The new academic session for school students in Chhattisgarh is going to start from June 16. Even before the start of this session, the plight of school education can be gauged from the fact that more than 3000 schools in the state do not have principals and 5442 posts of teachers, 33178 posts of assistant teachers and 4623 posts of lecturers are vacant. Out of 56333 schools run by the government, more than 260 schools are without teachers, while 7127 schools have only one teacher and 3978 primary, middle, high and higher secondary schools are being run in the same campus. If compared to last year's figures, all these figures have increased, only the number of schools without teachers has decreased by 40. Last year the number of schools without teachers was 300.

The Constitution directs the government to provide education to every child of school age in his/her residential area. If this directive is to be followed, then construction of new school buildings and filling the 43243 vacant posts of teachers should be the priority of any government. But how can this be a priority in the agenda of the BJP government which is privatizing and saffronising education in the name of the new education policy? Here, the posts of teachers who are retiring every year are being abolished silently.

According to the Right to Education Act, there is a provision of two assistant teachers for up to 60 students in primary schools and one additional assistant teacher for every 30 additional students. Similarly, there is a provision of three teachers for up to 105 students in middle schools and one additional teacher for every 35 students. Instead of building new school buildings, renovating old ones and recruiting teachers, the BJP government is running a campaign to close schools and transfer teachers in the name of rationalisation. Rationalisation is the favourite pastime of the BJP, which it does every year before the start of the education session. Actually, this is a way of turning a blind eye to the real   challenges of school education. All the teachers' organizations of the state are strongly opposing this campaign of the BJP government.

Rationalisation means that teachers should be removed from schools which have sufficient teachers and sent to schools where there are less teachers than the norms, especially teacherless and single teacher schools. In this process, the quality of education in schools where education is satisfactory is also bound to be affected. The experience of past years of rationalisation also says that the quality of school education has not improved even a bit. Teacher organizations allege that in the name of rationalisation, one teacher is being removed from every school and 1762 teachers are being declared surplus. Even after this, 5536 additional teachers will be required.

In the previous BJP rule, more than 2000 schools were closed in the name of rationalisation. Almost all of them were in rural areas and the victims were thousands of rural children who were left out of the education sector due to the distance of other schools from the village and due to gender discrimination among girl students. Now in the new "Saayan-Saayan" rule of BJP, 4077 schools have been closed last year and preparations are on to close 2000 more schools in this academic session. It is being told that the number of students enrolled in these schools is less than 10. Thus, in this academic session, 10-15 thousand more children will be left out of school education. Needless to say, almost all the children will be from rural areas, tribal areas and economically weak children. Along with this, teachers are being shifted from one place to another on a large scale by opening a 'transfer industry'.

In the previous Congress rule, an innovation was made in the name of Swami Atmanand Schools with the aim of establishing centers of excellence in every block of the state, which tried to create an alternative to private schools. The general public was attracted to these schools on a large scale. But the BJP has never been in favour of these schools. Now, after the BJP has come to power, these centers of excellence are bound to die a slow and unannounced death. A crisis of adequate teachers has been created in these schools, along with this, a lack of means to create quality education is being created.

In the government schools of the state, children are being given free education, but children from first to fifth standard are being made to buy extra-curricular books printed by private publishers costing an average of Rs. 1000. The quality of these books is also a matter of concern. Every government school using books of different private publishers is an indication of the same kind of corruption that is a part of private schools. According to the Central Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation, the average monthly expenditure in Chhattisgarh is Rs. 2739 in rural areas and Rs. 4927 in urban areas, which is the lowest in the country. This unbearable burden on parents and the students dropping out of the education sector due to this can easily be imagined.

Last year's report of "ASER" (Annual Status of Education Report) highlights the reading and writing ability of school children. According to this report, only 52.7% children of class V studying in government schools are able to read a text of class II level, only 22.8% children can do division and only 11.3% children can read an English sentence. If this is the condition of the children of class V, then you can imagine the condition of the children of lower classes. This pathetic educational level of children is directly related to the poor condition of school education. The same report of "ASER" shows that in Chhattisgarh, 13.6% children up to the age of 15 years are not going to school. The BJP governments never thought about why these children are outside the scope of school education.

Rationalisation has another aspect and that is that the more government schools are closed, the wider the doors of privatization of education will be. According to a survey, in the last 10 years, in place of the schools closed, RSS-run schools like Saraswati Shishu Mandir have sprung up, which are working with the aim of saffronisation of education. These schools are running books outside the curriculum, which are prepared on the basis of completely unscientific approach and the concept of Hindutva and work to make children communal citizens. According to the government report itself, more than 2000 private schools have opened in the last 10 years, on whose fee structure and curriculum the government has no control. 

Today, the new education policy and saffronisation of education are closely related and the rationalisation campaign being run by the BJP government is a part of the campaign of privatisation and saffronisation of education. Therefore, the real fight is against the policy of privatisation and saffronisation being implemented in the name of the new education policy, which wants to immerse the educational world of the entire country in the darkness of unscientific thinking and ignorance and wants to create such a mind which takes pride in its ignorance. This policy is against the Constitution's directive to create a scientific education system and create a scientific-secular society. Therefore, the fight against privatisation and saffronisation of education is actually a fight to save the Constitution. Chhattisgarh will also have to fight this battle along with the entire country.


The author is an independent writer on politics, social and agrarian issues. The views are personal.