India launches social integration
schools By Raja Murthy
MUMBAI - India's Supreme Court on April 12
upheld the Right of Children to Free and
Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, a landmark but
logistically-loaded law to educate millions of
disadvantaged children in private schools,
alongside children from middle class and wealthier
families.
A unique provision in the RTE,
possibly the first of its kind in the world,
compels private schools nationwide to reserve 25%
of admissions each year to children from poor
families without charging them any fee. [1]
The local or central government will pay a
standard school fee for children admitted under
this category, irrespective of the fee the
private school charges
all students. Boarding schools are exempt from
this law.
The April 12 ruling came from
the Supreme Court rejecting representatives of
some private schools saying the RTE Act violated
their right to run their institutions without any
governmental interference.
"The 2009 act
seeks to remove all those barriers including
financial and psychological barriers which a child
belonging to the weaker section and disadvantaged
group has to face while seeking school admission,"
declared the Bench of Chief Justice S H Kapadia,
justices Swatanter Kumar and K S Radhakrishnan.
But the two-year old RTE law is also
blamed for being noble in intent but vague in
content, and as offering tokenism that could do
more harm than good.
The devil is in the
lack of detail. Stakeholders such as parents,
teachers and school administrators are unclear how
to implement the RTE. For instance, does the
private school have to search the neighborhood for
deserving children to fill under the 25% quota? Is
it fair to burden already struggling schools
trying to provide cost-effective education?
Or does it encourage a common social
responsibility to implement the spirit of RTE Act
aiming to help more children grow without a "Us
versus Them' mentality?
Optimistic
educationists and parents welcome the idea of
using classrooms to remove social barriers and
snob values. A chauffeur of a rich industrialist
in Mumbai, for instance, would have his son going
to the same school to which he daily drives the
children of his employer.
"I have no
problem if my son shares the same school classroom
with a maid servant's son," says Rishi Bhandoo, a
media marketing manager in Mumbai whose son Reece,
aged seven, and daughter Rachel, nine, study in a
convent school in suburban Bandra. "In fact, being
with less privileged children would help my
children because they sometimes take the good
things in life for granted."
Other parents
fear being burdened with a hike in already
expensive school fees to cover revenue schools
lose. The government is accused of leaving the
major costs to an already stressed education
system for the middle class.
The wealthier
private schools charge thousands of dollars in
annual fees. The government guarantees about
US$110 to $360 annually as fees per student
admitted under the 25% quota for less privileged
children. Administrators of less-wealthy private
schools are worrying how to bridge the extra
expenses and income deficit.
Some schools
like the Bethany Convent in suburban Mumbai are
footing the bill for books and uniforms for tribal
children studying alongside middle class children
in the school. Others are inviting parents to
sponsor the cost of an underprivileged child, or
hoping corporate social initiatives would pitch
in.
Human Resource Development Minister
Kapil Sibal told television news channel CNN-IBN
that the government in the coming years would also
provide school uniform and textbooks. Sibal had
also informed parliament on August 25, 2010, that
the World Bank, the Department for International
Development, United Kingdom, and the European
Commission are providing partial financial support
to implement the RTE Act. But for now, a free
admission in an elitist private school might cause
more problems for an economically challenged
family.
Sibal confirmed that the 25%
reservation idea was for social integration.
"Children from adverse living conditions can bring
rich experiences of coping with life, and sharing
these experiences with well-off children can be
invaluable," Sibal wrote in an article in the
Times of India on April 20 [2]. "It is this mixing
of children from diverse backgrounds that may
change the character of the school in many
positive ways."
Some parents are concerned
about children from starkly different income
groups suddenly put together in the same
classroom. Mumbai resident Patrick Mendelsen sees
similar 'acclimatization' problems if his two
school-going children are given free admission to
an elitist international school whose fees he
cannot afford.
"I would be happy if my
children can go such a very good school, but the
first thing is they could develop a complex from
suddenly being among kids whose lifestyle is very
different," Mendelsen told Asia Times Online. "We
have a car, but not a luxury brand. And we may not
be able to afford tablet computers and so on that
an elite school requires each student to have. The
teacher will have a crucial role in the RTE Act."
While a positive outlook from parents
would very much help, some schools are also
involving therapists to help classroom
integration. Others like Campion, a leading
private school in south Mumbai, did not need a
governmental push. Campion has been offering free
education to economically weaker children for the
past six years. It reports no problems in having
economically weaker children learning alongside
children of industrialists and Bollywood stars.
Principal Paul Machado approves the 25%
reservation idea, and strongly emphasizes the need
for integrated schools.
Mendelsen's wife,
a school teacher in a suburban cosmopolitan school
with children from diverse backgrounds, feels more
important are other unique aspects of the RTE Act
- such as the law barring schools from failing
students in exams up to class eight, and
prohibiting teachers from punishing students. In
what is a school kid's heaven, schools have to
automatically pass students each year up to class
8, and teachers are no longer allowed to punish
students by beating them up.
But these RTE
provisions were answers to the media in recent
years highlighting incidents of some teachers
beating up school children so brutally the child
had to be admitted to hospital.
The
foolish "spare the rod and spoil the child" myth
is being asked to go away, and the RTE hopes to
bring in some maturity in bringing up children.
Repeatedly erring college students and office
workers, adults who should know better, are not
disciplined by being caned and slapped about. So
why beat up small kids? Does physically attacking
a child largely arise from the undercurrent
reassurance adults have of beating up someone
incapable of counter-attack?
John
Selvadorai, one of the most respected teachers
during my school days in Don Bosco Egmore, in
Chennai, kept strict discipline without physically
or verbally assaulting anyone. Jerome Rajan, our
German-language teacher in high school, was a
quiet, amiable character who kept us high spirited
characters in good order without even raising his
voice.
The no-punishment rule and other
RTE provisions potentially can have India's
schools and teachers re-invent methods to teach a
more intelligent and knowledge-enriched children
of the Internet age.
Holistic community
participation has been deemed as essential to
inclusive education. The RTE law requires schools
to constitute School Management Committees (SMCs),
comprising parents, teachers and local government
officials to implement this new law. If
the RTE opens a door to a better life for even one
among the 18 million children living in the city
streets of India, or helps children understand
that being a better person, not flashy phones and
cars, that means success in life, every challenge
in implementing it becomes worthwhile.
Notes 1. For the text of
Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education
Act, 2009, Ministry of Human Resource Development,
Government of India, see here.
2. 'RTE
Act can be a model for the world', by Union
Human Resource Minister Kapil Sibal, Times of
India, April 20.
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