'Communalisation of Education'
organised by All India Shiksha Sangharsh Yatra. 2014 (AISSAY-Delhi)
on 19 November, 2014, 2.00 pm at JNU, Social Sciences- I,Seminar Room.
The speakers:
Prof. Harbans Mukhia, Prof. D. N. Jha and prof. Aditya Mukherji.
Chair: Prof. Prabhat Patnaik
[text of leaflet follows]
All India Shiksha Sangharsh Yatra. 2014
STRUGGLE FOR A FULLY STATE-FUNDED & ENTIRELY FREE ‘COMMON EDUCATION SYSTEM’
RESOLVE to fight against corporate capital, communal fascism, caste oppression and patriarchal structures that have denied the Right to Education to all children.
• Today education is beyond the reach of majority of children and youth even in Delhi, the national capital. Dalits, tribals, OBCs, muslims, disabled, and deprived and impoverished communities, and especially women in each of these sections, are denied education at all levels. Less than 15% of those enrolled in Class I complete Class XII but still hundreds of schools are being merged or closed, or being handed over to corporates, NGO’s and religious organizations by Delhi government and Municipal Corporations which are shamelessly running away from their constitutional responsibility towards our children.
• Discriminatory system of education allows the rich and forces the middle class to buy their place in expensive private institutions. Delhi’s law regulating fees has been superseded by the Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009 which has no regulation for private schools, so the Supreme Court had to intervene to order several elite Delhi schools to return with interest the excessively high fees they were collecting. The poor are segregated in ill-equipped and poorly funded government or private schools and colleges. Less than 3% of schools have complied with RTE norms, but the government is neither withdrawing recognition nor ensuring that they meet the specifications.
• Education is being distorted to prepare a skilled but slavish workforce for the global market. So the teaching cadre at all levels of education is being destroyed by misconceived teacher education and massive contractualization of teaching posts in Delhi’s government schools and in the universities.
• Democratic functioning in educational institutions is not being introduced or expanded. Even where it existed, as in the central universities, it is being cynically eroded to depoliticise the nation’s youth, although the goal of education is to create democratic and humane citizens to fulfil the country’s social-economic-cultural needs and build an egalitarian and just society.
• The constitutional values of secularism, equality, and promotion of critical scientific temper, are threatened by the deliberate injection of the sectarian and divisive agenda of communal forces in education curriculum, syllabi and appointments.
Can we keep quiet in face of such a deep-seated conspiracy against India and her people?
UNITE TO STRUGGLE FOR EDUCATION & EMANCIPATION!!!
• Discrimination within state-run or private educational institutions must be stopped. All schools should be brought under an equal and quality minimum standard of Kendriya Vidyalayas with only `single-shift’, daily regular classes offering all courses and streams. Only one skill-based/ vocational course should be taken by every student so no student is deprived of the opportunity to pursue higher education. All forms of discrimination between courses and facilities available in regular colleges and the School of Open Learning should be immediately stopped.
• For quality education, teaching posts in schools and universities have to be filled on a regular and permanent basis. The massive contractualization of teacher appointments is the major cause for the present crisis in education. Permanent recruitment with correct reservation roster, expeditious promotions, withdrawal of retrograde API system and resolution of issues relating to pensions are urgently required. Teachers should not be made to undertake any official, non-curricular tasks.
• For proper functioning of institutions all non-teaching posts must be filled on a regular and permanent basis. Outsourcing of sanitation, security and other auxilliary services should be stopped.
• Democratic decision-making is necessary if excellence in the educational achievements of teachers and students is to be promoted. All school management committees, and university and college decision-making bodies must have a majority of elected representatives of students, teachers and parents (in the case of schools).
• Appointments of heads of all schools, colleges, universities and institutions should not be delayed. Politicization of appointments at the top has compromised academic excellence and increased political interference. Administrators are increasingly acting in undemocratic and whimsical ways because there are no accountability mechanisms and/or due to political patronage. Fast track enquiries and exemplary action is necessary when institutional heads face charges of academic wrong-doing, faulty appointments, corruption etc.
• Mother tongue in a multi-lingual context should be the medium of education in all government and private schools. Students should be able to opt for a third modern Indian language from 6th grade onwards instead of being forced to study Sanskrit.
• Special educators in appropriate numbers and enabling infrastructure must be available on a permanent basis in all schools to comply with the needs of children with disability.
• A smooth and sensitive process of certification for positive discrimination measures is required to ensure delivery of welfare rights to rightful recipients.
• Teachers and students should not be compelled, out of fear of unconstitutional, unethical victimization for non-participation, to make pledges or attend programs that run counter to the academic character of institutions or violate their personal freedom of conviction.
• Education is a public good and self-financing, privatization and client-server relationships cannot be justified in educational institutions.
