Gladson,
Your postings invariably are critical of the existing conditions and the
Govt.'s attempt at the educational programmes.
1. You have used the term "Khichdi" to refer to the schools in a derogatory
manner. On the other hand you should have appreciated the Govt. efforts to feed
the children one time meal, the staple diet of the Adivasi-s, rice and dhal
known as Khichdi.
What more do you expect in the tribal schools? To serve them a six course meal
or the Americn fast food like pizza? Are you living in utopia to expect the
Govt. to do these things or appreciate the implementation of the midday meal
scheme throughout the Country?
On the one hand you publish pictures of emaciated children and on the other
criticize the midday meal khichdi? Normally these are prepared within the
school itself if there are complaints this should have been taken up with DEO
rather than such vilification.
2. Drop-outs from the schools are common esp. in the tribal areas, more due to
domestic compulsions, migration..etc. Instead of criticim, why don't you
suggest solutions to improve the system.
3. Indeed, lack of text books and their supply in time has been a chronic
problem in most of the Govt. run schools even in urban locations. A Social
worker should move out and approach the officials concerned and appriase them
of such matters and find solutions rather than typing out such criticisms.
4. You cannot expect the standards of the tribal schools to that of schools in
the urban areas. It is an universal truth that education is the choice of the
students and parents dependent on their economic status and one cannot expect
to introduce standards of elite schools under the circumstances. In fact
tribals require more of technical education and training in the required skills
to merge with the Society.
DungDung, you read what Dr.Abdul Kalam said in a speech to students at
Hyderabad. Indian people and media are habituated to criticize everything of
Govt. expecting these sitting in an armchair. As a Social worker what have you
done to improve the tribals? Except conversions to Christianity, your ultimate
objective ultilising the US$336 million you got for the evangelisation?
Go to the field and spend at least 1% of such funds for welfare of the children
in schools, if you are genuinely interested. I know you cannot and will not do
it without the stamp of conversion.
Tribals should be left alone to continue their way of life and culture and any
education of training should not disturb their way of life or faith, andeir
ability to improve their living conditions.
--- On Tue, 7/29/08, Gladson Dungdung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: Gladson Dungdung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [ =>> Jharkhand <<= ] Playing with the future
To:
Date: Tuesday, July 29, 2008, 5:05 PM
Playing with the future
By Gladson Dungdung
Mynews.in
16 July, 2008
It was 11 O'clock in the morning. 12 years old Sushil and his friends were
playing "Pitto" (local game) in the school premises. They study in class 6th at
Manikdih middle school of Latehar district in Jharkhand, which starts at 10 AM
and gets closed at 4 PM. 137 children of adjoining villages are getting
education in the school. It has a provision of 3 teachers to educate the
children of class one to seven. But only two teachers are posted in the school
and one post is still vacant. In the last year, children had received the books
four months before their final exam. The teachers are also uncomfortable with
the way school is running but they are helpless. Their hopes lay only on the
midday meal, which helps them to bring children to the school so that the
attendance can be maintained properly.
The school also has a village education committee consisting of 15 members,
formed in 2005, which prior responsibility is to monitor the school. But the
committee is also defunct. The chairperson of the committee, Kripal Singh says
that the members are not having interest on the matters and merely 5-6 members'
turn up in the meetings. Consequently, it has lost the legitimacy. Though the
villagers are not quite happy with the Khichidi (mixed rice), their children
are being served in the school but they assume that the raising questions
against the authorities may result in deprivation of their children from
Khichidi.
This is not an isolated case of Manikdih Middle School but it shows a clear
picture that how the government schools are functioning in Jharkhand. The
spirit of the right to education is left to die though the central and the
state governments are making huge investment in the name of education at the
grassroots. The 'Total Literacy Programme' is the most populous government
sponsored education programme, which universalizes elementary education through
district based, decentralized specific planning and implementation strategy by
community ownership of the school system. The programme is being implemented by
the Jharkhand Education Project Council in all 24 districts of the state but
the efforts have not gone beyond the Khichidi education, which will never serve
the purposes.
The degradation of the education system had begun with the introduction of the
CBSC patters in the state in 2002. The state government was not able to provide
books to the children in time. According to the latest status report of the
government, 40 lakhs children did not get their books in time. But ironically,
the results are otherwise. The results show that the 80 to 90 percent children
secured good marks and even there are 100 percent results in many schools. But
the fundamental questions are what will children do with these results in the
competitive world? Are we not playing with the future of children? And who is
responsible for it?
Ironically, there is a hue and cry about the unemployment but the status report
shows that 26 thousands posts of teachers are vacant in the state. Among these,
22 thousand posts are about Primary Schools and 4 thousand posts are vacant in
high schools. Interestingly, the report states that the 80 percent schools are
also running without the head teachers. The status of drop out children is so
high in the state. 3 lakh children dropped out from the schools. Among them 2
lakh children disserted their schools in primary level and 1 lakh children left
studies after the matriculation. The major reasons for dropout are lack of
livelihood, uncertainty of the future in Khichidi schools and lack of money for
admission, books, and tuition fees.
According to the status report, the basic facilities are absent in 13,000
government schools of the state. Out of these 5000 schools lack the basic
requirements, 2000 schools do not have own school buildings and either run in
private buildings, community halls or Panchayat buildings and 6000 schools even
lack the drinking water and toilet facilities. The education minister of
Jharkhand, Bandhu Tirkey says that the government is putting hard work to
provide the basic facilities to the schools but the government initiatives need
more times.
In these circumstances, how can the poor children compete with the kids of
public schools? The present education system is facilitating towards the
widening of inequality among the children, which is a severe threat to the
society. The minister, the bureaucrats and the government officials including
teachers are not much serious in improving the quality of the government
schools only because their kids do not study in these schools.
Though the government coins the total literacy programme as a clear time frame
for universal elementary education, a response to the demand for quality basic
education and an opportunity for promoting social justice through basic
education in the country but the status of Jharkhand shows that the midday meal
also could not attract those 4 lakh children towards the schools who are
engaged as child labourers in the state and out of them 1 lakh children have
never been to school.
The major question arises is do we have any mechanism to address the issues of
education? Since, the root cause lies in the dual education system, where there
are two types of schools – one for the elites and another for the poor children
therefore the quality of the government schools can not be improved until the
dual education system is changed. The Kothari Commission (1964-66), had
introduced the concept of the common school system to address the issues but it
was never implemented though the parliament had committed for its
implementation in the education policies.
The common school system will only pave the way in improving the quality
education in the government schools, where the kids of the ministers,
bureaucrats, teachers, government officials and the poor would study, play and
eat together. Obviously, the bigwigs would never allow their children to be
engaged with the poor children but the state has no other choices if it wishes
to establish equality in the society through the education as it envisages
through the total literacy mission.
Jharkhand Network | Jharkhand.org. in/network
