RIGHT TO EDUCATION
POSTION PAPER BY NEW KERALA ALLIANCE
Introduction
New Kerala Alliance is a partner of the all India Alliance with broadly similar perspective on common school programme emphasizing the universalisation of education with equity. In the overall background of aggressive globalisation and fascisisation of society and politics the demand for common school programme guaranteeing equal opportunities for education for all classes, communities and castes assumes great importance for the viable practice of the democratic system. Equal right to education is non-negotiable in a democratic system and as such this non negotiable status assumes fruitful and full meaning when it is organically linked to the right to employment. This makes the right to education and right to employment inalienable parts of a holistic perspective in the pursuit of urgent social needs the solution of which can no longer be postponed or evaded.
Even as we recognise the general features of the educational system in the whole country which victimizes the marginalised sections we also have to accept the ground level realities which vary from area to area and community to community. What we mean in this context is that any arbitrary imposition of a single strategy model to address the issues is not realistic or can even be counter-productive. The variations are often stark and extreme. The reasons for these variations are both historical and convoluted. Different regions in the country did not undergo a uniform pattern of development/underdevelopment. Even within a region or linguistic formation variations are very strong. Taking the illustration of Keralam we find that the Adivasi settlements, fisher people in the coastal belt and Dalits in general are highly discriminated against. As far as education is concerned these sections will need special packages and implementation processes. These ground level realities are to be gone into in detail and appropriate strategies designed and implemented.
The most visual characteristic of the school education sector in the State is the gross inequality that has become built-in. The divide is great and has assumed accelerated momentum since the last couple of decades. And it is showing no signs of any let up. There are hundreds of schools without roof, walls, black boards, minimum furniture, teachers and teaching materials. These roofless, walls less, teacher less schools are the lot of Adivasis, fisher folk, and other marginalised sections of the people. On the other extreme there is a growing proliferation of English medium schools which caters to the upper caste, class segments. Many of these schools are such that the average per month expenses per child crosses Rs. 10,000 apart from other ‘contributions’ which can amount to lakhs. The excursions of children often cross the borders of the country. The contrast is sheer obscenity. These big business schools are mainly owned by the various denominations of the church, other religious organisations, liquor businesses and NRIs. These high profile private unaided schools are a mushrooming phenomenon and like any other capitalist enterprise believe in maximization of profit. According to some serious observers of the school system this sector is as profit making as liquor sales/production. The appreciation of massive real estate value has to be added to the yearly profits.
The Government Schooling System
The government involvement in the schooling system can broadly be categorised into three – the schools that are directly funded and owned by the State government, the schools that are directly funded and owned by the central government, and the schools that are operated by private agencies, but aided by the State government. The central government schools are few in number and are meant for children of central government employees and hence limited in coverage and scope. Theoretically, the government has several special programmes of schooling for Adivasis, fisher folk and other deprived sections of the people. Not surprisingly, it is this sub sector that is in the worst condition. Presently, the government is harping on the non viability of a large number of schools and threatening to close down or down size them.
The government has already identified 2500 schools for closure under the argument of lack of adequate pupil strength. 250 schools are already closed and divisions cancelled in several other schools. The viability/non viability argument of the government is only the other side of the principle of profit maximisation promoted by the private education business sector. During the same period when 250 schools were closed down by the government 950 new private schools were recognized and 3000 have applied for registration. The policy is very clear. The government is ably abetting the speedy privatisation of education.
There are self-evident socio-economic factors which are structurally interrelated behind the drop in strength of a large number of government schools. The right to education is a constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right and deciding to close down and down size the schools without exploring the wider issues involved is nothing but the application of a perverted logic to facilitate speedy privatisation. Apart from the lack of means to attend the school because of its distance, and the sheer inability to procure books, clothes, etc, the prevalent absence of any guarantee of gainful employment even after completing school education also contributes to the reduction of strength in such schools. Without seriously looking into these basic problems and devising means to solve these basic problems with people’s participation deciding on closing down uneconomic schools is nothing but facilitating high speed privatisation of the whole sector. The social impact of such a reckless policy can easily turn out to be disastrous to the extreme for the vast majority of the people.
A closely related aspect of the public intervention in school education is the steady deterioration in the quality of education in government schools. This is clearly manifested in the low pass rate in examinations in the government schools. Sometimes it is as low as 0-5 per cent, and the average is not above 20-25 per cent. This is due to several factors. The very low teacher-student ration is a key factor. Sometimes a single teacher, who is also often irregular is expected to teach all subjects. This is particularly so in the school in Adivasi areas. In contrast, there are private schools which are centrally air conditioned and every student has full-time accessibility to a sophisticated computer. In fairly well-established and long-standing government schools, it is an average of six computers for 3000 students and students in special package schools for Adivasis, etc. seldom get a chance even to see a computer. It is the conscious neglect of establishing and updating learning aids that is the other important reason behind the poor performance of government schools. Lamenting about the poor performance without taking into account the real factors behind it is meaningless.
School Dropouts
According to available data one-fourth of all children in the State never complete ten years of schooling. This State average cannot be taken at its face value. There are serious caste, class and gender variations. The dropout ratio is much higher in the case of Adivasis, Dalits and boys. Also to date no serious attention has been given to this dropout phenomenon even when it is an upward trend. A study published last year in a popular Malayalam weekly conclusively established on the basis of sample survey that the dropout rate among Dalits, Adivasis, and other marginalised sections is disproportionately higher than students belonging to other classes and castes. And it is significant that these students predominantly get enrolled in government run schools.
Again the reasons are several but interlocked. The economic pressures within the families generate a negative attitude towards continued schooling. At a young age many children are compelled to earn their upkeep. These upkeep earning sources can range from helping in the family, breaking rocks, serving in small hotels, to drug peddling. A strong incentive to drop out of schools is the economic unattractiveness of finishing schooling. Even if you finish schooling nobody is going to give you a tolerably decent job. Then why waste time and energy is a commonly heard refrain. For the poor lacking influence there is no incentive to finish school. That is why - and not only in the context of Kerala - the rights to education and employment have to be strongly and systemically wedded together. They cannot be alienated from each other.
Criminalisation of society, especially family life, is yet another important variable of the dropout equation. This in turn is linked to overall economic deprivation, rampant alcoholism, and drug abuse. Although the entire State is serious affected, it is the coastal belts, Adivasi belts and the cash crop areas that record the highest per capita alcohol consumption. An alcohol consuming labourer spends an average of half of his daily wages for liquor. Apart from creating serious mental and physical problems it also overturns the domestic economy, which in turn creates serious domestic discord. Very often the domestic atmosphere becomes incompatible with schooling, both economically and mentally. Again there are strong caste and class variations in the issue, with the Dalits, Adivasis and fisher folk the worst affected. The following illustration of a village in the South Kerala coastal belt can be an eye-opener.
It is a beach village within the international tourist enclave of Kovalam. And it is a hundred per cent Dalit village with a little more than 800 families. Tere is a government high school about 3 kms away. Within the last two decades not even a single boy or girl from here has completed the 10th standard. Paradoxically, this is the area where Ayyankali launched the militant movement of Dalits to wrench the right to education for the untouchables! The present profile of this village is interesting. Though there are 800 families only about two dozen children go to school. And even this miserable number is not regulars, which shows they are going to be dropouts. The school-going age boys and their seniors are in constant interaction with tourists – pimping their sisters and mothers and supplying drugs and liquor to the tourists. A majority of them are themselves hardened killer drug addicts and the prevalence of STDs is very high. Petty thefts and squabbles are regular. They are, at least most of them, formally illiterate, but speak a pidgin of English, German or French, and are unable to read a newspaper or even sign their names. The reversal from the days of Ayyankali is complete. In a State where international tourism is accepted as the be all and end all of the development paradigm can we take this village as an indicator the shape of things to come? From all the indicators the immediate and future challenges are massive.
The gross inequality that has become so visible in the State has its own impact on the psyche of the children coming from the categories of lesser human beings. On the one side you see well-fed children in smart uniforms travelling to their schools in luxury buses and cars, while you trudge along dressed in tatters and underfed. Children’s minds are very susceptible to such injustice and right from a very early age a sense of despondency creeps in reinforcing the feeling of futility of learning. Such a feeling can easily result in losing faith in schooling itself.
The Euphoria on Hundred Per Cent Literacy
The Kerala model of development is a much eulogised falsity assiduously propagated by varieties of social democrats nationally and internationally. Advanced physical quality of life without any significant development in the mode and forces of production was the basic premise in gauging this model. The development of general education and public health facilities were highlighted as key components of this model, it was loudly proclaimed that the State is hundred per cent literate as compared to less than 50 per cent average rate of literacy in the rest of the country. Educational experts and economists from India and other Third world countries like Nepal and Bangladesh made study tours to Kerala to study the features of his model so that they can copy it in their own States and countries. For more than a decade during the late 1970s and ‘80s this euphoria was thriving like anything.
It was during the mid ‘90s that the propaganda about this ‘model’ slowed down and finally got exposed as sham. The beginnings of the new century saw much violence against the Adivasis and women and discrimination against the Dalits. The agrarian markets saw disastrous collapses producing a large number of suicides of farmers and agricultural labourers. The economics of the system now stands well exposed as dependent parasitism with very little inherent strength. The State treasury is now continuously bankrupt. The social welfare measures which were much trumpeted during the earlier decades have almost come to a standstill. The ‘model’ became no model at all. Education becomes one of the worst causalities along with public health services. These two were the most projected parameters of the so-called Kerala model.
Coming to the point of hundred per cent literacy we have to see what this actually means. In the most pedestrian sense of the term it means the ability to read and write. In the broader sense of the term it is not just the ability to sign one’s own name, but also the ability to understand one’s society better and comprehend the social issues through the facilitating tools of reading and writing along with other methods like discussions and debates. Only such an individual can truly be called literate. This is what is socially relevant literacy, which is different from the narrow based mechanical skill of signing one’s own name. Even in the narrow sense Kerala is not hundred per cent literate. Large numbers of Adivasis, Dalits and fisher folk are in the literal sense of the term still illiterate. Because the literacy rate is significantly higher than in a State like Bihar or Rajasthan it is no cause for pride. And there is no reason for any particular shade of political grouping to take the credit. The religious and community based reform movements starting in the nineteenth century and the spread of schooling by the missionaries paved the way for a relatively higher level and broader spread of basic general education in the State, especially in the erstwhile Travancore and Kochi regions. At the same time, the Dalits, Adivasis and other such deprived sections by and large remained outside the gambit of the progressive process. Though the situation did not remain static the basic relative position of these sections remains backward.
The need of the hour is to break out of the self complacent attitude concerning narrow literacy and proceed towards an educational system which will be progressive, universal and equitable and linked to resource based employment. In other words, an equitable common school programme with employment guarantee. Only such an approach can reverse the present stalemate and remove the highly skewed pattern currently in operation. Serious rethinking is a necessary condition for the implementation of such an approach.
Globalisation and Education
Kerala is one of the most globalised areas in the country. Whether it is in terms of the export of manpower or in terms of the primary production sectors and service economy the place stands first in the scale of globalisation. International tourism, dependence of multinational businesses for the marketing of the principal cash crops, export dependency of the native sector and the massive inflow of petrodollars have over the period of the past few decades become the salient characteristics of the economy and society. At the same time, the other side of the story is that the place has become crucially dependent on outside areas for basic needs like cereals, vegetables, meat, agricultural inputs, industrial inputs, finished industrial products including medicine. On all counts the dependency syndrome has become paramount. This sort of economic lopsidedness is bound to produce great social repercussions and education is certainly no exception.
The most obvious impact is one of perspective change itself. Education, like any other business, is now expected to make profits. And that too, profit maximisation is the motto. This is the same principle on which the transnationals carry out all their operations worldwide and the social costs of such a perspective in practice are not at all relevant to them. Hence, in the education sector, it is the private schools who are the pioneers of this viewpoint. And the government through its policy of closing down and downsizing existing government schools is ably facilitating the increasing privatisation of education. This ongoing retrogressive process is to be resisted and defeated by all democratic means available to us. Creating awareness about the perils of privatisation to the vast majority of people has to be done in an intensive and extensive manner. Formation of public opinion concerning the reckless commercialisation of education ought to be done on a war footing.
The privatisation and cost escalation of education is linked to globalisation. The education that is provided by the private high cost schools can enable the students to grab the relatively higher pay jobs in the globalised economy. That is, their historical mission is to provide workforce for the transnationals and their local agents. The British colonial educational policy was to provide the colonial governments and the colonial economic units English knowing clerks similarly the new votaries of privatisation are hell bent on supplying manpower to the globalised economy. According to their logic the high cost of education is justified because the quality of education is higher and the returns are also higher. It is plain and simple investment. Nothing more and nothing less. This may be so, but what will happen to the overwhelming majority who simply cannot afford the education that is offered? They are not considered relevant. They can go to hell. This is the emerging dominant perspective. A dangerous viewpoint for society at large.
By this time it has become clear that there cannot be any “human face to globalisation”. It is destructive to the national economy and polity, region and sub regional economies and cultural identities, environment and ecology and livelihood of the majority population. What the private schooling system is doing is to create the essential manpower to engineer and operate this destruction. What is aimed at is clearly anti-national. They are performing the role of facilitators for neo-colonialism of the full-blooded variety. It is the patriotic duty of everyone to expose and oppose this sinister plan.
Of course, neo-colonisation and privatisation of school education by itself is not enough for globalisation. From the kindergarten to the highest level education has to be neo-colonised. This is exactly what is happening now. The proliferation of private medical colleges, engineering and technology institutes, business schools, law schools, etc., is going on at hgh speed. Already well established public sector universities, medical colleges and technology institutes are going in for high profile collaborations with foreign universities, institutes and huge funding organisations like Ford Foundation with the objective of ‘modernising’ and restructuring the curriculum, and reorienting the worldview of teachers and students in tune with the exigencies of globalisation. Privatisation of school education has to be seen in conjunction with the transformation that the whole educational structure is currently undergoing. And this again has to be read along with the opening up of every sector of the economy, including the media, to the demands of international capital. The de-emphasis of disciplines like social sciences and humanities is yet another pointer.
Communalism, Casteism, Fascism and Education
In both form and content globalisation is essentially a fascistic move. It is more clearly seen in international politics currently than in any previous decades after the Second World War. Every attempt is being made to make the world into a unipolar one and bloody, desperate attempts are continuously being made to hegemonies the planet’s resources by the dominant global capital. The systemic crisis of imperialist capital exemplified in declining profits is resulting in ever more militarisation of the world economy with the United States leading and dominating this vicious, macabre game. Within the US itself unemployment is at an all time high level after the Great Depression of the 1930s which contributed a lot towards the breakout of the Second World War. The dynamics of global politics and economics is not much different now. The details and scale of events unfolding and going to be unfolded may differ in degrees but not qualitatively.
Homogenisation of the people in terms of worldviews is a hall mark of fascism and their means is the brutal suppression of internal dissent. Intellectual castration is made into a political tool to bring this about and this was what we saw when the previous NDA government ruled the centre and many States like Gujarat continue to be standing illustrations. The Sangh Parivar, when it came to power, started with rewriting history for school children, a move that was identical with that of the Nazis in the Germany of 1930s. Identifying the identity of India with the Brahminical Hindutva the fascists exposed themselves as capable of any amount of lies and distortions to instil into young minds a pernicious and obscurantist view of history. This was deemed as a necessary condition to make India into a great super power. At the same time they opened wider the gates of Indian economy to international capital. The Hindutva version of fascism did not see any conflict at all between the goal of becoming a super power and enslaving the economy to international/foreign capital! A paradox of sorts!!
Or, is it really a paradox? It is a lesson of history that fascists of every shade, from Hitler to Stalin to Golwaker, were all obscurantists to the extreme while being demagogic powermongers and rank opportunists. Falsified history and projection of a fantastic future are standard items with fascists. The Sangh Parivar is only doing the same in the Hindutva colour. They are for the present out of power at the Centre. But this does not mean that they are beaten decisively. The danger to secular values is very much there and ever more vicious propaganda is going on. The danger to secular values is very much material and this is obvious from the fact that they have tens of thousands of schools in every part of the country where pernicious doctrines and false history are taught to vulnerable minds and communal hatred instilled. The same can be said about Muslims and Christians too. Though one often hears about shades of minority communalism being reactions to the more powerful majority communalism historical experience tells us that it need not always be so.
Kerala’s case is very interesting. The State has an absolutely false image of being a progressive and secular one. We know it fully well that in every election from Panchayat ward to Member of Parliament all political parties take communal and caste identities as prime variables in the choice of candidates. Similarly, the choice of Minister, heads of boards of directors, Vice Chancellors, etc. is dictated by caste and communal dictates. Many mainstream political parties are openly casteist and communal outfits and they are part of State power and (or) powerful pressure groups influencing State level decisions including basic policy changes. In this overall framework of communal and caste division based set-up, it is illogical to think that the education sector, one of the most sensitive and prominent sectors in Kerala society, is secular in content and organisation. In fact, this sector is a pioneer in concretising caste-community divisions, and is a hotbed of communal and caste manipulations.
The history of modern education in Kerala shows a communal origin. The Raja of Travancore and the Christian Church laid the foundations of the modern educational system here in the first half of the nineteenth century. When Macaulay became the colonial resident/advisor in Travancore the colonial educational system became institutionalised with the patronage of royalty in Travancore and Cochin. In Malabar, under direct British rule. They themselves started the process. Very soon, the various denominations of the church gained as ascendancy in the sector. Schools grew into colleges. Though initially in a small way, other prominent communities and castes, the Nairs, Muslims and Ezhavas copied the initiatives of the church, and the educational sector in the Malayalam-speaking region got organised on a communal and caste basis with the government as a junior partner. But the Dalits, not to mention the Adivasis, were left out completely.
The unification of the State on linguistic lines came about in 1956 and in the first general election held during the next year the CPI came to power. The Minister for Education, Prof. Joseph Mundassery, introduced an Education Bill, which timidly tried to break the monopoly of communal forces on education. This triggered off what is called ‘liberation struggle’, which finally resulted in the dismissal of the CPI Ministry. His bill, though it had only limited objective, and was only trying to bring about a semblance of secularism in education and at the same time containing the rudiments of what we call Common School Programme was vehemently opposed by the casteist and communal forces, and their communal opposition was abetted by the ‘socialist’ Nehru government at the Centre. Since that time there has been no looking back for the communal forces in consolidating their stranglehold on education in the State. And now with the process of globalisation going ahead in full steam these very same forces are fast adapting themselves to the needs of international capital and the State government is ably abetting them. This is the ground reality of present-day Kerala.
Part II
Strategy Vision
The basic vision of NKARE, a partner of the All India Alliance, is the effective implementation of the common school programme, by which it is meant that every child in the country, irrespective of all class, community, and caste denominations, should get equal opportunities for education and employment and that the two aspects are inalienable from each other. The right to education is a constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right, and as such the various governments are duty bound to see to it that this fundamental right is implemented without undue delay.
At the same time, we know it from the harsh realities that class, communal and caste prerogative play the most dominant role in nullifying the guaranteed fundamental rights. It is the role of the judiciary, civil society organisations and all those who believe in basic democratic values to fight against the distortions and wilful manipulations to undermine the essence of constitutional rights and flout them in an open shameless manner in opposition to sticklers insisting on constitutional basic rights of the people. The campaign for a common school programme has become a struggle for the same because of the fact that it is no longer a question of aberrations from the canons of justice, but a conscious well planned effort to drag the whole society to the abject position of being collaborators to an education policy that cuts the common people from the whole circuit.
Conceiving a strategy for such a far-reaching issue’s resolution and/or mitigation is an evolutionary process, which will find ever newer dimensions in the course of the struggle. No pre-determined wholesome strategy is possible because the dynamics of the campaign and struggle may change over time. The strategy vision that we are no putting forth is general and strictly tentative because mapping a strategy before being fully involved in the issue can easily lead to oversimplifications and counter-productive dogmatism towards tackling vital social issues. Dogmatism has never in history paid in this regard. At the same time, it is imperative that we should have a rudimentary vision of how we are going to start the process to realise the basic objective.
Opinion mobilisation is a primary need, which is to be based on appealing to the people using all legal means to be conscious of their civil and democratic rights. The right to education being a constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right is certainly a vital component of these rights, which are designed as a safeguard for the democratic system itself.
The visual and print media are to be mobilised on a massive level to propagate the cause. Intellectuals committed to the cause are to be galvanised into action and those intellectuals who are not yet aware of the situation are to be made aware of the reality. Materials to this effect are to be produced and disseminated on the widest possible scale. Street theatre, lead articles in leading mass circulation dailies and weeklies and visual presentations concerning the issue in television and in documentary films are some of the obvious means.
Penetration of the main slogan into the schools and other educational institutions is vital. Teachers and students are to be mobilised for the cause by camps, lectures and audio-visual means. The idea is to create a backup of considerable proportions to enable the struggle to succeed.
Local level self governing institutions should necessarily be an intrinsic part of the campaign for the common school programme. Members of Panchayat Raj Institutions ought to be brought to the core of the campaign by making them take positions. Political parties who profess by the democratic system also should be encouraged to take a positive position on the question.
Organisational and such other logistical necessities are to be made for alternative systems of education among the marginalised sections, first in selected areas on an experimental basis and then based on the experiences generalised for wider areas. The coastal and Adivasi areas, on the basis of studies already made, are the most suitable areas to dig in first.
Publicity materials on the wasteful nature of the upper caste, upper class educational set ups are to be released on a wide scale. How they serve the purposes of globalisation at the cost of the vast majority of common people is to be highlighted. These materials should strive to the utmost to expose the linkages between globalisation, poverty, fascism and communalism, which are fast eroding the basic democratic values of the society.
While the basic vision is clear at this point of time the details of the strategy to enable this vision to be realised will depend very much on the churning the raising of the issue will cause. The process of teaching and learning from the people has to be taken as the methodology guiding the whole struggle/campaign.
Conclusion
To sum up, contrary to populist beliefs in the rest of the country Kerala is not an oasis of egalitarian educational structure and policies. The State is being increasingly branded by retrogressive educational policies which has a historical root too. Moreover, these retrogressive steps are fast getting institutionalised. Hence the struggle is challenging and an uphill task. The anti-people reactionary forces are hectically strengthening their octopus grip over education in the State, which makes the struggle for a common school programme an urgent necessity on a scale that can effectively challenge the retrogression. Further intense discussions and debates and exposure in the media are an immediate necessary condition to take the campaign forward.
[Kalpetta, 2005]