Bhim, Rajasthan: As students from the government girls’ higher secondary school in Barar panchayat, Rajsamand district, gheraoed block primary education officer Prithvi Singh Kachawa at a protest over staff shortage on Thursday and flooded him with questions, he said: “Historically, the level of education in Rajsamand district and particularly in the Bhim block has been very low. Very few locals have attained higher educational degrees and took up teaching as a profession”.
As the protesting students listened restively, Kachawa continued: “Therefore, teachers here are posted from outside and seek transfers after a while. This is the main reason why many schools here don’t have teachers, not just yours”.
This, in a nutshell, explained what leads to the vicious circle of a life without education and the resultant exploitation and poverty of most of the population of Bhim and many other regions of rural Rajasthan that has remained deprived from moving up the education ladder and thus, forced into exploitative, menial labour for decades.
But more starkly, a mere description of the problem by Kachawa without a plan of action to address it also showed the state education department’s unwillingness to change the scenario.
The story of girls’ education in the state paints a grimmer picture if one looks at it in the backdrop of a highly patriarchal society where child marriages are still a rampant reality.
A statistical representation of this would be the abysmal female literacy rate in Rajasthan which stands at 47.76 per cent against the male literacy rate of 79.19 per cent. (Source: Census 2011)
So, when more than 1200 students of two government girls’ higher secondary schools in Bhim and Barar and a government girls’ secondary school in Dewair took to street protests on Thursday outside their schools, they were challenging years of gender injustice by the state and society. Their demand, although, was fundamental: appointment of teachers for all of their subjects.
The protests were reminiscent of a dharna held in October last year when 700 girls of the same government girls’ higher secondary school in Bhim had locked the school gates and sat on protest.
Out of that dharna was born a larger, state-wide campaign – Neenv - Shiksha Ka Sawaal Abhiyan – a collaborative initiative of Soochana Evam Rozgaar Adhikar Abhiyan (a collective of around 100 civil society organisations in Rajasthan) and Rajasthan Patrika, a daily newspaper.
The campaign, launched in April, was compelled after four new teachers who were appointed at the Bhim girls’ school after the October 2014 protest were transferred out within just a month.
The absence of 70 per cent of the sanctioned teaching staff and that of the principal in these schools for more than eight years had sparked several protests by students in the past too. But, the trigger on Thursday at all the three girls’ schools was provided by the Rajasthan government through its recent decision of picking schools to be developed as ‘adarsh schools’. Preposterously, the five schools in Bhim block that have been chosen as ‘adarsh schools’ for the year 2015-16 are all boys’ schools.
This time, the protests culminated from the efforts of the Neenv - Shiksha K Sawaal Abhiyan.
The ongoing Abhiyan aims to achieve full implementation of the Right to Education Act in the state by using the Right to Information (RTI) and Right to Hearing Acts as tools.
Nearly a thousand volunteers of local civil society organisations and interns from colleges across the country have been involved in conducting surveys of government schools and holding village level meetings to initiate a dialogue on education in the past four months. As an extension of this exercise, local residents’ committees have been formed which have filed RTI applications in schools and have stood up to monitor the functioning of village schools on a regular basis.
An example of this could be the Lasani Panchayat, located just 23 km from Bhim, in the adjoining Deogarh block. Seven of the eleven government schools in the panchayat do not have taps or water connections in toilets, thereby rendering them unusable.
So far, the campaign has received support from state education minister Vasudev Devnani who attended a meeting called of the Abhiyan on June 29. Four teachers who used to come to schools in a drunken state were suspended last month after the campaign brought it before Devnani at the meeting.
On Thursday afternoon too, the resilient protests by girls buckled Kachawa who issued immediate orders to appoint five additional teachers in the Bhim girls’ school and three teachers each in the Barar girls’ school and Dewair girls’ school.
A public movement on education is much-needed to end the daily survival struggles of people in a state where ration, pension schemes and minimum wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme have dominated people’s concerns so far.
Yet, the fight is tough for the villagers of Rajasthan who come forward to take on the complex issues that plague the public education system.
As the protesting students listened restively, Kachawa continued: “Therefore, teachers here are posted from outside and seek transfers after a while. This is the main reason why many schools here don’t have teachers, not just yours”.
This, in a nutshell, explained what leads to the vicious circle of a life without education and the resultant exploitation and poverty of most of the population of Bhim and many other regions of rural Rajasthan that has remained deprived from moving up the education ladder and thus, forced into exploitative, menial labour for decades.
But more starkly, a mere description of the problem by Kachawa without a plan of action to address it also showed the state education department’s unwillingness to change the scenario.
The story of girls’ education in the state paints a grimmer picture if one looks at it in the backdrop of a highly patriarchal society where child marriages are still a rampant reality.
A statistical representation of this would be the abysmal female literacy rate in Rajasthan which stands at 47.76 per cent against the male literacy rate of 79.19 per cent. (Source: Census 2011)
So, when more than 1200 students of two government girls’ higher secondary schools in Bhim and Barar and a government girls’ secondary school in Dewair took to street protests on Thursday outside their schools, they were challenging years of gender injustice by the state and society. Their demand, although, was fundamental: appointment of teachers for all of their subjects.
The protests were reminiscent of a dharna held in October last year when 700 girls of the same government girls’ higher secondary school in Bhim had locked the school gates and sat on protest.
Out of that dharna was born a larger, state-wide campaign – Neenv - Shiksha Ka Sawaal Abhiyan – a collaborative initiative of Soochana Evam Rozgaar Adhikar Abhiyan (a collective of around 100 civil society organisations in Rajasthan) and Rajasthan Patrika, a daily newspaper.
The campaign, launched in April, was compelled after four new teachers who were appointed at the Bhim girls’ school after the October 2014 protest were transferred out within just a month.
The absence of 70 per cent of the sanctioned teaching staff and that of the principal in these schools for more than eight years had sparked several protests by students in the past too. But, the trigger on Thursday at all the three girls’ schools was provided by the Rajasthan government through its recent decision of picking schools to be developed as ‘adarsh schools’. Preposterously, the five schools in Bhim block that have been chosen as ‘adarsh schools’ for the year 2015-16 are all boys’ schools.
This time, the protests culminated from the efforts of the Neenv - Shiksha K Sawaal Abhiyan.
The ongoing Abhiyan aims to achieve full implementation of the Right to Education Act in the state by using the Right to Information (RTI) and Right to Hearing Acts as tools.
Nearly a thousand volunteers of local civil society organisations and interns from colleges across the country have been involved in conducting surveys of government schools and holding village level meetings to initiate a dialogue on education in the past four months. As an extension of this exercise, local residents’ committees have been formed which have filed RTI applications in schools and have stood up to monitor the functioning of village schools on a regular basis.
Apart from the serious paucity of teaching
staff, the campaign has also brought to light caste and gender discriminatory
practices in government schools. Other findings have been the deplorable
physical infrastructure provided by the government in schools.
So far, the campaign has received support from state education minister Vasudev Devnani who attended a meeting called of the Abhiyan on June 29. Four teachers who used to come to schools in a drunken state were suspended last month after the campaign brought it before Devnani at the meeting.
On Thursday afternoon too, the resilient protests by girls buckled Kachawa who issued immediate orders to appoint five additional teachers in the Bhim girls’ school and three teachers each in the Barar girls’ school and Dewair girls’ school.
A public movement on education is much-needed to end the daily survival struggles of people in a state where ration, pension schemes and minimum wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme have dominated people’s concerns so far.
Yet, the fight is tough for the villagers of Rajasthan who come forward to take on the complex issues that plague the public education system.
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| Photo by Avinash Kumar |
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