By Sadon K.Blah
Politicians in Meghalaya have the privilege to wrongly inform people that the RTE will be implemented this year when almost all parents have paid their children’s schools fees, let alone the fact that Meghalaya is lacking behind in terms of infrastructure thereby making it impossible to implement the RTE since under this Act there will also be the need to establish as many government schools as possible to cover the school going children for the required distance i.e. if we really want to make this Right fundamental. It will take the Government of Meghalaya another decade to fulfil the criteria. Anyway our ex-education minister, Mrs. Ampareen Lyngdoh, in her populist rhetoric has declared that the RTE will be implemented this year. The RTE itself is a misnomer because it is not a Fundamental Right. At the most, the RTE will be a development service voluntarily offered by the State. The State may and can deny this obligation of implementing the RTE on the pretext of paucity of funds because in the Act itself there is no financial memorandum attached. This means that the financial implications of the Act are not enforceable or justiciable.
The Act defeats the intention of the Constitution since Art 45 of the Directive Principles states that the State should make provisions for free and compulsory education for all children below 14 years of age. As Amended, Art 45 states that the State shall endeavour to provide early childhood care and education for all children until the age of 6 years. If this is read with Art 21, as has been done in the Unni Krishnan Judgement of the Supreme Court, then children in the age group of 0-6 years also enjoy the Fundamental Right to free and compulsory education.
In this country the age of the child has been arbitrarily defined. Psychologically and legally children are understood to be persons below 19 years of age or 18 years which is also our voting age. But the Act has limited the age of a child to 16 years. The purpose of this act is not to give education but to promote literacy and mathematical ability to a limited extent, so that this semi-literate human work force can suit the global labour market of globalising India.
Broadly, the pattern of enrolment of children in the age group of 6 to 14 all over the country in private schools is 28% i.e. 72% are in government Schools minus the non-school going children. From the said average of 28%, the total expenses per student in government schools on an average are Rs 688, while in the private schools it is Rs 2,920. So the RTE will always remain a fundamental right which will come with a price tag. Again, since this right excludes the age group of 0-6 years, this means that pre-primary education for most children will have to be borne by the parents. Hence parents who can afford to educate their children from the school going age of say 3-6 years can claim the benefits of the RTE at the elementary level. So this Act will exclude around 170 million children from the Right to Free and Compulsory Education.
One can argue that there are programmes for pre-primary and primary education, like the ICDS. But access to services under the ICDS is neither universal nor a legal Right. The ICDS covers only 42% of children in the relevant age group. Besides it is not a right but a developmental service voluntarily offered by the state. Education component under the ICDS is the most neglected service. The foundation of our educational system will remain weak until quality pre-primary education is provided to children in the age group of 3- 6 years. The moot question is what will happen to the (very) BPL families who cannot afford the pre-primary education of their children? They will certainly be left out of the benefits of the RTE and the subsequent job market.
In Meghalaya the picture can be grimmer. School fees for primary school students are unaffordable. How can a student coming from the decrepit village school, government or non-government, compete with those who have studied in hi-tech schools of the urban areas when they pursue their elementary education by claiming the 25% reservation under this Act? This certainly is not a level playing field. Again 14 years is not the age where one can complete the level of education to pursue higher studies, the stage is 16 years above. The Act seems to speak for students from class 1 to class 8-9. Why can’t they extend the age group to the level where children can complete their Matriculation through this RTE since matriculation is a forward step for students towards making the choice of their careers? For the really poor they will have no choice but to drop out after class 8 or 9. This is a provoking Fundamental Right.
Certainly there is euphoria about the myth of the RTE becoming a Fundamental Right. But the RTE has failed to address the real issues of equality and equity in education. The big sham in the RTE is the unwillingness to be bold enough about the need to usher in the era of Common School System (CSS). As mentioned earlier, this will surely not provide that level playing field for school going children. The RTE perpetuates the multi layer discriminating school system in India, it legalises the currently operating four categories of Schools (a) Government Schools (b) Aided Private Schools, (c) Special category Schools and (d) Non- aided Private Schools. In Meghalaya where do we turn to get access to the RTE? The Act clearly states that those who study in private schools cannot avail the benefits of this Right, except the 25% category.
The best government schools in Meghalaya are flooded by the children of the shameless elite. A premier government school, Pine Mount caters to the elite who are paying the minimal fees. The government LP or Primary Schools are in shambles, even people who run these schools do not send their own children there because they lack basic physical and academic infrastructure and suffer from mismanagement which result in inferior quality of education. Basically government schools in Meghalaya, especially in rural and suburban areas, are meant for the poor to be poorly educated by the poor schooling infrastructure.
The other category of semi-government schools are the Govt aided-private Schools and also the special category Schools. Even here the best of such schools can be found in the urban areas only. Although most of these schools receive financial grants from the government, they charge exorbitant fees unaffordable even to the lower middle class. School fees in some of the city schools ranges from Rs 1,300 to Rs 1,500 per month plus other non-fee costs for accessories from a prescribed dealer. God knows what deals are there between the businessmen and the school managing authorities. Apart from these schools, there are many private schools that brand themselves as St. so and so doing unsaintly service to mankind by exploiting both the parents and teachers. Their motto is to take as much as possible from the parents and pay as less as possible to the teachers. Even the well established St. so and so, in and around Laitumkhrah area, are guilty of this unsaintly deed of exploitation. After all, money is both for the saint and the unsaintly.
So, where does the RTE fit in Meghalaya? Firstly, Meghalaya, as in the rest of the country, will not dare to introduce the CSS. One of the advantages of the CSS is the idea of neighbourhood schools where all citizens irrespective of class, caste and wealth ranking will have to enrol their children in a prescribed neighbourhood. This will bring both equality and improvement of school infrastructure. But with RTE that will never happen. Nothing will stop the private schools from charging exorbitant fees. Rather, on the pretext of promoting the RTE, the fees structure in these schools will be higher in future. The Act states that 75% of the students will have to pay the required fees and 25% can claim the quota of free education. The cost of educating the 25% in private schools will be reimbursed by the government. The government of Uttar Pradesh allotted Rs 3,300 crore for this purpose. This will be a win-win situation for the private schools in Meghalaya because the higher the school fees the bigger will be the reimbursement. But again the 25% students will still have to bear the other non-fee costs of education. Meghalaya has a record of not being able to regularly pay the salaries of the teachers for years together. How will the government of our state make the children working in the coal mines or those who are selling kwai on the city streets or the child rag pickers go to school? Will the government pick these children and admit them to Pine Mount school or any elite Govt-Aided Private schools to make these children avail the 25% reservation? These are the kids who really need free education. Will our government dare to do that?
In Meghalaya the need of the hour is to stop the commodification of education because this as led to elitisation of schools and both lead to the unfair practice of exploitation in education. As long as commodification, commercialisation, and elitisation of education exist, the RTE will remain only a smoke screen. The RTE can be a Fundamental Right only if we already have the capacity to claim this Right. Certainly it is not an enabling right/law.
( The author is lecturer, Political Science, Seng Khasi College)