Education set to become your right

8 Aug 2008, 0016 hrs IST, Akshaya Mukul & Mahendra Kumar Singh,TNN
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Education_set_to_become_your_right/articleshow/3339174.cms
NEW DELHI: After a wait of more than four years and a lot of dithering and resistance from finance and law ministries, the Union Cabinet will finally take up the Right to Education Bill for consideration on Friday. The bill promises free and compulsory education to children between 6 and 14 years of age by making it a fundamental right.

The proposed enabling legislation, first mooted by the Kothari Commission in 1964 and later passionately argued for by former education minister M C Chagla, will come before the cabinet six years after the 86th Constitutional Amendment making free and compulsory education a fundamental right. Earlier, it was part of Directive Principles of State Policy of the Constitution.

The proposed bill is expected to be introduced in the Monsoon session of Parliament and is unlikely to meet any resistance since both NDA and Left have been demanding it for a long time. The constitutional amendment was done during the NDA regime but it would be notified only after the enabling bill becomes a law.

The right to education will cost the exchequer Rs 12,000 crore a year. Private unaided schools will also be in its ambit as the school will be required to reserve 25% of seats for poor children in the neighbourhood.

Parents to be part of school panel
To ensure that parents have equal stake in the system, the bill provides for school management committees in all government and aided schools. It would monitor and oversee the working of the school, manage its assets and ensure quality. There is also a provision that teacher vacancy should never exceed more than 10% of total strength.

To monitor the implementation of the law, the bill proposes a national commission for elementary education to be headed by a chairperson who would be appointed by a committee consisting of the PM, leaders of opposition in both houses, HRD minister and Lok Sabha Speaker.

In 2004, when UPA came to power, HRD ministry had asked a committee of the Central Advisory Board of Education headed by Kapil Sibal to do the costing of providing right to education. It had estimated that the RTE cost would hover between Rs 3,21,196 crore to Rs 4,36,458 crore. Government then developed cold feet on the project.

Later, PM Manmohan Singh set up a high level committee under HRD minister Arjun Singh and consisting of finance minister P Chidambaram, Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia and economic adviser to PM, C Rangarajan.

Looking at the cost involved, the committee after many meetings proposed that instead of a central law, state governments should enact their legislations to implement the constitutional obligation. Centre was only willing to provide a model bill. Unanimous protests by the states saw the PM swing into action again.

On its part, HRD ministry brought the cost down. One, it realized that already a large section of children in the age-group of 6-14 are covered under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Two, the ministry also studied child population figures and found that there is reverse growth in this age category. HRD brought the cost down to Rs 2,28,674 crore over six years. Still not convinced, finance ministry wanted further cost-cutting.

Lessons from Friere, an excerpt from Pedagogy of the oppressed chapter 2

Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Chapter 2
by Paulo Freire - 1970
A careful analysis of the teacher-student relationship at any level, inside or outside the school, reveals its fundamentally narrative character. This relationship involves a narrating Subject (the teacher) and patient, listening objects (the students) .The contents, whether values or empirical dimensions of reality, tend in the process of being narrated to become lifeless and petrified. Education is suffering from narration sickness.
The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable. Or else he expounds on a topic completely alien to the existential experience of the students. His task is to "fill" the students with the contents of his narration-contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could give them significance. Words are emptied of their concreteness and become a hollow, alienated, and alienating verbosity.
The outstanding characteristic of this narrative education, then, is the sonority of words, not their transforming power. "Four times four is sixteen; the capital of Para is Belem." The student records, memorizes, and repeats these phrases without perceiving what four times four really means, or realizing the true significance of "capital" in the affirmation "the capital of Para is Belem," that is, what Belem means for Para and what Para means for Brazil.
Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content. Worse yet, it turns them into "containers," into "receptacles" to be "filled" by the teacher. The more completely he fills the receptacles, the better a teacher he is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are.
Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiqués and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the "banking" concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits. They do, it is true, have the opportunity to become collectors or cataloguers of the things they store. But in the last analysis, it is men themselves who are filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system. For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, men cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry men pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.
In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence. The students, alienated like the slave in the Hegelian dialectic, accept their ignorance as justifying the teacher's existence - but, unlike the slave, they never discover that they educate the teacher.
The raison d'etre of libertarian education, on the other hand, lies in its drive towards reconciliation. Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students.
This solution is not (nor can it be) found in the banking concept. On the contrary, banking education maintains and even stimulates the contradiction through the following attitudes and practices, which mirror oppressive society as a whole:
(a) the teacher teaches and the students are taught;
(b) the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing;
(c) the teacher thinks and the students are thought about;
(d) the teacher talks and the students listen-meekly;
( e) the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined;
(f) the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply;
(g) the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher;
(h) the teacher chooses the program content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it;
(i) the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his own professional authority, which he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students;
(j) the teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere objects.
It is not surprising that the banking concept of education regards men as adaptable, manageable beings, The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness would result from their intervention in the world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them.

The capability of banking education to minimize or annul the students' creative power and to stimulate their credulity serves the interests of the oppressors, who care neither to have the world revealed nor to see it transformed. The oppressors use their "humanitarianism" to preserve a profitable situation. Thus they react almost instinctively against any experiment in education which stimulates the critical faculties and is not content with a partial view of reality but always seeks out the ties which link one point to another and one problem to another.

Paulo Freire was a Brazilian educator and is an influential theorist of education.

City of Two Tales

Children in classroom (Government school)

"If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin".

Hyderabad today is an embodiment of well-heeled city in terms of its representation in mainstream media. The rapid growth phase since last decade has placed Hyderabad among the apical cities of India .Hyderabad as technological and knowledge hub has made its mark both nationally and internationally. With all these accomplishments, this historical city of Nawab's has also a very gloomy side to it. The city is partitioned on nomenclature basis into two major areas named as old city and new city. As the name is titled on the concept of time, old city part of it tells a story of exploitation and stands out in sharp contrast to the new city. While the information technology and biotechnology boom has brought people from different parts of the country, it is local residents of old city who are unable to get benefited from their native city's acclaimed potential.

It was in month of July when I got an opportunity to Visit rural areas of Hi-tech Hyderabad. The NGO at present I am working with Naandi Foundation endowed me with documenting the activities of the workshop, conducted in three different areas. Naandi Foundation works with Government of Andhra Pradesh to reach the children in public schools in order to ensure them learn. By virtuousness of its Ensuring Children Learn (ECL) Program, 64,250 government schoolchildren in 450 schools across 11 Mandals in Hyderabad are catered with basic amenities while pursuing their education. A 4 days workshop to serve this purpose was conducted by ECL Hyderabad in Charminar, Dayanandagar and Vijayanagar Colony. The primary intention of the program was to train the community activists (CA's) and making them understand the theory of engaging with the children. Charminar, being the celebrated place fascinated me more than the other two centers. I was thankfully allowed to exercise my choice for documenting processes at workshop conducted in Urdu ghar ( Home of urdu) near Asra Hospital, Charminar. The Streets surrounding Urdu Ghar were installed with numerous pan Shops and Tea stalls. The overwhelming response of people to tobacco consumption make these pan shops the places of eminent importance. The so-called exposed section of the locality conglomerate several times a day to discuss day to day to problems of the world on these pan shops. The street corners had turned brownish red as the pan and tobacco chewers regard these corners as enviable spots for spitting. This chaotic Milieu of Charminar gives an impression of alien in the wonderland for the people who know Hyderabad from Indian Newspapers. The distance of 5 km from new city to old city is an incommensurable transition that any one can rarely find in other parts of the world.
Old City of Hyderabad especially Charminar is inhabited by Muslim majority who widely have Urdu as medium of their instruction. In this inherent part of Hyderabad education is in lamentable shape. The state machinery is unable to deliver goods in old city of Hyderabad. The area has plethora of schools and genuine number of schoolchildren, despite all these positives, nothing is commendable. The unconcerned politics,bureaucratic structures and negligence of people has deeply contaminated primary education status in poverty stricken old city. While some criticize callous attitude of the government towards old city, while as others criticizing negligence of parental care, no one is ready to take the initiative to handle the system and face the ground realities. Numerous discourses used to happen in the form of seminars, conferences but all these intellectual discourses on changing the scenario have modicum or no effect on the practical grounds. In this sense the initiative taken by Naandi Foundation with the help of government is laudable. To meet the ground realities, Naandi Foundation with the help of Government of Andhra Pradesh has taken the initiative to meet these ground realities in order to bridge the gap.
My visit to three schools in highly backward areas near Charminar gave me an opportunity to personally engage with parents, children and school teachers. My first visit was to Tabela Donger (TD) Singh Govt. High School (Urdu Medium) in Hafez Babanagar established in 2002 by Govt. of Andhra Pradesh Social Welfare Department. Naandi runs one of its many academic Support Centers (ASC's) in T.D School. The area is inhabited by a whopping population of approximately 1 lakh people. This prominent and colossal School has only able to attract 749 children, (443 girls,306 boys), having teacher to student ratio as 1:40 ( Teacher:student). The school from outside give a very good impression with its well constructed building. On the day of visit it was merely 50% of children present in the school. While speaking to Head master of the School M.A Jabar, for the reason of the low attendance.
Mr. Jabar remarks
“Attendance has remained a major problem in this school as the parents prefer their children to attend various ceremonies in homes rather than school.”
While Mr. Jabar believes that it is the negligence of the parents due to which the condition in the schools is so much deplorable. While this being a perspective of headmaster, I had no option than to meet some parents of the children whether they really accept the blame. My first talk was with Nazima Begum's ( 5th standard student) father, as in this part of the world you are always your fathers child than mothers. Nazima's father Mohd. Hussain was a mechanic, who's work is to repair motor bikes in the nearby area. Here I was clueless whether really to blame Hussain Saab, who takes it all to meet his both ends meal. How can be a mechanic, being himself overburdened with other family responsibilities with no knowledge of education held responsible for his child's studies. At least his child has got the chance to make it to 5th standard, the old father had never been able to get a chance to visit a school, else than some introduction to some deeny- taleem (religious knowledge). It is the whole structures that are to blamed for this distressing condition. Naandi has adopted Nanhi Kali program by the virtue of which it tracks the girls annually in order to ensure them at least to qualify 10 th class. In India out of 10 girls admitted in primary schools it is only 3 girls who make it to 10 th standard. One can imagine the fate of girls in this area where men are of paramount importance.
Now the School teachers are planning for door to door campaign to force parents to send their children to school. My visit to other schools was of similar experience with only slight increase in the intensity of problems faced by the children in poorly managed schools.
During the workshop that was conducted in Urdu Ghar, Community Activists (CA's) were said to solve worksheets for the children and identify complexities in the worksheets that are later provided to children. The Community Activists (CA's) with the guidance of Academic Resource Coordinators (ARC's) tried to demystify every complexness in the worksheets for the Children. In schools a specific focus is on low performance children, who are often alienated in the classroom thereby resulting their “drop out” at an early stage. Such children are identified during the base line assessment conducted in all schools where Academic Support Centers (ASC's) are being set up by Naandi Foundation. The majority of the children under this program are from subaltern families. The parents of most of the children are daily wage laborers for whom it becomes difficult to guide their children.
Hyderabad claimed to be the Cyber-City has huge task before it to be the among the vanguard cities of the India and off course of the world. The self centered vested interests need to be exposed and work for education of deprived sections of the children. Improvement of the Government schools in the city is needed to be done. Development is a contested term lets give it a meaning in the form of fighting for educational development in the city.

Training of trainers workshop, Chittoor

Tell me and I'll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I'll understand.

A three day workshop was conducted by ECL Hyderabad as a part of mission ensuring children learn in Gusty winds of Horsely Hills of Chittoor District.
Demystifying the text to ensure the children to learn remained the fundamental motive for three day workshop. In puffy winds over the hilly Horsely Hills of Chittoor District of Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh, the ECL members participated with vigor and passion to make the workshop an inspiring accomplishment. The workshop served as a channel for ECL members to professionalize themselves in order to comprehend the basic notion of pedagogy. Elevating the grade specific competencies of children in language, mathematics and science across curriculum's was the vital tenet of the workshop. The meticulous approach of the wholehearted team enabled the facilitators to finish their undertaking in an effortless manner.
9th June 2008-11th june
The workshop began with a moralistic story narrated by Ms.Lalitha Naidu, DGM ECL Hyderabad. The initial talk ensured the participants how shedding the differences, egos and maintaining homogeneity serve as vehement element to work in a group. This was followed by Former President A.P.J Abdul Kalam Azad's Pearls of wisdom. It is always important to come out the stereotype and think in a practical way. Instead of negating the potentialities India a nation has, it is duty of every senior citizen to ensure developed India for the younger generation. Rather than criticizing the system, it is the individual self that need to be the part of the system to change the system.
The session was supplemented by Preetha Bhakta's ,DGM ERG Hyderabad, impeccable speech about ways of coordinating with each other. The speech followed by “tie with the rope” exercise which focused on interpreting actions in non verbal communication. With spectrum of people one need to assimilate, imbibe the plurality thus to give group smooth texture. The exercise made the milieu exciting in which few errors were detected. Most of the people don't like to cross the barriers thus reluctant of networking with each other. To solve this problem participants were taught of group etiquettes. Some times it becomes important to compromise the age old practices with modern strategies.
With this the ARC members were introduced to identify causes and issues in case study about Swalalamban Abhiyaan, an NGO.the whole group was fractioned into eight groups. Immense enthusiasm was shown by the groups to live up to their highest potential. The group representatives put all efforts to prove their superiority over the other in tackling the problem. Later all groups were conglomerated into a single group. The group was then partitioned into two groups, one headed by PO's ECL Hyderabad Mr. Shastri and Mr. Naveen respectively.
The two groups were supposed to speak for and against the question given to them. Arguable debate was instantaneously stirred up. The fiery contestants tried hard to dominate the session by using their vocal chords maximally. With this the exercise came to end and participants were felicitated for their enormous zeal in participating the debate. The whole exercise was referred as a technique for creating a milieu for introspection.
Monitoring mechanism of ECL Hyderabad was screened afterwards in which several methods of material/worksheet development were explained. Mr. Shastri then installed incalculable spirit to the group with his dynamism. Post dinner cultural program was organized which was the embodiment of how culture and tradition need to be preserved to understand the basic connotation of life.
The next morning started with yoga where participation from everyone was mandatory. It followed by lessons about the repercussions of procrastination. Then route was taken to track the Horsely Hills . Many of the girls surpassed their male counterparts to reach the top of the hill, thus breaking the notion of male chauvinism. The overwhelming coordination in the team was epitome of making the impossible possible. A “kabadi” match was being played on the top of the hill by men staff. Later the female staff formed two groups and started played Kho- Kho. The time constraint prevented the referee to announce the winner, thus route was taken back to plain fields to split for the lunch. The realization of non availability of cook put all the approaching staff in bewilderment. Without arguing the decision was taken to get ready for the exercise. The whole team especially females showed immense interest in cooking the food. Soon after the delicious lunch, an energizing exercise was instigated to freshen up the tired minds. In the exercise all were questioned about their individual experiences in tracking the hills. The individual experiences were then related to professional ways of performing task.
After this exciting session the ARC members were given lessons about micro teaching, facilitation. Dinner followed this informative session followed again by cultural program. The performers entertained the audiences by giving their best shot.

The final day of the workshop revolved around the role of facilitators in bringing best out of children. With this the questionnaire was prepared to analyze the agenda for cluster meeting. Workshop ended with feedback taken from the participants in order to know their view about the workshop.

Place -Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh

Project- Ensuring Children Learn

Participants-63

Deputy General Managers (DGM's)- 2

Program Officers (PO's) -4

assistant Managers (AM's)- 2

Academic research Coordinators (ARC's)-41

Nanhi Kali Coordinators (NKC's)- 5

Associates-6

Community Mobilizing Coordinators (CMC's)-2

Assistant Project Officers (APO's)-1