Interpreting Education for All
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| Ambarish Rai |
One of the most positive developments of 2004 was the changed political scenario following the defeat in the general election of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. The NDA had close ties with the militant Hindu sangh parivar which is overtly attempting to capture the minds of the younger generation using education as a means to this end. Through its communal organisations and schools such as Saraswati Shisu Mandir, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Sewa Bharati, Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation and Vidya Bharati, the sangh parivar conducted massive hate campaigns against minorities, while the Union HRD ministry attempted to mainstream its anti-minorities hate agenda.
Simultaneously RSS cadres within the parivar targeted minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians while government run cultural and education institutions were handed over to persons of little expertise with known RSS loyalties. A slew of textbooks — including re-written, communally slanted history texts — were sought to be introduced at the school level, and obscurantist courses on astrology and Brahmin priestly practices were introduced into university curriculums. In short there was a frontal assault on the country’s composite culture, the secular foundations of its polity, and the entire legacy of its anti-colonial struggle.
Now that the people of India have once again proved their deep-rooted faith in secularism and democracy, and a new secular coalition is running the country supported by the Left parties, it’s a good time to take significant steps for bringing minorities into the mainstream and winning their confidence by providing them opportunities to acquire contemporary education.
It’s important from the perspective of national development that we never forget that India hosts the second largest Muslim population in the world (approx.130 million or 13 percent of the population). But according to Planning Commission statistics, literacy within the Muslim community is only 42 percent and a shocking 11 percent among women. Not surprisingly their representation in the Indian Administrative Service is a mere 2.14 percent, 3 percent in the police; 1.43 percent in the Central secretariat services. In the organised private sector too the representation of Muslims is very low.
With the cost of education rising, poor Muslims, particularly artisans and farmers, prefer to send their children to madrassas, where they receive obsolete education. However, lately, some effort is being made to introduce modern subjects in madrassa curriculums. This development needs to be given a push.
The plain reality is that the socio-economic status of Muslims can be changed only when educated and forward-looking Muslims take initiatives to reform their community. Unfortunately, the rise of Muslim militancy has prompted even educated Muslim men and women to conform to obscurantist and extremist religious viewpoints.
Regretably too, great national initiatives in Muslim education witnessed in the past century during the freedom struggle which resulted in the establishment of Aligarh Muslim University, the Jamia Millia Islamia and the rise to positions of authority of scholar-statesmen such as Maulana Azad and Zakir Hussain have been reduced to the archival dreams of a bygone era. Instead, a growing number of youth have been pushed into madrassa education. Against this backdrop it’s tragic that the mushrooming of small, cash starved madrassas is interpreted as evidence of rising Muslim fundamentalism.
Mass illiteracy, poorly equipped government schools characterised by teacher absenteeism and low-level learning imparted in publicly funded education offer sufficient proof that education has never been a priority of post-independence India’s ruling class. Governments at the Centre and in the states have appointed numerous commissions whose recommendations have seldom been implemented due to lack of political will. As a result, education has been restricted to small privileged sections of society with the rest condemned to perpetual ignorance and darkness.
The resources required to provide EFA (Education for All) are embarrassingly modest. According to the Tapas Majumdar report, an amount equivalent to a mere 0.7 percent of GDP is needed for ten years to enroll every child into school. But provision of this modest additional outlay has proved an insuperable task. There is little awareness within government or the educracy that India can’t shine when 50 percent of children and 66 percent of girl children are out of school. Or of those who go to school, 80 percent receive low-grade education.
The common school system (CSS), recommended by the Kothari Commission way back in 1964 offers a way out to strengthen the democratic rights and freedoms of minorities. The premise of CSS is that all children, including children of minorities are provided equal quality education and are given the space to learn through a healthy exchange of culture and ideas. The appalling educational status of the vast majority of economically disadvantaged children, particularly those belonging to socially challenged minorities, is unacceptable in a professedly democratic, socialist, secular republic.
Indeed, democratic India cannot shrug away its special responsibility to provide modern, scientific and qualitative education to children of vulnerable minorities. We need a new social agenda to build a new society — an egalitarian, democratic, plural order — which respects the autonomy of learners, disregards hierarchies and dualities, values harmony, reciprocity, dialogicity and equality. It needs to be clearly understood that if we speak of Education for All, we have to fashion a new society.
(Ambarish Rai is national organiser of the National Alliance for Fundamental Right to Education (NAFRE))