist inCommunist China despite stringent denials on the part of its officials and even Tooley'sown research assistants. Private schools filled a vital lacuna in villages located in therelatively inaccessible, mountainous parts of the country. Parents worried that theirdaughters especially would have to walk to these distant schools, found in the privateschools that functioned within the bare rooms of a small village home a welcome safe

haven.

The stories he tells seem repetitive till you realise that Tooley is hoping to drive homeseveral points. Whether in Hyderabad, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, or China, Tooley findsprivate schools elusive at first. Education officials, even research assistants heengages, tell him they don't exist, that there cannot be private schools as all schoolsthat exist for the poor are government run, for it is only the latter that can make theeffort and the investment required to educate the children of the poor. Private schools



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are nothing but commercial money-spinning ventures, and only ignorant parentschoose to send their children to such schools.

Still, all the parents he interviews everywhere are adamant about why they preferprivate schools for their children. It surprises Tooley that development experts, despite

the obvious failure of state led efforts to ensure education for all, simply do not alludeto the many private schools or else dismiss the valuable role such schools perform.

There are, Tooley points out time and again, simply too many students out of school,and the millennium development goal of 'education for all by 2015' set by the UnitedNations, seems impossible to achieve. Yet private schools can help plug this gap.

Why private schools are needed

While he busts myths like only ignorant parents send their children to private schools,

there are some other 'truths' about private schooling that Tooley doesn't highlight quiteas rigorously. One is the insistence on English education, which private schools (andthis is obviously true for India in large measure) offer, and which all aspiring parentsthink is essential for their children to get ahead in life. This preference persists despitepopulist decisions taken by certain state governments to arbitrarily impose the regionallanguage as a compulsory subject in government or government recognised schools.as was most recently seen in Karnataka in 2004.

The problem faced by private unrecognised schools is the battle to win recognition thatthey often lose. To win recognition, private schools sometimes have to pay a bribe.They need infrastructure and good teachers (which prove elusive in most cases) butinspectors have to be bribed simply so the schools can run. This is one reason whymost private unrecognised schools function largely at primary and middle levels andare less evident at senior levels. Students from the lower classes face difficulties whenthey have to shift to other schools. Statistics show that the drop-out rate in middleschools has by and large remained the same over the last decade in India thoughgross enrolment rates may have risen. One reason could simply have to do with thepresence or absence of private schools, and the transition difficulties.

Tooley's experiences point to the need to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit thatcould help establish more private schools. Educare, the organisation he founded, is atrust that is financing precisely such schools in areas he had first done his research in.

James Tooley's findings highlight a vital, long neglected area of education. And thismakes up for the gaps that emerge in his conclusions. A private initiative that wouldfound and nurture scores of private schools across a broad region would develop thesame kind of complexities and contradictions that drive any such behemoth-like



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system, including the state run school system, anywhere. One reason why privateschools - the kind Tooley has detailed in his book - have worked well is preciselybecause of the informal nature of their functioning.

There is another contradiction he does not address in the Indian context which plagues

private schools here, and which was also established in the second report of thePratichi Trust (2009) on public schools in certain West Bengal districts: that whileteachers will work for less money in private schools, they do not stay in the job for long.They also seek to make up for the lower pay by taking coaching classes after schoolhours. It is this coaching system that the first Pratichi report (2001) had highlighted asa reason for the poor performance of government schools and the widespread teacherapathy in several schools in the districts of West Bengal. (1)

Tooley's findings assume importance in the light of the recently passed legislation onthe right to education for all in India. Many experts feel that the RTE emphasisesnumbers (of children in school) more than it does the quality of teaching. If privateschools were given their due, in the manner Tooley argues, there would be fewerchildren out of school than at present.

Pre-colonial education

Tooley's book gets its title from an article written by Mahatma Gandhi on the state of'native' education' before the advent of the British and their introduction of the modern'centralised' system of education. Gandhi called the village school system a 'beautiful

tree' that withered due to neglect by the British government which took credit forintroducing modern subjects and a modern system of education.

The British, as even Gandhi wrote, insisted that pre-colonial education systems weretoo few to have ever had an impact, but the lie to this appears in the numerous surveyreports in the Presidency areas under British control that it commissioned in the early19th century. The Munro report talks of the many small village schools in the Madraspresidency that taught an entire range of subjects. But Munro - and Tooley cites thissurvey report enthusiastically - was not very forthcoming about whether such schoolscatered to all castes/communities and women as well. Evidently not, as other historicalworks bear out; besides, education within artisanal communities happened within theguild system as well.

The private schools James Tooley cites in his book are those that flourish in the mostadverse of circumstances, in the most unfriendly places and as their numbers indicate,despite all odds. In a time when it is obvious that the efforts of the State cannot prevaileverywhere, or have failed to ensure delivery of essential services such as health andeducation, coexistence between private and public efforts could work wonders. But



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before coexistence, recognition that such agencies exist is important, and as Tooleyhas argued in this evocative, very persuasive book, sometimes that is the very firststep.

References:

1. The Pratichi Trust was set up by the Nobel winning economist, Amartya Sen. Thefirst Pratichi report published in 2001 looked at the state of public school educationacross districts of West Bengal and Jharkhand. The second Pratichi report of 2009 wasa follow-up detailed study conducted in the same districts as a comparative exercise.

(Anu (Anuradha) Kumar is a writer and editor based in Gurgaon. She worked as

a management consultant after her degree from XLRI Jamshedpur. Later she

was in the editorial team of theEPW. Her novels includeLetters for Paul (2006);Atisa and the Seven Wonders (Penguin 2008) and In the Country of Gold-digging

Ants (Penguin 2009)

InfoChange News & Features, January 2010



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Model colleges in educationally backward areas

The Centre has cleared a proposal to set up model colleges in 374 educationallybackward districts in the country. The scheme has been cleared by the Cabinet

Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA). Initially, around 90 colleges will be set up inminority-concentrated districts

In a bid to aid students in educationally backward districts, the Cabinet Committee onEconomic Affairs, on January 21, approved the setting up of model colleges in 374districts where the gross enrolment ratio (GER) for higher education is less than thenational GER.

The cost of setting up the colleges has been estimated at Rs 2,992 crore; the Centre

will bear Rs 1,079 crore of this. The government envisions close to 1.87 lakh studentsenrolling in the 374 colleges.

The scheme will cost the government around Rs 600 crore initially, with a target of 90colleges, and assistance limited to one-third of the capital cost subject to a limit of Rs2.67 crore per college in the selected district, will be provided through the UniversityGrants Commission (UGC). For special category states, the Centre will share 50% ofthe capital cost but with an upper limit of Rs 4 crore for each college.

State governments will provide land free of cost as well as the rest of the establishment

costs. The recurring cost of running the college will be borne by the state governmentsconcerned.

With 374 districts in the country saddled with a GER below the national average of12.4%, the human resource development ministry has been working on a proposal withthe UGC to enhance access to degree courses in educationally backward districts ofthe country.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during his Independence Day speech in 2007, said:?We will ensure adequate numbers of colleges are set up across the country,

especially in districts where enrolment levels are low.?

The Eleventh Five-Year Plan document, as approved by the National DevelopmentCouncil, envisages, among other things, that 370 new degree colleges will beestablished in districts with a low gross enrolment ratio, based on careful selection.

Source: The Hindu, January 22, 2010



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ANI, January 21, 2010



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When will the Right to Education Act be notified?

Four months after it was passed in Parliament, no date has been fixed forimplementation of the Act making education free and compulsory for children aged 6-

14

Seven years after the Constitution was amended in 2002 making free and compulsoryeducation for children in the age-group 6-14 a fundamental right, and four months afterthe Right to Education Bill was passed in Parliament, both legislations are yet to benotified.

Notification is a mandatory step that gives the exact date from when the law comesinto force.

The human resources development (HRD) ministry is said to be still working out thecosts involved in implementing the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act; it hastentatively pegged the cost at Rs 1.71 lakh crore for five years. Since stategovernments need time to make the necessary budget allocations and put theinfrastructure in place, early notification would have helped them begin the process.

The RTE Act also envisages certain reforms in the system such as maintaining ateacher-student ratio of 1:30, setting up school management committees, andintroducing continuous evaluations instead of the examination system. State

governments could have begun working on these too had the Act been notified.

Writing in the Financial Chronicle, Arun Nigvekar, former chairman of the UniversityGrants Commission, says that despite the delay in notification, state governmentsshould start putting the requirements of the RTE in place.

?Governments, state and central, must realise that these reforms cannot happenovernight by using a magic wand. It requires enormous effort and commitment atseveral levels, right from the panchayat to taluka to district to state level.?

Nigvekar argues that the state education ministries are ?still not alarmed by themagnitude of the work required. They are just waiting for issuance of the notification,as if that alone would resolve every issue?.

He gave the example of the fiasco over the education satellite project launched in2004. ?The entire world hailed it as India's novel approach to enhancing access andquality in education. The HRD ministry, which was aware of the launch, could haveplanned its use. However, it started work on the use of satellites the same year. The



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net result: even after six years of its existence in space, the potential of educationsatellites is under-utilised and we have lost an excellent opportunity to transform oureducation system.?

Source: Financial Chronicle, January 17, 2010



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Right to Education to cover all categories of disability

A month after being passed by Parliament, the Right to Education Act is set to beamended to include all categories of differently-abled children in its ambit. The move

comes after intervention by the prime minister's office following protests from disabledrights groups

The human resource development (HRD) ministry has admitted that a section of theRight to Education (RTE) Act pertaining to ?disadvantaged sections? will have to bechanged as it does not cover all disabled children. According to the proposedamendment, the Act will now include children covered under the National Trust Act andany other law that deals with those suffering from mental as well as physical disorders.

This was reportedly conveyed by the HRD ministry to the prime minister's office (PMO)recently. While the ministry was earlier planning to incorporate enabling provisions inthe rules to be framed for the Act, it was later felt that rules alone would not suffice tomeet the concerns of the disabled.

After being passed by Parliament in early August, the landmark legislation is nowawaiting presidential consent. Indications are that the amendment will be moved laterto ensure that all disabilities are covered under the Bill's definition of ?disability?.

Barely a week after the Act was passed, the prime minister's office wrote to the HRD

ministry asking it to ensure that the concerns of the disabled were addressed. HRDMinister Kapil Sibal assured both Parliament and the Central Advisory Board ofEducation (CABE) that all categories of disabled children would receive benefits underthe RTE Act.

The RTE Act proposes free and compulsory education to all children aged between 6and 14 years, making it binding on all public and private schools to reserve 25% oftheir seats for children from ?disadvantaged sections?. Section 3 states that?disadvantaged sections? cover children with disabilities as specified under the

Persons With Disabilities Act -- an Act that is not very comprehensive as it leaves outseveral disabilities like cerebral palsy, autism and other mental disorders.

The original Bill was at the centre of a row even before it was tabled in the Lok Sabha,with activists alleging that it deliberately excluded disabled children from its ambit.They claimed the Bill ignored the rights of disabled children by not providing fordisabled-friendly facilities, not including ?disability? within the definition of?disadvantaged sections?, and not including the mentally challenged within the



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definition of ?disabled?. Activists say that where the Bill does define ?disability?, ittakes the meaning as given in the Disability Act 1995, which covers people withphysical disabilities only.

Activists point out that India was one of the first countries to ratify the UN Convention

on Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in October 2007, which says: ?State partiesshall ensure that persons with disability are not excluded from the general educationsystem on the basis of disability and that children with disabilities are not excludedfrom free and compulsory primary education or from secondary education on the basisof disability.?

Source: The Indian Express, September 21 and August 12, 2009http://www.channelnewsasia.com, September 21, 2009Business Standard, August 4, 2009

IANS, August 3, 2009



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Numbers, at the cost of quality?

By Anu Kumar

After the passage of the Right to Education Bill, elementary school education is nowcompulsory, and free. But several questions remain, including how children outside the6-14 age-group will be covered, and how the neighbourhood schooling system will beimplemented

The man who irons clothes in our building sometimes sends his son across to collectand deliver. The boy has only recently come from the village and is yet to begin school.The 'presswallah' isn't sure which school will take his son, or if he can afford it. When Itell him about the new Bill making education free and compulsory for the 6-14 age-

group, he looks blank. It won't work, he says finally. And when I try and explain thingsto him, he says it still won't work. In India, it seems, the laws are made for otherpeople.

Earlier this year, in August, the Right to Education Bill was finally passed, after a longcampaign within Parliament and also outside. It brought to fruition a dream spelled outin the Constitution almost 60 years ago. The Bill also became essential afterParliament passed the 86th Amendment Act in 2001 (the first moves were made in1998) making education a fundamental right. The amendment was in large partbecause of the direction given by the Supreme Court in the J P Unnikrishnan vs State

of Andhra Pradesh case, as early as in 1993, as well as in the Mohini Jain case whichsaid that the right to education directly flows from the right to life.

Not only is elementary school education now free, it is compulsory. That is, children ofthe poor, such as Santosh, will by law attend government schools or aided schools.Private schools too will have to reserve 25% of their seats for the economically weakersections. To end any kind of discrimination whatsoever, the Bill has banned schoolsfrom holding admission tests or seeking ?donations? from guardians. Also, a schoolcannot deny a student admission because he doesn't have a birth and/or transfer

certificate.

The Bill commits the government to implementing a ?neighbourhood schoolingsystem? in three years, ie, it is obliged to provide schooling within the block in whichthe student lives, and these will be managed by school management committees madeup of school representatives, parents of students, and local political leaders. The ideais loosely modelled on the British comprehensive school system that caters to nearly90% of secondary school students there. Also, no child is to be subjected to physical



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punishment or mental harassment.

It speaks of a common board that will do away with the differential educationalstandards in the country; it bans the practice of hiring parateachers -- part-timeteachers with either no training or less training than that required for full-time teachers

in schools.

The provisions are radical in their scope, and idealistic. Its ambitions however remainsubject to its ability to implement. And, of course, having the necessary finances, ofwhich the government has been completely vague.

Allocations to education have seen a commensurate decline in finance over the years.Education is deemed to be every government's pet scheme, and this governmentwould like to take credit for a step that will be permanently enshrined. But how muchwill things actually change? Will Santosh go to a school of his choice, without any fear?

More importantly, will he learn?

An answer means looking at some of the vital issues presented by the Bill.

Does it cover every child?

Provisions of the Bill ignore earlier constitutional provisions, as also the Unnikrishnanjudgment of 1993 that emphasised the right of every child to receive education. India isalso a signatory to the UN-mandated Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) thatspells out basic rights children are entitled to, including the right to life, protection from

abuse and exploitation. It also delineates the states' responsibilities towards children,including the urgent matter of providing them schooling.

But the education Bill limits its ambit to children in the age-group 6?14, and ignoresthose under six. Education up to the 8th standard is not enough to equip a child withthe basic skills required for gainful employment; nor does it equip individuals tofunction with a basic degree of self-reliance and empowerment. And related to the rightto education, rights continue to be denied to children in the 0-6 age-group. Forexample, while there has been a marginal increase in the female-male sex ratio in the

2001 census, there has been a disturbing decline in the female-male sex ratio in theunder-6 age-group. The 1991 census shows the female-male sex ratio in the 0-6 age-group as 945 girls per 1,000 boys. But a decade later, for the same age-group the ratiowas 927 girls to 1,000 boys. And it is usually the girl-child who, even if she survives aninfancy marred by poor health, malnourishment and inadequate access to food, willprobably be forced to work within the household and outside, and thus in all probabilitybe denied a proper education.



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To safeguard the rights of the under-6 age-group, the Supreme Court had passedorders on the universalisation of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)scheme -- every child under 6, as well as pregnant and nursing mothers, are entitled toservices that include supplementary nutrition, growth monitoring and promotion,nutrition and health education, immunisation, health services, as well as referral

services, and pre-school education. In interim orders passed in 2001 and again in2004, the apex court directed the government to increase the number of anganwadicentres (for the ICDS) from 6 lakh to 14 lakh and to ensure that all scheduledcaste/scheduled tribe hamlets and slums in urban areas be provided with thesecentres. In December 2008, the court issued its most far-reaching directive when atimeframe was given to state governments to create these proposed anganwadis.More radically, the court mandated that all rural habitations, tribal hamlets and slumswith at least 40 children under 6 are entitled to an ?anganwadi on demand?. This is anexplicit recognition of the ICDS as a right for all children.

Who pays for it all?

The Bill remains silent on increasing the outlay for government schooling. Instead, itshifts the responsibility of 'poor students' to private schools (the 25% reservationclause), which has in the past raised objections to such a proposal. Developedeconomies like the US, UK and France allocate 6-7% of their national budgets to publiceducation and health. India however allocates just 3% for education, and around 1%for health. To really make a difference to children's lives, the country needs to spend atleast 10% of GDP on school education and health. Currently, the spending onschooling is 1.28% (the total government outlay is 3.3%) of GDP. In fact, successivegovernments have tried to bring down allocations on education, as with every othersocial sector.

The Tapas Majumdar Committee set up in 1999 estimated that an additionalinvestment of Rs 137,600 crore would need to be made over a 10-year period to bringall out-of-school children into the school system (not parallel streams) and enable themto complete the elementary stage (Class 8). This meant an average investment of Rs14,000 crore a year, which, in 1999, amounted to 0.78% of GDP, ie, 78 paise out of

every Rs 100 India earned. However, the Financial Memorandum to the Constitution(93rd; later it became the 86th) Amendment Bill, 2001 then being debated inParliament, stated that a sum of Rs 98,000 crore would be required over a 10-yearperiod to implement the right to education for children in the age-group 6-14 years.This worked out to Rs 9,800 crore a year on an average (0.44% of GDP in 2002-03),30% less than that estimated by the Tapas Majumdar Committee. In reality, however,the sum required is much more.



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Indeed, proper implementation of the Bill will need a huge infusion of funds. Mostschools in rural areas suffer from poor or absent infrastructure. The government willhave to spend a large amount of money to bring them up to scratch and to ensure thatthere are enough trained teachers to impart education at the elementary level. Aseducationists have argued, the government will have to cough up Rs 55,000 crore

annually to execute this law. With state governments always complaining about lack offunds and about the Centre not coming forward to assist them, the law is certain toface a serious funds crunch.

The government for its part has made some effort to address the issue of providingadequate funds. The Bill has a provision whereby it can request the President to directthe Finance Commission to allocate funds to the states for implementing the provisionsof the Bill. But besides sounding arbitrary, it remains to be seen if this will be enough.

Where will the child learn?

The Bill is vague on the definition of ?neighbourhood?. It appears that it hasmisrepresented the universal notion of a neighbourhood school, as advanced by theKothari Commission and as practised in countries such as the USA, Canada, France,Germany and Japan.

In these countries, each school is assigned a predetermined neighbourhood and allchildren residing in the neighbourhood are required to study in the neighbourhoodschool. However, in this particular Bill, ?neighbourhood? is defined in terms of the

child; this means that poorer children will be directed to attend sub-standard schoolswhile those of the middle class or the elite will have access to central schools or privateschools. The HRD minister is on record as saying that state governments will framerules with regard to neighbourhood schools in their domain. But how will stategovernments bring in the notion of a neighbourhood school when it does not exist inthe Bill itself?

The Bill's schedule has norms and standards for all schools to follow, but will theseimprove the status of government schools? As seen from the enrolment figures, almosttwo-thirds of existing government primary schools will continue as ?sub-standard?schools (two-room and two-teacher, three-room and three-teacher). One of theclassrooms will, in all likelihood, be turned into a storeroom for midday meals since aseparate provision has been made only for the kitchen. The Bill also says thatgovernment school teachers can be deployed for census, elections and disaster reliefduties. When this happens, the universal malaise of a teacher teaching more than oneclass in one classroom will see a commensurate decline in quality of teaching. Whilethe Bill is against deploying the teacher for any ?non-educational purposes?, it has



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cleverly left adequate scope for deploying him for 'non-teaching tasks' such assurveying children and arranging for inoculations. It is also possible that, as someeducationists argue, the government will end up subsidising private schools, as it isgoing to pay for the economically weaker students who make up the 25% quotademarcated for the latter.

And what will he learn?

This law promises centralisation of syllabi and standardisation of education in threeyears -- a huge challenge before the government. Once enacted, the law will centralisealmost every aspect of elementary education, ie, syllabi, methods of admission ofstudents, etc. Yet, it is silent on the process of centralisation of education.

One way forward is the National Curricula Framework (NCF) put in place in 2005-06. In2004, the Ministry of Human Resource Development enabled the NCERT to build the

National Curriculum Framework with the help of the Central Advisory Board ofEducation. The NCF has tremendous potential to ensure long-term reforms in theentire system of school education. As many as 21 national focus groups were set up tocover all major points and areas relevant for curricular redesigning; each focus groupincluded not only academicians and educationists from various universities andinstitutes of teacher education but also schoolteachers from across the country,especially rural teachers whose voices had hitherto been largely ignored. The draftNCF also received wide attention and participation from some states. Approval of NCF2005 was followed by the preparation of new syllabi and textbooks.

The NCF process has been fruitful in bringing about a major shift in perspective. Itpermits the child's view to become the centre of teaching. It is implemented in allCBSE schools, yet very many school boards in different states continue to have theirown syllabi.

The Right to Education Bill will now have to be implemented in the states. Centre-staterelations in education, as in other areas, are complex and have not been properlydefined or even examined in the current context. For instance, the Kothari Commissionback in the 1960s recommended a pattern of 5+3+4 years of schooling, but more than10 states continue with the practice of four years of primary education. Similarly, thereare multiple boards of education. Moreover, year after year, figures show that eventhough outlay has increased, most states use only a fraction of what is allotted.

Who will teach?

While the Bill stipulates that every school should have a student-teacher ratio of 40:1,experts say it does not go into how this is to be achieved. Most schools in West



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Bengal, for example, have a student-teacher ratio of 90:1; there are some single-teacher schools as well. The Bill does not lay down any guidelines on how to meet thesevere shortage of schoolteachers.

The scenario of teacher education presents by far the bleakest picture -- there is

rampant commercialisation on the one hand and a lifeless, uninspiring B Ed curriculumon the other. Quality teacher education programmes such as Delhi University's B ElEd, which focus on the specific needs of elementary education, are rare. Drasticreforms are needed in the B Ed course and other teacher training programmes for theprimary and pre-primary classes.

Numbers at the cost of quality

In the end, the fear remains that the government will be more obsessed by numberssuch as literacy and enrolment rates, and that the quality of education will not really

matter. A report released by the Bal Hakk Abhiyan on 'The State of Primary Educationin Maharashtra', in 2001, holds truths that are relevant even today. According to the2001 census, Maharashtra saw the maximum progress in literacy in the last decade.But girls continue to remain out of school. Moreover, the government claimed to havelaunched several schemes to reach out-of-school children. The Mahatma PhuleGuarantee Scheme was supposed to provide education centres where there are noschools, ie in tribal areas. But there is no data to indicate whether the scheme hasmade any difference.

The schemes also failed to reach landless dalit families who still seasonally migratefrom impoverished parts of Marathwada to sugarcane-growing areas of westernMaharashtra. The children of these families cannot hope to attend school unless theirspecial circumstances are recognised. But this wasn't done. The new Bill promises tocorrect lacunae such as these. In Marathwada, thus, there are schools and teachers,but no children. In tribal areas of Maharashtra, on the other hand, there are insufficientprimary schools. If there are schools, there are no teachers. The story is replicated invery many other states too.

The need of the hour, then, is to gear up to bridge the many gaps, to make sure thatquality education is available for all. An ideal Bill would work within the framework of apublic-funded common school system based on neighbourhood schools from the pre-primary stage to Class XII, with everything possible looked into -- teachers, syllabi,ideal norms, etc. Will Santosh then be able to go to a school of his choice, and learnwithout fear, with the full joy of a child, as indeed all education should be? The Billmakes sure it has the answers, or at least some. But it remains to be seen how andwhen these questions will be answered.



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Infochange News & Features, September 2009



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SSA making steady progress in Himachal

The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), launched in 2001 in Himachal Pradesh, is makingsteady progress with the strengthening and expansion of basic infrastructure in

elementary schools

http://dailypioneer.com/199199/, September 2009



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Indian Parliament passes landmark Right to Education Bill

It has taken six-and-half years, two governments, and half-a-dozen drafts to put inplace enabling legislation making the right to education a fundamental right in India

The Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament, has adopted the Right ofChildren to Free and Compulsory Education Bill 2009, approving it by voice vote onTuesday, August 4, 2009. The upper house, the Rajya Sabha, passed the Bill on July20. Once the President gives the Bill her assent, education will become a fundamentalright for every Indian child.

Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal called the move ?a nationalenterprise that will help shape India's future,? explaining that ?this Bill is about the

child's right to have free education and the State's obligation to provide compulsoryeducation. This is a historic opportunity as there was never such a law in the last 62years since Independence. We, as a nation, cannot afford our children not going toschool?.

Answering a range of questions on the form and content of the Bill, Sibal said that itsessential features included free education, compulsory education, quality education(with schools requiring to have facilities like a playground, library, etc), quality teachers(minimum qualification for teachers is compulsory; under-qualified teachers will begiven five years to upgrade themselves), social responsibility (private schools will have

to reserve one-fourth of their seats for disadvantaged children), de-bureaucratisation ofthe school system, and participation of civil society in school management committees(where half the members will be women).

As the purpose of the legislation is to set a certain benchmark for school education, theBill details punitive action for running unrecognised schools, and also provides for de-recognition of institutions that do not meet certain standards. These standards, interms of teacher qualifications and duties, and pupil-teacher ratio, have been specified.It comes with a diktat that prohibits teachers from taking private tuitions and schools

from deploying them for non-educational purposes other than the decennial populationcensus, disaster relief, and election duty.

Stressing the need for a boost to children's education, Sibal said that out of every 100children attending elementary school only 12 reached the graduation level; in Europe itwas 50-70 (students reaching college from the elementary level); the global average is27. The Centre wanted to increase India's average to 15 by 2012 and to 30-35 by2020, he said.



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The curriculum will be less rigorous and will ensure all-round development of children.?A child must not be subjected to board examinations in Class V or Class VIII. Theelement of fear must be removed from the child's mind. At present the child has nochoice but to take exams and the government was determined to end it,? the ministeradded.

Responding to questions raised in Parliament, Sibal clarified that no punitive measureswere planned for parents who failed to send their children to school. He also clarifiedthat it was for the states and local authorities to decide on the broader contours ofneighbourhood schools (with no interference from the Centre), within three years.

The Bill seeks to do away with the practice of schools taking capitation fees beforeadmissions, and subjecting the child or parents to a screening procedure. If a schooldisregards this it could be fined up to 10 times the capitation amount. If tests orinterviews are conducted, a school can be fined Rs 25,000 for the first violation, andRs 50,000 for every subsequent contravention.

Schools cannot deny admission to a child because of lack of age proof, and no childcan be detained or expelled until the completion of elementary education. Physicalpunishment and mental harassment will attract disciplinary action under the servicerules.

It will be up to the states to implement the policy of reservation in admissions. While25% of seats in every private school will be allocated for children from disadvantaged

groups, including differently-abled children at the entry level, as far as minorityinstitutions are concerned, up to 50% of these seats can be offered to students fromtheir own community.

On infrastructure, the minister said there was provision for establishing a recognitionauthority in every state under which all schools would have to fulfil the minimumrequirement for infrastructure within three years. Otherwise they will lose recognition.Similarly, appointment of teachers had to be approved by the academic committee,Sibal pointed out.

On the medium of instruction, Sibal said there was provision to provide elementaryeducation, as far as possible, in the child's mothertongue. The law would ensure thatthe child got free, compulsory and quality education by qualified teachers. It had notbeen brought in to interfere with the state government's attempts to provide elementaryeducation.

The minister emphasised the disability clause, saying that the differently-abled wouldbe considered part of the broad ?disadvantaged category (that includes scheduled



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castes [SCs], scheduled tribes [STs], socially and educationally backward)? integratingschooling for the disabled in normal schools?. He added that children suffering fromautism too would soon be able to join normal schools.

A spate of protests over the past week by disabled rights groups across the country

were followed by a meeting with Sibal on Monday. The prime minister also met themthe day the Bill was passed. ?The prime minister assured us that our concerns wouldbe addressed,? says Javed Abidi, head of the disability rights group that has beenspearheading the protest along with the Spastics Society of India.

Disabled rights activists argue that the Bill effectively extends benefits only to thosewith physical disabilities -- not children with cerebral palsy or autism. The definition ofdisadvantaged children -- for whom each private school is required to reserve 25% oftheir seats -- does not include the differently-abled. Also, they say, the Bill does notmention special schools with a barrier-free environment for differently-abled children.

The government still has to finalise funding norms for implementation of the proposedlaw; this remains a major concern for educationists in the country. ?The right toeducation will effectively become implementable only when the funding is clear and isreleased. Till then, it will remain a law only on paper,? said one senior HRD ministryofficial.

The ministry has asked the finance commission to finalise funding norms for theproposed law. Critics of the Bill say it is unclear how the government plans to pay for it.

They also say it does not cover children below the age of six and therefore fails torecognise the importance of a child's early years of development.

Achieving universal education is one of the United Nations' Millennium DevelopmentGoals to be met by the year 2015. Currently, around 70 million children in India receiveno schooling; more than a third of the country's population is illiterate. At present, Indiaspends a little over 3% of its GDP on education.

Source:The Hindu, August 5, 2009The Indian Express, August 5, 2009

The Telegraph, August 4, 2009Press Trust of India, August 4, 2009http://news.bbc.co.uk, August 2009



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Educationists express concern over Right to Education Bill

The Right to Education Bill, passed this week by the Rajya Sabha, stops short ofproviding a common schooling system and discriminates between students in

government schools and private unaided schools, say educationists

Educationists and some parliamentarians warn that the Right to Education Bill, in itspresent form, is riddled with loopholes that will only legally sanctify existing inequalitiesin India's schools.

Biologist Pushpa M Bhargava, who was vice-chairman of the National KnowledgeCommission (NKC), has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh requesting him notto table the current Bill in the Lok Sabha, while Anil Sadagopal, member of the Central

Advisory Board on Education sub-panel that prepared the first draft of the Bill, haspetitioned Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar requesting her to return the Bill for furtherdiscussion.

The Right to Education Bill aims to make schooling for children between six and 14years a fundamental right. However, although titled the Right of Children to Free andCompulsory Education Bill, it does not alleviate the financial burden on poor parentswho send their children to private schools, say educationists.

Bhargava, in his letter to the prime minister, argues that the Bill will effectively lead to

the government subsidising private schools instead of ensuring school education forall. Under the Bill, each private school will have to reserve 25% of its seats for childrenfrom economically weaker sections (EWS). Although the government will compensatethese schools, it will be required to compensate only tuition fees.

?On an average, the central and state governments spend between Rs 2,000 and Rs2,500 per child a year in its schools. Most private schools charge their students muchmore. Students in the EWS quota will have to shell out the balance amount,? saysSadagopal.

Many private schools also charge students more for extra-curricular activities. Thesecharges are not covered by the Bill. ?In effect, the EWS quota students will have tobattle huge peer pressure in studying,? Sadagopal adds. He also criticises thegovernment for not detailing in the Bill how it plans to allocate resources for the Bill'simplementation.

The Right to Education Bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on December 15 lastyear, before the Lok Sabha elections to prevent it from lapsing. It was listed for debate



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and passage on Monday. But at no point during the debate did the total number of MPspresent cross 60.

However, a five-and-a-half-hour-long debate in the Rajya Sabha threw up a slew ofquestions on the funding formula and Centre-state fund-sharing arrangement for

implementation of this ambitious piece of legislation. And, more importantly, the needfor a common schooling system that does not discriminate between students ingovernment schools and private unaided schools.

?Once Parliament passes it, education will become a fundamental right of every child.There is no way in the world that we will not have finances,? Union Human ResourcesDevelopment Minister Kapil Sibal said in the upper house. Strongly advocating thepassage of the Bill, Sibal added that though it was a difficult task, the governmentcould not have waited any longer. ?We have to do it. We have wasted a whole lot oftime,? the minister said.

The Right to Education Bill seeks to achieve 10 broad objectives including free andcompulsory education, obligation on the part of the state to provide education, natureof curriculum consistent with the Constitution, quality, focus on social responsibility andteachers' obligations, and de-bureaucratisation of admissions. Also, provision forneighbourhood schools to be set up by states within three years. ?We are sitting on agreat opportunity. If we lose it, I do not know what will happen to our country,? Sibalsaid in Parliament.

A lot of work remains to be done on the Bill as the rules for making it functional havenot yet been framed; each state will have to do so separately. However, once the LokSabha passes it, it will become law. Sibal said that although the Bill was still to becomelaw, action would be taken against whoever violated it.

Source: The Telegraph, July 23, 2009The Indian Express, July 23 and 21, 2009Business Standard, July 13, 2009The Economic Times, July 12, 2009



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76% of schools use low-quality grain for midday meal in UP:

CAG report

According to a recently released annual report by the Comptroller and Auditor General

of India, around 76% of schools in Uttar Pradesh use low-quality foodgrain for middaymeals. The report also highlights several irregularities in the scheme's implementation

?Inspection of foodgrain used revealed that broken grains in excess of permissiblelimits, foreign matter and damaged grains were used in 243 schools of the 320inspected,? says the annual report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India thatcontains audit observations of the midday meal scheme for 2006-2007. ?Improvementin the nutritional status of the children was not ensured by providing micro-nutrientsupplements and de-worming medicines. No periodical health check-up of the children

was conducted either,? it adds.

Stating that the Uttar Pradesh government did not conduct a baseline survey during2004-05 to determine the enrolment of children, as directed by the Centre, the reportsays: ?The data relating to attendance and retention of children was not alsocollected.?

Further, the report indicates misuse of funds and financial irregularities. It reports thatfoodgrain worth Rs 121.98 crore remained with the transporting agencies (2002-2007)

and fair price shops (2005-2007), indicating poor transportation of grain. ?Deficient scrutiny of transportation claims of the transporting agencies for 2002-2007by the finance controller and the basic shiksha parishad resulted in the excessreimbursement of Rs 81.88 crore by December 2007 to the agencies.?

?Fair price shopkeepers retained 3.58 crore empty gunny bags during 2002-07,resulting in an undue benefit of Rs 43.86 crore to them,? the report elaborates.

Apart from these irregularities, the report also focuses on the reach of the scheme.Around 1.63 crore children in drought-affected areas did not receive the benefit of thescheme during the summer vacation of 2005 and 2007, violating the directives of theSupreme Court. Of the 96,457 schools in the state, 36,489 did not have kitchen sheds.Of the 320 schools inspected, around 61 did not have adequate kitchen devices andpotable water.

Earlier, in May 2009, the Uttar Pradesh government found that many schools were notimplementing the scheme and initiated action against the principals and teachers of



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around 105 government-run schools in Hamirpur district. ?In an ongoing surpriseinspection we found that the schools were not providing regular lunch to their studentsunder the midday meal scheme,? the official in charge of primary education in thedistrict, Mahendra Kumar, said.

Kumar has written to the district magistrate for action to be initiated against the schoolstaff. There are 790 primary schools and 364 upper primary schools in Hamirpur,which is around 300 km from Lucknow.

About 150,000 schools are covered by the midday meal scheme in Uttar Pradesh.Under the scheme, lunch is provided to students till Class 8. Over 18.6 million studentsare enrolled under the scheme. According to the rules, every child must be given ameal each day for at least 200 days a year.

The midday meal scheme, also known as the National Programme of Nutritional

Support to Primary Education, was launched by the central government in August 15,1995, with the aim of universalising primary education by improving enrolment,attendance and retention, and raising nutritional levels among children. Theprogramme also seeks to promote hygienic and sanitary practices, break casteprejudices through the sharing of meals, and foster gender equality amongschoolchildren.

Source: The Indian Express, June 2, 2009The Indian Express, May 30, 2009

PTI, May 29, 2009The Telegraph, May 25, 2009IANS, May 20, 2009



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Central anti-ragging agency soon

A central helpline to help victims of ragging at educational institutions will be set up in aweek the government tells the Supreme Court after placing a probe report that cites

alcoholism on campus as one of the main reasons behind the menace

The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development has begun work on developing amodel for a proposed 'crisis helpline' to enable victims of ragging across the country toseek immediate help. The government hopes to put the mechanism in place in arounda week.

The concept of a central agency with a helpline, which will be web-based, is thebrainchild of Rajender Kachroo, whose 19-year-old son Aman died after being

assaulted by seniors last month at a government medical college in the state ofHimachal Pradesh.

Aman's father has also suggested the creation of an anti-ragging database that willfeature the names of students, and list ragging complaints, to ensure effectivemonitoring and prevention of the practice.

Once the database/helpline comes into operation, state governments are alsoexpected to amend their anti-ragging statutes to include provisions that place penalconsequences on institutional heads who do not take timely steps to prevent ragging

and punish those who resort to it.

Amicus curiae and Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam said: ?The HRDministry has already commenced work on developing a model for the crisis-centrehelpline and the anti-ragging database. The ministry has sought the assistance ofEducational Consultants India Ltd as a consultant in this project.?

Subramaniam revealed this to a bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and A K Gangulyhearing petitions relating to recent cases of ragging at Dr Rajendra PrasadGovernment Medical College, Himachal Pradesh, and College of Agricultural

Engineering, Bapatla, Andhra Pradesh.

The two cases were referred to the R K Raghavan Committee along with other recentincidents of ragging -- one in Coimbatore and the other in Goa.

In his status report, Subramaniam referred to the Raghavan Committee's findingssubmitted to the court, blaming alcoholism on campus, failure of colleges to set up anti-ragging squads and implement recommendations to prevent ragging.



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He said the inquiry committee had found that ?wardens and assistant wardens in thecollege took up their assignments reluctantly and did not discharge their duties as wasrequired of them?. The report also points out that the wardens were found to be livingoutside the hostel premises, defeating the purpose of creating such a position.

It further blames the Medical Council of India (MCI) for not taking immediate action toput down the menace.

The court has asked the Himachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh governments to filetheir response to the report later this week.

Source: The Hindu, April 21, 2009 PTI, April 20, 2009



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Ragging as human rights abuse?

?Ragging? is not a rite of passage or a bit of fun and games. It is a serious crime andshould be regarded and dealt with as such by students, teachers, parents and law

enforcement agencies, says Kalpana Kannabiran

The murder of 19-year-old medical student Aman Kachroo is deeply saddening.Aman Kachroo died after being severely beaten up by fellow students in a "ragging"incident at the Dr Rajendra Prasad Medical College in Tanda, Himachal Pradesh onMarch 8, 2009. Four senior students have been arrested in the case which has causedpublic outrage.

Ragging has been rampant in the country, especially in colleges of professional

education for at least four decades now. As a child, I remember my teenaged unclediscontinuing his studies in engineering in Bhopal in the mid-1970s unable to bear thehumiliation of ragging. We have no count of the number of young students, mostlyyoung men, who have lost their lives, taken their lives or made a choice between aprofessional education and staying alive and sane. It is certainly not a recentphenomenon. While we have a law in place now, it is hardly surprising that the law onlycomes into operation when there is a serious violation ? like this one -- where thegravity of the offence puts it within the purview of criminal law.

The term ?ragging? itself is problematic because it masks the fact that the acts it refersto are harassment and battery aimed at diminishing the dignity of those who enter theinstitution at a time when they are powerless and vulnerable. Fresh out of school,several moving out of the secure confines of home for the first time, groping to findtheir feet in the world after gaining entry into institutions that will transport them to theirdreams, these youngsters are rudely awakened to the fact that violation of dignity andperson is a defining trait of the world of their dreams.

The ?sporting? way of dealing with it, we are told, is to grin and bear it. There areseveral who do. But does that mean they do not experience humiliation? How does

that experience condition their behaviour and personality in their lives ahead? It isimpossible that targeted violence will not leave scars. How many have actually beenable to tell their stories? When they have, how many of us have heard them carefullyand acted diligently ? as parents, teachers and peers?

There are others, like Aman Kachroo, who refuse to submit themselves to suchhumiliation. And they, the human rights defenders in institutions of higher learning, facethe hostility of a negligent, callous and thereby complicit administration on the one



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side, an indifferent faculty on the other, and a murderous mob closing in on them. Thismob, of course, needs no reason to be murderous. It is not violence that needs any

justification or rationalisation. While all freshers are vulnerable, those who come fromvulnerable social backgrounds are doubly targeted. In Aman's case, he came inthrough a quota, and yet he dared to stand up and speak. A little understood

dimension of campus violence is that it reproduces the exclusions and silencingoutside. And because campuses are closed spaces, insulated from the world outside,the normal protections that may be claimed and that might operate outside, arerejected in favour of non transparent conciliatory processes within that are simplyincapable of tackling the gravity of these situations.

The use of the term ?ragging? to describe these attacks that range from verbal tophysical abuse and murder, aggravates the problem by detracting attention from itsseriousness ? teachers, parents, friends, in general all those in touch with victims,

generally share the view that this is a rite of passage that will pass. The question weneed to ask ourselves, however, is, even if it is a rite of passage, even if we are certainit will pass, why must we tolerate or condone intentional humiliation and battery?

This is scarcely the time for us to distance ourselves from the problem by saying itdoes not happen in our institutions. We need now to take responsibility for a systemicfailure that has had tragic consequences, for which we are, as teachers especially,collectively responsible. I have personally heard the head of an institution tell freshersthat while ragging is prohibited, before they lodge a formal complaint they must alsoremember that it is the seniors who will eventually guide them through their academicwork. It is not true either that it is only the ?lumpen? elements among students whoindulge in this behaviour. The brightest, most high performing students figure askingpins in the lynch mob, providing intellectual grist to the ?ragging? mill.

There are those who participate actively and others who buy their peace and inclusionby being passive participant-spectators in these orgies. The participation in violencedehumanises both equally. Can it be argued that having participated in an orgy of thiskind, these students will be able to just move on and get their star grades, make it inlife, be good teachers, friends and parents, and make peace with themselves? It is not

my intention here to essentialise negative character traits or behavioural patterns asnever-changing and evil. Rather, what I wish to suggest is that participation in willfulviolence against a group perceived as powerless has a far-reaching impact on theperpetrators. We have not even begun to grapple with this because we have definedmurderous violence down to flippant ?teasing? that does not penetrate the surface ofconsciousness. Perhaps we need to think of how this bearing of witness as violatorswill influence their response to similar violence against those in their care a generationlater.



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If it is possible for students in an academic environment to use the fact of belonging tothe institution to inflict harm and suffering on an unimaginable scale on youngercolleagues, it is time for us to reflect critically on the kind of education we impart andthe students we are turning out. What does it tell us about the character of theinstitutions we have built?

Most urgent of all, it is time for students who are troubled by this violence to cometogether and form a national coalition against campus violence, making it known andclear to all parties on campuses across the country that there will henceforth be zerotolerance for anyinfringement of the right to dignity and education in an environment offreedom. It is only this exercise of associational freedom that will call into account allparties responsible for providing and safeguarding fundamental rights of students invulnerable situations in educational institutions.

(Kalpana Kannabiran is a professor at the NALSAR University of Law,Hyderabad)

InfoChange News & Features, March 2009

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