Inspiration
RTI and RTE are the weapons in the fight to get education
RTI and RTE have become two unlikely weapons in the hands of feisty women in the slums of the national capital. They are using these legislations to improve their lifestyle and provide a better education to their children.
2 pieces of legislation, the RTI and the RTE are increasingly becoming the weapons of the underprivileged for the betterment of slums and other backward areas.
Take the case of Babita who lives in the labyrinthine Jagdamba Camp in Delhi. 2 of her children study in private schools while a third studies in a government school. Private school admissions for slum children are rare, but this is the era of the Right to Education (RTE) Act. The Act mandates private schools to reserve 25% of their seats for children whose parents earn less than Rs. 1 lakh a year.
There was no looking back once women like Babita have tasted the raw power of Right to Information (RTI) and have experienced what it can do. Babita cannot take things lying down. Using RTI, she doggedly asks questions about the inadequate number of toilets and the fee for using them or about public distribution system entitlements.
The women of Jagdamba camp dream of a private school education for their children, complete with fluent English rolling off their tongues. Today 25 students from the slum attend private schools, each of them possible due to the struggle of a feisty mother.
For women like Babita, if the RTI is a lifeline, the RTE opens up gates for their children which they were denied when they were young. Babita, with the aid of other women and the Satark Naagrik Sangathan, an NGO, sought information through the RTI Act on the enrolment of EWS children in private schools that ring the slum, a process that took 6 months.
“I had never set foot outside my house till I took an autorickshaw to the Education Department offices. We would be driven away by the guard. But we decided to fight it out,” she says as her neighbour, Pushpa, nods in agreement. While it cannot be denied that the initial push came from the Sangathan, all credit goes to the super-charged women of the camp who continued the fight.
Pushpa, who hails from Rajasthan, was the first to set aside her ghunghat when she decided to battle for a private school education for her daughter. She is deemed to be the leader, exhorting other women to use the avenues successive governments have opened up for people like her. It has become second nature to them to file an RTI seeking the number of children enrolled in the EWS category, if a school refuses to enrol a child. The usual questions are, “How many students have been admitted from kindergarten to class V? What are the names of those children and their parents? How many days does it take to admit a child to a private school?”
Why the extra money?
Vandana, another resident of the slum, who hails from Varanasi was curious to know why schools were demanding money from her children for extracurricular activities such as skating. Clearly, such extra demands place a strain on the family’s finances. If no responses come by or are not satisfactory, the women file an appeal against the respondent, a mechanism available under the RTI Act.
The mothers even sought such details as the monthly activities undertaken by the school and the money each of it requires. Children are taught skating, tennis and such games in private schools, and it is for Babita, Vandana and Richa to provide for their wards. “I just want to give the best education to my children so that they don’t have to depend on anyone,” Vandana says.
The Knight Frank Global Wealth report 2016 says the growth rate of Indian elite is outpacing the global average; in the past 10 years, the country witnessed a leap of four times, or 330%, in the number of billionaires. This has lead to a corresponding increase in the population of slum dwellers too. In fact, the population in slums is projected touch 104.7 million in 2017.
The slum population can be attributed to the large slice of population that migrates from rural India to cities looking for jobs every year. At first, they seek opportunities in the formal economy but because of lack of skills, they are mostly turned away. So they turn to the low-paying unorganised labour market, finding places like Jagdamba Camp to live.