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Akhilesh Yadav reluctant to implement HC order directing officials to send kids to government schools.
An August 2015 order by the Allahabad high court directing govt officials to send their wards compulsorily to govt schools is yet to be implemented by the UP government. If implemented the system should have come into effect from academic year 2015-16.
Almost an year back, on August 18, 2015 the Allahabad High Court instructed the Uttar Pradesh government to implement within 6 months an order making it compulsory for all persons receiving benefit from the government, people's representatives and judges to send their children to government schools. The order mandated it that this system should be instituted by the beginning academic session 2016-17. However, the UP government is yet to initiate action on the court order.
You might wonder why the Court wants to institute such a system and basically coerce all government employees to send their wards to government schools. The answer lies in 2 parts. Let us examine each part separately. Firstly, a closer analysis of the current situation of the public education system in India.
Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 is in place in India and has been much lauded but education is neither free nor compulsory. Well off people are spending enormous amounts in sending their children to school. Even the lower middle class and the poor who can scrape enough money are now sending their children to private schools.
Why this rush for private schools? Children of poor who constitute 90% of school going children attend schools where there is no teaching. Close to 50% children do not continue school beyond class VII. Those who are able to continue indulge in cheating to pass their board examinations.
Lastly, child labour keeps a sizeable chunk of children out of school. The last census 60 lakhs children in India are out of school. It is a mockery of the "compulsory" part of the Act.
Which brings us to the second part of the solution; here the Court order starts to make sense. If the education system is in tatters then the only way to rectify the situation is to make the children of government employees, people's representatives and judges’ start attending government schools. This will increase the motivation of the concerned authorities to improve the education delivery in government schools as they will have a stake in improving its quality.
This will provide dual benefits; firstly, children of poor will get good education for the first time in their lives. A report says 90% children of poor, even after completing class IV, remain functionally illiterate. Secondly, the middle class will save precious money otherwise spent on sending their children to private schools.
Here it is important to place before you the views of the Socialist Party (India) which supports the Court order. Justice Sudhir Agarwal adds, anybody benefitting from the government if decides to send their children to private school they should be penalised and asked to submit an amount equal to that they spend in private school in government's account. Moreover they should also suffer in terms of losing increment and promotion. To us it seems rather strict and curtails freedom of choice.
Socialist Party (India) has gone one step further and taken a stand that only people who have studied in government schools should be eligible for government jobs or for contesting elections at any level in this country. Moreover their children should also study in government schools. In fact they are proposing to extend this idea to the health care sector also. It would mean that people receiving government salaries should only visit government hospitals for own treatment as well treatment of family members dependent on them
Magsaysay award winner and social activist, Sandeep Pandey sat on an indefinite fast from June 6, 2016 in Lucknow to get the abovementioned judgement of Justice Sudhir Agarwal implemented in UP. Within 2 days, on June 8, Pandey was invited by the UP CM Akhilesh Yadav for a dialogue.
According to Pandey, the CM is least inclined to implement the above order or consider the idea of common school system. He is enamoured of private schools and thinks he would like to disseminate videos of good teachers from these schools to children of even the remotest schools. The idea of activating a huge cadre of government school teachers, who are more qualified than the private school teachers, doesn't come to his mind.
Pandey says that implementing the Allahabad HC order may seem difficult for Akhilesh Yadav but once he decides to do it he will win the support of the poor. If the quality of government schools improves most people would like to send their children to government schools as it'll be less costly. Moreover children who're out of school will get an opportunity to attend school.
*The views expressed here are that of Magsaysay awardee, social activist and Vice President of the Socialist Party – Sandeep Pandey.