By Mohit Gupta
India has been a major seat of learning for many years. While the country has some of the best Universities (BITS, ISB, IITs, NITs, IISc, IIMs, AIIMS) in the world, it is also dealing with challenges in its primary education and strives to reach 100% literacy. Universal compulsory primary education, with its challenges of keeping poor children in school and maintaining quality of education in rural areas, has been difficult to achieve and Kerala is the only Indian state to reach this goal so far.
All levels of education, from primary to higher education, are overseen by Department of Higher Education (India) and Department of School Education and Literacy, and heavily subsidized by the Indian government, though there is a move to make higher education partially self-financing.
British records show that indigenous education was widespread in the 18th century, with a school for every temple, mosque or village in most regions of the country. The subjects taught included reading, writing, arithmetic, theology, law, astronomy, metaphysics, ethics, medical science and religion. The schools were attended by students representative of all classes of society.
The current system of education, with its western style and content, was introduced and funded by the British in the 19th century, following recommendations by Macaulay. Traditional structures were not recognized by the British government and have been on the decline since. Gandhi is said to have described the traditional educational system as a beautiful tree that was destroyed during British rule.
History tells us that the first medical college of Kerala was started at Calicut, in 1942-43, during World War II. Due to shortage of doctors to serve the military, the British Government decided to open a branch of Madras Medical College in Malabar, which was under Madras Presidency then. After the war, the medical school at Calicut was closed and the students continued their studies at Madras Medical College.
In 1979-80, the Government of India, Department of Education launched a program of Non-Formal Education (NFE) for children of 6-14 years age group, who cannot join regular schools. These children include school drop-outs, working children, children from areas without easy access to schools etc. The initial focus of the scheme was on ten educationally backward states. Later, it was extended to urban slums as well as hilly, tribal and desert areas in other states. The program is now functional in 25 states/UTs. 100% assistance is given to voluntary organizations for running NFE centers.
According to the Supreme Court, the right to education flows from Article 21 relating to protection of life and personal liberty. Its content and parameters have to be determined in the light of Article 41, which provides for right to work, to education and to public assistance in certain cases, and Article 45 which provides for free and compulsory education to children up to the age of 14 years.
The Apex Court has observed that obligation created by these Articles of the Constitution can be discharged by the State either by establishing institutions of its own, aiding, recognizing and/or granting affiliation to provide educational institutions.
The Unnikrishnan case is different than Mohini Jain case where the right to education was subject to the limits of economic capacity and development of the state. Even years after these landmark cases the situation has been frugal. Consequently, the government enacted the Constitution (86th Amendment) Act, 2002 by virtue of which Article 21A has been provided for. It reads as follows: ‘The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of 6 to 14 years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine.’
This right to education fails to meet its expectation when it hits reality i.e. poverty. The situation in India and all those economies, which are still trying to develop, are still fighting poverty, which goes to the root of Indian history. Poverty breeds poverty. The vicious circle of poverty denies to lakhs of children the right to education.
A country’s progress depends upon the development of its populace. Education is an arsenal to achieve the same. However, in our country, widespread illiteracy will still continue to persist if the government does not allow the flow of adequate funds to run its own educational institutions.
Even after five decades of independence, more than 50% of the children are dropouts. Sex is one of the significant differentials of illiteracy that is characterized by a strong patriarchic value system. The level of literacy is about 64% for males and about 39% for females. Education is the sign of a civilized society.
Spreading education and the lack of it is one of the primary reasons for the commission of unpardonable crimes and intolerance.
Analysis of provisions in the Constitution of India shows the existence of Articles giving right to an individual for educating himself. Article 45 envisages provision for free and compulsory education for children. The State shall endeavor to provide, within a period of ten years from the commencement of this Constitution, for free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen years. However, the consistent position is that the compulsion contemplated in Article 45 of the Constitution is a compulsion on the State rather than on the parents.
The Compulsory Education Acts enacted in 14 States and 4 UTs have remained unenforced due to socioeconomic compulsions that keep the children away from schools.
The National Policy on Education 1986 is one of the steps towards providing elementary education and recommended free and compulsory education of satisfactory quality to all children up to the age of fourteen years before 21st century. The thrust on universalization of elementary education is mainly on three aspects; universal access and enrolment; universal retention of children up to fourteen years of age; and to bring about substantial improvement in the quality of education to enable all children to achieve essential levels of learning.
The Government policy is to motivate children to attend the school regularly and to improve upon the facilities in the school system, provide training to teachers and upgrade learning acquisition of children; to enforce compulsory education with punitive measures.
Another step towards free education is by the State Governments, which have been active in abolishing the tuition fees in Government Schools up to upper primary level. Efforts have been made by local bodies and private aided institutions to make the education free of cost.
In the case of Common Cause Vs. Union of India (Writ Petition No. 697 of 1993) wherein the petitioner requested the Court to direct Government to provide all facilities for attaining the goal of universal, free and compulsory education for children up to the age of fourteen years, latest by end of 1999, judges after hearing the arguments declined to grant any relief to the petitioner and advised him to withdraw the petition.
The desirability of enacting a law for compulsory elementary education and its impact on enrolment has been discussed and debated extensively in recent years.
After analysis by various ardent scholars, compulsory primary education is realized to have a positive impact in eradication of child labour. Historically every developed and, now, by many developing countries, have declared that all children aged six to twelve or fourteen must attend school. That no matter how needy, no parent will be permitted to remove their children from school, that school attendance will be enforced by local authority and that government will be obliged to locate a primary school within reasonable distance of all school age children.
It is, therefore, a legislation in which the child, the parents, local bodies and the government have specific obligations. Local officials, teachers, members of local school boards, can visit the houses of parents who have removed their children from school to inform them that school attendance is compulsory. Within a few years of implementation a norm is established in the country that all children must attend school, a norm more enforced by community pressures than by the authorities.
An argument in favour of legislation is that it is an expression of political will and it would send out a strong signal to International Community that India is serious about eradication of child labour.
There is another school of thought, which believes that legislations for providing compulsory education may not be an effective solution in the existing circumstances in our country. The experience of Africa shows that legislations like compulsory schooling should not be introduced as there are places where children want to get enrolled but they cannot be admitted due to lack of adequate infrastructure and space availability.
States, which have near universalized elementary education like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, legislation may help ‘mopping up’ the out of school children. This school of thought advances the argument that it is necessary to not only increase public expenditure on education but also introduce measures to mitigate the costs of school attendance.
Even this would be a partial solution, they feel, more important being the attitude of parents who may perceive the opportunity costs of schooling to be too high. It is essentially seen as an attitudinal problem – attitude of the parents towards their children’s education, state’s attitude towards child labour and towards improving the quality of educational system.
A legislation cannot be self enforcing. A strong enforcement machinery may have to be installed. Apart from being an additional burden on the exchequer, it is likely to misuse the power.
Modern education in India is often criticized for being based on rote learning. Emphasis is laid on passing exams with high percentage. Few institutes give importance to developing personality and creativity among students. Recently, the country has seen a rise in instances of student suicides due to low marks and failures, especially in metropolitan cities, even though such cases are very rare.