Medowe Capfoh
All the praises won by pushing children into school will lost if we keep churning out students, who would be considered as literates by the census but wouldn’t be suitable for employment. Literacy is the beginning of the first step towards making man educated. The effort is not towards learning and asking questions but they are just being told to cram and reproduce in the examination without understanding. The standard of teaching has gone down. Teachers’ do not teach properly. The condition of the Government is even worse. But public schools charge high fees by which poor children are deprived of good school education. As a result, the lag behind in their lives.
Who do we hold responsible for this failure? There are scores of NGOs and individuals who run schools or weekend classes. The response the get is overwhelming. Some even charge small fees, which is happily paid by parents. The classes are held in tiny rooms where students are much happier than in a government school. Just before we start blaming government, we should see if it is actually has a positive intention to achieve its goal of Universal Education. The Central increased its allocation for the Abhiyan from about Rs 1,600 crore in 2001 to 7,000 in 2005. To ensure smooth funding, it even levied 2% education cess from 2004. So government has taken a few positive steps.
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan was then initiative launched during the ruling of BJP—led NDA to provide 8 years of quality education to all Children of 6-14 years. The Programme seeks to bridge gender and social gaps with active participation of the Community. Definitely, the aims and objectives are laudable. However, a cursory reading of the document shows that the term ‘Sarva’ is misnomer as it only refers only to Children between 6 and 14 years. For, instance, we need to shut the tap rather than keep mopping the floor. Despite of several commissions and committees like (SIT) appointed to improve the condition of Education as well as Several Literacy Programme launched to bring people close to education; no much headway has been done in this direction. We have failed to realize that Education plays a significant role in the life of a nation and its importance in a country like India cannot be underestimated. The character and quality of the people greatly depend on the Education imparted to them at different levels. If we fail and flounder at the elementary level, the generation to come will not forgive the political leadership.
Though Education plays an important role in all-round development of personalities, which ultimately help the society, in becoming great and powerful, unfortunately educational planning and implementation has been quiet satisfactory. May short-comings have come to the fore-front which ultimately derails the development activities. That is, education Reforms have become the must in India to correct the short-comings and failures.
Who then is guilty? The poor result can be traced to two causes: firstly Government is not always the best agency to run schools; and second, the lack of liability. It estimated that it cost Rs 800 per month per child to run a Government school, compare this survey result, which says that the average fee per student charged by a Primary school is 241 per month. Government schools invest better infrastructure even it is not in a useable state. A government school teacher gets paid seven and half times higher than a teacher from private school. However, if the pay is not consummate with productivity, such high payments are certainly not justified.
Moving to Accountability; it is almost non-existent. The staff; cannot be questioned for non-performance. Excessive security of job leads to leniency. In a survey conducted in Rajasthan, over 25% of Primary teachers in primary schools were missing. To add to, 10% of schools had no teachers.
Having said that, one of the solutions; a change in the way Government is currently financing Education. It could be a payer rather than a provider. Schemes like Voucher Funding could give student a choice to source their Education. Vouchers are coupon given by the Government that cover total or partial cost of Education at any schools of the parents’ choice. Government instead of bearing the cost of running the school merely funds the students. The revenue collected from the students collected from the students doesn’t take care of the costs of running a school.
This helps in addressing both the issues mentioned above. The Voucher gives parents the purchasing power that enables them to differentiate between a good and a poor school. Thus, it creates an incentive for schools to perform well. School that does not perform well would have to leave the market as Government would not bear any of its expenditures. Also, schools become accountable to Parents rather than Government. Parents could than question the school for non-performance just like other consumers. So Educational Reforms becomes urgently necessary. Government should come out with more education policy by making the Education System a Uniform System. They should be made educated in such a way that they should be capable to start their own livings not dependant on few Government jobs. Efforts should be made towards encouraging and not cramming.
Reforms in Education are long waited. Autonomy has to be given to various research Institutes but at the same time Accountability has to be demanded in a more forceful manner. The whole systems need overhauling in order to give a better quality education. Only right kind of Education at this juncture can help- solve myriads of problems facing our society.
