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Judicial lessons for states by Shyamal Majumdar

In 2004, a boy was crushed to death by a vehicle when he was crossing the road in front of a school to fetch water. The school, in the heart of the nation’s capital, did not have drinking water facilities. Seven years later, courtesy the NGO Environmental and Consumer Protection Foundation and the Supreme Court, all Indian states (the last two being Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir) have given a written undertaking confirming that they have provided drinking water in all government-run schools.

In that sense, Monday (December 5) was a significant day; it marked an important milestone in a country that boasts of having one of the largest number of schools.
The Supreme Court has already gone to the next level; it has asked the Centre and all state governments to file affidavits within four weeks detailing the status of sanitation in schools and whether separate toilets have been provided for girl students. Nevertheless, it is doubtful whether such judicial activism, however well-intentioned, can change things on the ground beyond a point.

It has taken 65 years since Independence for all states to ensure that schools have basic facilities such as drinking water. The fundamental question that many are asking is, who ensures the quality of drinking water in these schools? Or, who clamps down on schools that have water taps that mostly remain dry?

After all, right to education is a fundamental right under the Indian Constitution. Yet, India has the largest number of illiterates: 280 million. About two-thirds of children of school-going age in India are enrolled in schools, but a survey carried out by Pratham showed that 40 per cent of them did not know the alphabet and could not count up to 10 after months of basic education. Also, half could not read paragraphs after five years of study, and only 12 to 14 per cent went on to complete 10 years of education.

Another study showed just about 10 per cent of schools in India have electricity and less than that have toilet facilities for girls — a major reason the percentage of girls dropping out or not going to school is alarmingly high.

The quality of teaching has generally been abysmal. A mathematics test conducted on teachers showed that most of them could not even do simple math; 64 per cent could not give a correct title to a paragraph in a language comprehension test. The reason was that teachers themselves were first-generation learners and had not attended any in-service programme in the past five years.

The results have been obvious: scores decline as students move to higher classes. For example, the mean score in language and mathematics is consistently lower in Class III/IV than that in Class I; this shows that most teachers are not equipped to teach beyond nursery level.

Consistent dropouts are another reason. As Abhijit Banerjee, Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics and Director of Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, MIT, writes, it seems like the gains from getting to Class IV rather than never going to school are in proportional terms about the same as the gains from getting from Class VIII to Class XIII. “After all, when you leave at Class IV, there is no piece of paper you can take with you. But the ability to read a little or to do some basic arithmetic does make you more productive at farming or shop-keeping or whatever else you end up doing,” Banerjee says.

Organisations such as Pratham have consistently highlighted many other disturbing pieces of evidence. For example, children in Class V cannot read texts meant for children in Class II; not even one child in five can recognise numbers from 11 to 99; and more than three of five children cannot solve simple mathematical problems. Overall, after five years of schooling, almost half the children are at Class-II level.

About a third of schools had only one or two teachers. Teacher attendance showed a consistent decline over three years; it fell from 73.7 in 2007 to 69.2 in 2009 and to 63.4 in 2010.

Amid all this gloom and doom, there are some good signs. The percentage of children aged 6-14 who are not enrolled in school is the lowest ever, 3.5 per cent (it was 6.6 per cent in 2005). The proportion of girls aged 11-14 who are still out of school has declined to 5.9 per cent (it was 11.2 per cent in 2005). In Bihar, for example, the percentage of out-of-school girls and boys in all age-groups has been dropping steadily since 2005.

So, states are not doing that badly as far as enrolment and number of schools are concerned. It will perhaps take sustained judicial activism to ensure the quality of education also goes up proportionately.