INDORE ZILA SARKAR’S INTERVENTIONS IN SCHOOL EDUCATION

BETRAYING OUR CHILDREN IN THE NAME OF DECENTRALIZATION AND UNIVERSALIZATION OF EDUCATION

The Indore Zila Sarkar seems to suddenly be taking a very keen interest in government school education this year! It accorded approval (in its meeting on 29 May 1999 under the chairmanship of the state’s Chief Minister Sh.Digvijay Singh) to two major interventions – rationalizing staffing in government schools and commercial development on school properties to raise resources for badly needed investments for school education. These interventions were based on recommendations made by the District Collector Sh.Manoj Srivastav in a report submitted to the Chief Minister. On 25 June 1999 the first of these proposals (rationalization of staffing) was extrapolated into a state policy. In pursuit of the state’s commitment to decentralization, the state Eductation Department gave District Planning Committees powers to transfers teachers, merge schools and set up new schools without additional state funds.

At face value these two interventions (rationalization and commercialization) seem to be long overdue unrelated measures to give a fresh lease of life to a collapsing state education system. But a closer look at their details (described in this booklet) makes it obvious that they are, in fact, well orchestrated steps towards the political goal of serving the interests of local land mafia, rather than towards the national goal of education for all.

School education is one of the few issues on which there is a nation-wide consensus. We believe that our nation believes that our children are our future. No one, least of all the state, has the right to deny them basic education, especially so in the service of short-term monetary gains for a few.

But this is precisely what has happened in Indore. Well-attended and well-equipped schools have been closed down for merger in the name of “rationalization” in areas where, incidentally, massive commercial development is proposed. Commercialization of school premises has been trumpeted as a necessary “radical” way of raising resources for education, even as state allocations for the purpose have lapsed and earlier similar exercises have not ploughed profits back to schools. And for doing all this the administration has won plaudits simply because it has “opened 103 new schools” in the city’s slums by writing “school” in chalk on the door of each of the existing community halls and transferring 3 “excess” teachers from existing schools elsewhere. It is another matter that the community halls are run-down, located in the midst of filth and squalor, meant for other activities and inadequate to house school functions. And it is yet another matter that these schools lack not only bare necessities of furniture, black boards, chalk and registers, but also students! So much for rationalization! So much for decentralization!

This booklet is about this tragic betrayal of our children. A betrayal perpetrated by none other than the constitutional custodians of their well being. A betrayal that must be stopped if we are not to have to hang down our heads in shame before our children.

Contents

• Rationalization of staffing | Excess staff? Or less students? | Through arbitrary teachers’ transfers? | Through poorly attended new schools? | Through arbitrary mergers? | Just how rational is this “rationalization? | “Rationalization”: Real objective#1? | “Rationalization”: Real objective#2?
• Commercial development in schools | In pursuit of “needed” resources? | “Legal” commerce to pre-empt “illegal” commerce? | Just how sensible is “radical” commercialization?
• In the name of decentralization...

Gita Dewan Verma | Planner | November 1999 | Written in support of efforts of Jhuggi Basti Sangharsh Morcha, Indore