Time To Rethink Sarva Sikhsa Abhiyan In Orissa? Five Things That Need To Change To Implement 'right To Education' Effectively

Time to Rethink Sarva Sikhsa Abhiyan in Orissa? Five things that need to change to implement 'Right to Education' effectively Dhanada Kanta Mishra State Advisor – Pratham, Orissa & Chairman – Human Development Foundation Executive Summary: The elementary education scenario in the state of Orissa is far from satisfactory in spite of gains achieved by Sarva Sikhsa Abhiyan. With the passing of the Right to Education Act., the state has only 3 years to implement its provisions and ensure universal, free and compulsory education of a guranteed minimum quality for all children. In light of the current state of affairs, it appears to be a tall order unless serious and urgent reforms are undertaken to bring in much needed accountability, ownership and motivation among all stakeholders to achieve the lofty goals of RTE 2008. While drafting the rules for implementation of the RTE in the state, it is proposed that a decentralised, pragmatic, flexible, progressive and incentive based approach to organisation, structure and governance of our massive school system be adopted. While a generation of young lives awaits for the system to respond to their fundamental right to education, its is every concerned citizen's responsibility to see that this once in a lifetime opportunity is not wasted.

Introduction The critical problems plauging our school education system in the state are quite well known. With the passing of the Right to Education (RTE) Act by the parliament, yet another window of opportuniy has opened up for the state to re-examine the status of our education system and usher in drastic reforms in order to achive the goals of free and compulsory education of an acceptable quality in the stipulated three years. A number of consultations have been organised by organisations like Human Development Foundation (HDF1) and Orissa State Secondary Teacher's Association (OSSTA) in the last few months where serious concerns have been expressed by a number of scholars, educationists and even buraucrats in charge of the system about the state's readiness to implement the Right to Education Act and accomplish its goals. As a result both these consultations have called for the immediate formation of a state level task force to facilitate the implementation of RTE 2008 including formulations of the detailed rules and manuals of implementation. While the national flagship program – Sarva Sikhsa Abhiyan (SSA) has made commendable achievement in areas such as augmenting the school infrastructure in remote areas, enrolment, teachers's appointment and training etc., it has consistently failed to achieve its goals leading to universal elementary education by given timeline the latest being 2010. In addition the Millenium Development Goal (MDG)2 requires that all countries must: “Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling”. In this context the upcoming implementation of RTE in the country and particularly in the state of Orissa presents a significant opportunity. From SSA to RTE Sarva Sikhsa Abhiyan was launched in 2001 as a result of 86th constitutional amendment making free and compulsory education to children between age of 6-14 years a fundamental right, with the following goals: 1.All in school by 2005. 2.Complete 5 years of primary education by 2005 and 8 years of schooling by 2010. 3.Satisfactory quality with emphasis on education for life. 4.Bridge all gender and social gaps at primary level by 2007 and elementary level by 2010. 5.Universal retention by 2010. The SSA framework3 states Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is an effort to universalize elementary education by community-ownership of the school system. It is in response to the demand for quality basic education all over the country. The SSA 1 http://hdf.ac.in/news/right_to_education 2 http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/education.shtml 3 http://ssa.nic.in/page_portletlinks?foldername=ssa-framework

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programme is also an attempt to provide an opportunity for improving human capabilities to all children, through provision of community-owned quality education in a Mission mode. By all available statistics, both government and non-government (such as the Annual Status Education Report, ASER4) indicates that as of 2009, although significant progress has been achieved, serious shortcmings are still evident in covering the last mile in terms of universal enrolment (for example number of children out of school in the 6-14 age group is variously estimated at 4-8% in Orissa) and more seriously in terms of age appropriate learning outcomes. This is vividly illustrated in the graph shown below taken from the ASER 2008 report for Orissa. This represents a serious challenge for all stakeholders in the education sector.

The framework further states with regard to participation of non-governmental organisations the following: Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan conceives a vibrant partnership with Non Governmental Organizations in the area of capacity building, both in communities and in resource institutions. These partnerships will require nurturing through an on going partnership in activities. The Research, Evaluation, Monitoring activities under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is proposed to be done in partnership with institutions/NGOs. This would improve transparency of programme interventions and would also encourage a more open assessment of achievements. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, 2008 seeks to give effect to the 86th Constitutional Amendment. All children between the ages of six and forteen years shall have the right to free and compulsory elementary education in a neighbourhood school. It was notified by the president of India after having been passed by both houses of Parliament on the 2nd September 2009. The states have 3 years from the date of notification to implement the provisions of the act. The Challenges Ahead Renowned linguist of Orissa, Padmashri D. P. Patnaik in his article titled “The Millennium Goal of Taking all Boys and Girls to Primary School in Orissa ”5 remarked on the state of education as follows: “Our education systems are pyramidal in structure. At the bottom of it, there are thousands of primary schools. At the top is a handful of higher education institutions accessible only to the English educated. The top layer is the result of filtration at different levels. Out of a hundred children at the ground level, 80 drop out by the 8th standard. At the 10th standard, only 30 to 40 percent pass and nearly fifty percent of them in third class. This means that they are good for no job. Thus, those who actually make it to the institutions of higher education are from the top 3 to 4 percent of the Indian population.” In this context, the current structure and operation of the elementary education sector should be re-examined 4 Www.asercenter.org 5 “The Halfway Mark and State of Realision of MDGs in Orissa” - Let's Keep our Promises Campaign, 2007

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and serious reforms must be ushered in to achieve the near impossible goals set by RTE. The critical problems facing the education sector as highlighted by numerous studies and evaluations are as follows in no particular order of priority: • Centralised administrative control – lack of decentralisation – lack of coordination and clarity between departmental structure and SSA structure • Lack of motivation among teachers due to several factors including lack of direct accountibility to parents and community as well as engagement in non-teaching work • Lack of uniform distribution of teachers owing tendency of teachers to serve in state, district and block headquarters rather than inaccessible rural communities • Lack of adequate number of qualified and trained teachers and mass recruitment of para-teachers • Inadequate financial resource allocation showing lack of priority for the sector • Lack of local ownership of schools In the current scenario almost 8% children in the 6-14 age group are out of school and almost 48% being pushed out of the system by the time they reach end of class VII, while the level of age appropriate learning competency is dismal to say the least as per the ASER report. In order to address this situation swiftly and effectively, radical reform is the order of the day. The future of an entire generation of children is at stake. While examining the myriad issues affecting education, the following five critical measures appear to be imperative for effective implementation of RTE in Orissa. In no order of priority they are: 1. Mission mode approach as opposed to bauracratic approach The Sarva Sikhsa Abhiyan was conceived as a massive mission mode project to achieve specific goals as stated above. Although independent national and state level organisations were created for the purpose the same were manned by functionaries drawn from government ranks, e.g., the state project director of Orissa Primary Education Program Authority (OPEPA) has typically been a officer of the Indian Administrative Service, where as the District Project Coordinators have been senior officers of Orissa Administrative Service. While there is much to be said in favour of such arrangement given that the SSA has to deal with government departments and administration headed by government officers for its day-to-day functioning, hence who better but government officials to man important positions. How ever, along with officers from government ranks came rules and regulations followed by government departments such as frequent transfers of the State Project Directors. For example, Orissa has seen three different State heads in the last 3 years besides frequent changes at district level. This along with many such practices need impartial and critical review. 2. Political Will at all Levels Education along with health and livelihood are critical areas of public welfare and hence need to be driven by strong political will. The example of recent developments in Bihar is a great example of changes that can be ushered in by strong political will from the highest level of government. Such will then have to be transmitted to every level of the political structure down to the panchayat for achieving strong positive results. 3. Addressing teachers's issues on a partnership mode Some how government teachers have become a much maligned lot. While the problems of the typical teacher in government school is well known ranging from multiple cadres, shortage, unequal distribution, lack of incentives and recognition, unfair non-teaching workload etc., the role of teacher's union and lack of motivation on part of school teachers is the single most threat to the implementation of the universal education. 4. Decentralisation of Governance Decentralisation of governance to the Panchayatiraj institution is a critical factor in creating local level ownership in the true spirit of 'neighbourhood schools'. In parallel with the increasing demand for givin more power to the panchayats as per the 73rd amendment to the constitution, the RTE presents an opportunity to

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transfer absolute authority to the School Management Committee and the panchayat in the true spirit of the Local Authority defined by the RTE 2008. In case of Orissa this will represent a reversal of the 'nationalisation' of village school started in early eighties. 5. Public-private-people Partnership Last but not the least in order to make elementary education a truly mass movement owned by the people, public-private-people's partnership in the true sense of the term must be implmented. As has been demonstrated time and again in different states including Orissa, when large nongovernment organisations such as BGVS or Pratham work hand in hand with government miraculous results have been achieved in a short span of time. Some of the suggested reforms may sound too radical for our system rooted in ancient British rules and procedures, but given the seriousness of the problem, every assumption need to be questioned in order to achieve the seemingly impossible goal of getting every child of the state to get elementary education of guaranteed minimum quality set by reliable measurement of outcomes in the next 3 years in which the Right to Eductaion to be enforced. Conclusion Addressing the All Indian National Conference at Wardha in 19396, Gandhiji referring to the importance of the 'Education of the hand' said: “ The late Madhusudan Das was a lawyer, but he was convinced that without the use of our hands and feet our brains would be atrophied, and even if it worked it would be the home of Satan. Tolstoy had taught the same lesson through many of his tales.” The grand vision of educating every child of the country as proposed by the Right to Education Act inspires glimses of Gandhiji's ideas of 'Basic Education' by returning the school to the community in the true sense. If the system can restructure itself as suggested above, then a fundamental shift in the way primary education is structured and delivered can be achieved in our life time. Once again a historic opportunity has presented itself to realise the dream of Gurudev Tagore when he said: Where the mind is without fear and the head held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action; Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

6 http://www.shoreditchcollege.org/pages/gandhi.pdf

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