The Directive Principle (Article 45) originally enshrined in the
Constitution of India in 1950 – “The State shall endeavour to provide within a
period of 10 years from the commencement of this Constitution, for free and
compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of 14 years”
– could not effectively ‘direct’ the state to universalise elementary
education. As a result, 52 years after India became Republic, the 86th
amendment was made to the Constitution in 2002. But this amendment does not
seem to ‘amend’ the approach of the state to provide universal elementary
education, as the several provisions in the proposed draft bill for free and
compulsory education allow continuation of the tokenism as an approach in
providing education. While the need for a legislation to make the 86th
amendment statutorily enforceable is widely felt, the proposed draft bill
seems to be quite inadequate.
Due to the ineffectiveness of the Directive Principle, and given the policy
approaches adopted by the government so far, the need for a comprehensive bill
is indeed obvious. Further, the increasing lack of political will also
stresses the need for a tough legislation. It is important that the bill
comprehensively and unambiguously define the terms and the approaches with
regard to certain key elements, leaving no scope for misinterpretation and
evasion and even dilution of responsibility by the state. Formulation of a
well-designed and comprehensive bill by the union government may also make the
need for separate bills by the state governments redundant. Or if the state
governments still require such a bill for sociopolitical reasons, they may
draw inspiration from such a bill formulated by the union government.
Until now elementary education in India is neither free nor compulsory.
‘Free’ education is defined to refer to only tuition fee-free education. The
proposed bill goes a little bit forward, and states that free education should
mean that no fees or charges of any kind are levyed on students. This is an
important, but only a marginal improvement. The bill also states that free
education may include provision of textbooks, stationery, uniforms, public
transport, school meal, etc, to the school children so that “freedom for the
parent or guardian from liability to incur expenditure” is ensured, but
“subject to rules made in this behalf”. This only offers an opportunity for
the government to disregard these provisions. It is important to recognise
that textbooks, stationery etc, constitute an integral part of instruction,
and not incentives. Further all these learning-instructional inputs and
incentives are to be provided universally to all, rather than targeting them
to some groups of students, as the externalities in terms of equity effects of
universal provision of these incentives and others would be tremendous. The
principles of ability to pay and the willingness to pay should not figure in
designing free and compulsory education. It is necessary that the concept of
free education is defined comprehensively to include all these and even the
opportunity costs of children’s education, which can be met through financial
scholarships. The draft bill does not seem to be referring to the scholarships
at all.
Under the name of education, presently all forms of education are being
allowed. The bill has to define that education means formal schooling, and not
non-formal education, informal education, alternative education or education
through education guarantee schools, etc. ‘Transition schools’ which are
equivalent to education guarantee schools in terms of provision of teachers
and other inputs, are also accorded a respectable and an equal place in the
draft bill. Transition schools should at best be allowed as a very short term
measure for two to three years; and thereafter there should be no place for
such transition schools. It is important to realise that there is no
substitute in the long term to a good quality formal school. Certainly there
cannot be any place for open schooling or correspondence courses at elementary
level of education.
The quality of education also needs to be clearly and unambiguously
defined, so as to allow the system to have only fully qualified and properly
trained and reasonably paid teachers and not para teachers (shikshakarmis,
vidya volunteeers, etc). The system of para teachers can create serious
problems of quality in education, besides creating different kinds of
inequalities and irritations among the teachers. But the draft bill provides
for such teachers; it provides for ‘instructor’ who has passed only class X,
and even class VIII in case of women, with training for a mere 30 days.
Further, the draft bill proposes to have a pupil-teacher ratio of one teacher
per 40 students in primary and upper primary classes, while several committees
have recently argued for reduced number of students per every teacher on
average. 1:25 may be a desirable teacher-pupil ratio. International evidence
shows that high pupil-teacher ratios are inversely related to completion rates
in primary schools. Certainly the current teacher-pupil ratio at upper primary
level which is around 1:35, which also currently forms the guidelines for
educational planning in India, is better than the level now proposed in the
draft bill, and in this sense, the proposed pupil-teacher ratio at upper
primary level seems to be a retrogressive measure. Quality dimensions should
also include definition of normal schools so as to cover all-weather
buildings, adequate classrooms and sufficient infrastructure, as essential
pre-requisites, not as desirable ones. For example, drinking water and toilet
facilities are listed in the draft bill as ‘desirable’ norms, along with
boundary wall or fencing, playground, child-friendly elements, sports
equipment and arrangements for early childhood care! Nowadays it is
increasingly well known that many children, particularly girl children drop
out of schools due to the absence of toilet and drinking water facilities in
schools. The National Sample Survey and the National Family and Health Survey
results have shown that infrastructure facilities in schools have a
significant influence on enrolment/non-enrolment and dropout rates in schools.
The draft bill refers to free and compulsory education from class I to
class VIII only. As the threshold level of education to have an effect on
development rises over the years, it would be desirable to include the whole
school education (at least from class I to X, and preferably up to class XII).
Also in many developing and developed countries, compulsory education does
extend to 9 to 12 years of schooling. We can also take advantage of the
integrated (or composite) school system from class I to X/XII or from Class VI
to X/XII that we have, by covering the whole school system under the free and
compulsory education bill. Unfortunately the draft bill is rather rigid in its
outlook, and promises to provide nothing beyond elementary education. If a
child completes grade VIII when he or she is 13 years of old, the draft bill
prefers to exclude him or her immediately from free education, rather than
allowing at least up to 14 years of age. Note that the original Directive
Principle of the Constitution does allow it.
‘Compulsion’ may have to be clearly defined in such a way that the
compulsion is adequately felt more by the government, to provide good quality
schooling facilities for all, than by the parents. Provision of good quality
accessible free schooling facilities, would eventually make compulsion on
parents redundant, as families are found to be enthusiastic to send their
children to good schools. There does exist huge demand for education, rather
for good quality education, as the PROBE report has documented, even in rural
remote areas, and even among the minority communities and even for girls
education. This may be due to the total literacy campaigns and the efforts of
the media and the non-government organisations, besides those of the
government. Unless the demand is met by the supply of good quality education,
the demand would evaporate, later raising the need for measures for demand
creation. Provision of accessible good quality public schooling facilities
would justify making it truly compulsory on all to send their children to
public schools and even to disregard the principle of individual choice
altogether in case of elementary education, a social merit good.
Among all the components, the proposed draft bill seems to be least
sensitive to growing inequalities in the education system. It does not
discourage the growth of the fee-charging private school system; in fact, in
several ways, through several clauses, the bill seems to be encouraging the
growth of the dual system of elementary education – public education system
(of poor quality) for the poor, and fee-charging private education (of better
quality) for those who can afford. It may be noted that the size of the
private sector is infinitesimally small in case of free and compulsory
education even in market economies. At least as a long term goal, the bill may
have to mention that the march will be towards a common school system of good
quality to all.
It is also necessary that the bill unambiguously makes it clear that the
state is firmly committed to the provision of education as a fundamental right
to all and that the government ensures a steady flow of adequate funds for the
same. In this context it may be recalled that the Tapas Majumdar Committee had
estimated in 1999 that making elementary education a fundamental right
wouldinvolve an outlay of Rs 1,37,000 crore for a 10-year period; but the
financial memorandum attached to the 86th amendment provided for only Rs
98,000 crore; and that even this amount is not being allocated. The needs of
the system would be increasing, rather than falling. But the actual
allocations do not seem to be matching the requirements. Further, given the
fiscal situation of many state governments, it would be desirable, as
recommended by the Tapas Majumdar Committee, for the union government to share
the total additional responsibly of financing free and compulsory education,
until the goal is achieved, rather than proposing a distribution of
responsibilities between the union and the states in the ratio of 85:15 in the
first five years, 75:25 in the next five years and 50:50 thereafter, as
provided in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.
A closely related aspect is the reference in the draft bill to
public-private partnership in providing elementary education. Often, it is not
any partnership, but as Katarina Tomasevski, special rapporteur to the Right
to Education of the United Nations, describes (Education Denied, Zed Books,
2003), it is a ‘business deal’ between the public authorities and the private
agencies. This seems to be the case in public-NGO partnerships as well.
Yet another aspect is the implementation authorities. The draft bill
provides an elaborate structure of authorities starting from habitation level
elementary education authority, including ward and hamlet level committees or
authorities, local level authority, district level, state level and central
level authorities. The provisions in the bill describe not a process and a
model of decentralisation in a normative framework, but a mechanism of
abdication of responsibilities by higher levels of authorities in favour of
the lower levels; and not a method of devolution of powers and resources, but
a mechanism of mobilisation of non-governmental resources. Authorities at
every level are required to mobilise financial resources for free and
compulsory elementary education. This may suggest that the whole mechanism can
be viewed as one conceived to mobilise more financial resources from the
community and correspondingly to reduce the financial responsibility of the
state. Further this elaborate line of authorities parallels the already
existing chain of school education committees, village/panchayat education
committees, block/district/state/national education committees, etc, created
following the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution, and later
developments including the launching of district primary education project,
mostly funded by external agencies. All these structures have already
sidelined the government’s education machinery existing at block, district,
state and union government levels.
Of all, two important aspects need to be underlined. First, the additional
financial requirements of free and compulsory education seem to be huge. But
the sum is not really so; for according to the Majumdar committee this
averages to 0.7 per cent of national income on the assumption that the
national income increases at a rate of 5 per cent. If the GNP is increasing at
a rate of growth of about 8 per cent, as now realised, the proportion of
national income additionally required for elementary education would be much
less. The Tapas Majumdar Committee has clearly shown that good quality,
equitable and efficient education is financially affordable in India, and that
allocation of the required resources is feasible, provided there is political
will. Hence, lack of finances should not be cited as an excuse for ineffective
functioning. As Amartya Sen stated, it is an utter unmitigated nonsense to say
that India does not have money for education.
Second, it is also important to note that any provision of required
resources for free and compulsory elementary education need and should not be
at the cost of expansion of secondary and higher education. No valid case
exists in favour of elementary education that goes at the same time against
secondary and higher education. After all, the inter-sectoral linkages are too
crucial to ignore. At least as a precautionary measure, the draft bill may
have to mention this unambiguously.
Above all, the role of the state needs to be clearly, coherently and
unambiguously defined and described in the bill. As a legal expert noted, the
draft bill contains too many ‘may’s and the like, and a fewer number of
‘shall’s, which might lead one to doubt the seriousness of the government on
the issue of free and compulsory elementary education. The bill has to
recognise that there is no place for the private sector, that the role of the
non-government organisations can at best be peripheral, that any effort to
dilute the fundamental duty of the state in this task would go against the
letter and spirit of the Constitution of India, and above all that there the
state has no choice but to provide good quality education to all.