The Education Commission of India in its report in 1964-66 recommended the estab-lishment of a Common School System for all children irrespective of their class, caste, religious or linguistic background. The com-mission stated that in order to fulfil this pur-pose, neighbourhood schools should be es-tablished in all localities. It also recognised that this was the only way we can promote social harmony and equality of education. The commission did not specify where the management of these schools will rest. That is important only in a limited context. But more importantly this school system would have celebrated diversity and plurality...- Systems Failure, An interview with Anil Sadgopal, Times of India, 04/05/2004, [C.ELDOC.N20.04may04toi1.pdf]

The present school system, inherited from the colonial ruler, was developed on the principle of homogeneity in the late 19th century to respond to the needs of an industrial and hierarchical society in the west....

We have cultural advantages vis a vis the west with ‘‘unity in diversity’’ as part of our heritage. We have not created a separate special school system for the ‘‘disabled’’ and there is a process of ‘‘casual integration’’ in India’s ordinary schools. In terms of building up an egalitarian school system this country was ahead of the west when Gandhi presented his Basic Education scheme in 1937...

While arguing in favour of the concept of neighbourhood schools, the education commission (1964-66) advanced two reasons for a ‘‘good’’ education by eliminating social segregation in schools. First, it said, “a neighbourhood school will provide good education to children because sharing life with common people is... an essential ingredient of good education”. Secondly, “the establishment of such schools will compel rich, privileged and powerful classes to take an interest in the system of public education and thereby bring about its early improvement”. The ‘‘rich, privileged and powerful classes’’ never took interest in government schools, despite accepting the commission’s recommendations on the common school system in 1968, and later in the 1986 national education policies.

The Ramamurti committee while reviewing the 1986 policy asked for implementing the neighbourhood school concept as the ‘‘first step in securing equity and social justice’’. The CABE (central advisory board of education) committee on policy (1992) while examining the Ramamurti committee report asked the ‘‘privileged schools’’ to accept ‘‘social responsibility by sharing their facilities and resources with other institutions and facilitating access to children of the disadvantaged groups.’’ Some private schools in the metropolis are running ‘‘centres’’ for the ‘‘underprivileged’’ in the afternoon or in their outhouses — thus doing ‘‘excellence’’ in the forenoon and equity in the afternoon, devoid of the principle of addressing excellence and equity simultaneously.

A common school system was advocated by the Kothari Educa-tion Commission (1964-66) which was incorporated in the first Na-tional Policy on Education in 1968 and again in the second policy in 1986 as well as its modified version of 1992. The 1986 and 1992 policy statements were also approved by Parliament. What the various governments have done in the nineties is to give up on the con-cept of the common school, with-out seeking any explicit approval of Parliament in effecting this policy change. The dominant policy now is to provide various poor sections of society with cheaper and parallel streams of education under all sorts of euphemisms. The 83rd amendment also had this qualifying phrase but in the second sub-clause of Article 21A dealing with enforcement of the fundamental right. The latest Bill has cleverly deleted this second clause of Article 21 A, proposed in the 83rd amendment Bill, and attached the qualifying phrase to the main sub-clause of Article 21A which deals with the very provision of 'free and compulsory educa-tion'. Thus the 93rd amendment Bill will dilute the 83rd amend-ment Bill by allowing the government to abdicate itself of its obligation to ensure a minimum quality of education.

Private schools enjoy many exemptions from the government but never fulfil their constitutional obligations...

Apart from land, the government extends additional subsidies to private societies by (a) exempting their income and donations from income tax; (b) providing highly subsidised professional teacher training (in Delhi University, a B.Ed. costs the government more than Rs 1 lakh); and (c) duly recognising their schools, syllabi and examinations through government-subsidised CBSE or State Boards of Examinations (operating with NCERT/SCERT academic support). Yet, such schools have been allowed to go scot free without fulfilling their constitutional obligations.

The crisis was foreseen by the Kothari Education Commission (1964-66) which recommended the Common School System with genuine neighbourhood schools as the National System of Education. The most critical feature of a Common School System is equitable (not uniform) quality of education for all types of schools. Parliament has expressed its unambiguous commitment to the Common School System thrice in its resolutions on the National Policy on Education in 1968, 1986 and 1992. Yet, the concept could not be translated into practice because the political leadership and bureaucracy at all levels along with the intelligentsia found an escape route for their own children viz. the private school system. The only ethical option available to the private school lobby is to creatively evolve ways of ensuring a welcoming and socially harmonising environment. There is one last option. Return the land to the DDA with interest plus cost for breach of condition; the cost will include penalty for misuse of public property all these years. Surely, this would be in keeping with the ethics of the "free market"!

A Supreme Court judgement will now regulate private schools in Delhi in order to reduce the rich-poor divide...

THIS is one Supreme Court judgement that is bound to change the face of private school education in Delhi and possibly the entire country. In a bid to check the commercialisation of education and ensure that private unaided schools do not renege on their social obligations, the apex court delivered a three-pronged verdict earlier this week.

"This was done in order to promote integration of rich and poor sections of society and to drive home the fact that an educational institution has a social obligation to fulfil," says lawyer Ashok Aggarwal, who was part of the group that filed a pil on this matter in the Delhi High Court in 2002. Petitions such as these led the high court to eventually pass a judgement this January which has now been reiterated and upheld by the Supreme Court. Although the Supreme Court judgement was given in the context of Delhi's schools, it has an all-India implication. Any state choosing to enact a law to stem the commercialisation of education now has a precedent.

... "Parents with a monthly income of less than Rs 4,000 will qualify for the reserved quota," says a DoE official. The 25 per cent quota has its genesis in the land lease agreements of more than 260 private unaided schools in Delhi. These schools obtained land at concessional rates from the Delhi government on condition that 25 per cent of their intake would be in the form of freeships for children of poor parents. In January 2004, the high court had ordered private unaided schools to abide by the conditions in their land lease agreements. With the new verdict, even schools whose land lease agreements do not have such a clause will now have to reserve 20 per cent seats.

The Supreme Court Judgement of 27.04,2004 In the Modern School case is a historic judgement having far-reaching effects on School Education not only for Delhi schools but also for schools all over the country. The Supreme Court was primarily dealing with a case of the menace of commer-cialization of education as manifest in the exploitation of hapless parents in the form of arbitrary fee hike every year by unaided, recognized, private schools in Delhi. ...This Judgment is seen as a revolutionary step to make education in private schools affordable by common man and to encourage integration of children belonging to the weaker sections in the schools hitherto known as elite schools. It may be useful to know the background of this historic judgment. There are around 1500 unaided recognized private schools in Delhi that impart education from class LKG to XII to around one million children (one-third of the school-going child population of Delhi). Majority of children studying in these schools belong to the middle class, lower-middle class and a small percentage even belongs to the poor class. One of the major reasons of sending children to these schools is that the standard of education in government schools is so poor that even a poor parent does not wish to send his child to a government school. However, not all the government schools are bad.

- Arbitrary Fee Hike - Government Must Now Act Against the Unaided, Recognized Schools, Ashok Agarwal, Legal News & Views, 01/07/2004, [J.ELDOC.N00.01jul04LNV.pdf]

The CABE (central advisory board of education) committee on policy (1992) while examining the Ramamurti committee report asked the ‘‘privileged schools’’ to accept ‘‘social responsibility by sharing their facilities and resources with other institutions and facilitating access to children of the disadvantaged groups.’’ Some private schools in the metropolis are running ‘‘centres’’ for the ‘‘underprivileged’’ in the afternoon or in their outhouses — thus doing ‘‘excellence’’ in the forenoon and equity in the afternoon, devoid of the principle of addressing excellence and equity simultaneously.

Above all, it is the free pupil who will need all the help to adjust to the new environ-ment. Mere extra coaching of English will be insufficient. The social accept-ance of the reality that most other chil-dren in the class are much more affluent is essential. Or else, a number of these free pupils will develop an inferiority complex which can wreck them for years to come. To minimise the threat of such a complex, the free pupil must wear the same school uniform as the others. They must get books, notebooks and stationery which are the same. But all this costs money Who will finance them? During vacations, outstation trips are organised by most schools. Although they could be partly subsidised, the rest is paid by parents. How would a free pupil go on such trips? The unfortunate aspect of this compari-son game is that a child tends to be dis-tracted by the habits of his rich class mates and not 'ordinary' ones. Then there are constraints with regard to the problem of space. New secondary schools are allowed to start so long as the land at their disposal is not less than two acres. The older schools which began with, say, three acres as middle schools have leases which date back to the earlier restrictions. Several schools are finding it extremely difficult to have their leases brought up to date so that they can ade-quately expand to accom-modate a full secondary school. The latest govern-ment policy about free pupils will put consider-able pressure on space. The fault in this regard does not lie with the Delhi govern-ment. The problem is caused by the multiplicity of agencies. For example, one agency allots the land and another sanctions the building...

Four sets of spurious arguments have been offered against the order. First, children from weaker sections will feel "completely lost and alienated in a public school". This is virtually an admission that private schools do not promote values of equality, social justice and human dignity. If inculcation of such values is not the goal of these schools, one wonders whether they are imparting education at all...! A private school principal claimed the presence of an underprivileged child in a private school "can be very damaging to his psyche". The principal apparently does not realise that the very existence of such exclusive schools might be "damaging the psyche" of crores of India’s children, thereby institutionalising socio-political tensions for generations to come.

The second argument is about the presumed inability of the underprivileged child to compete with privileged children. There is no research that establishes the inherent superiority of the privileged child over the underprivileged one. In fact, the available evidence demonstrates that the underprivileged child can learn just as well as any other child, provided an appropriate learning environment is ensured. It is also being contended that if the order is implemented, the government classrooms will not have enough students left. Let us get some statistics right. No more than 30 per cent of Delhi’s children study in unaided recognised schools. Also, almost 40 per cent of Delhi’s children in the 6-14 age group are out of school. Let the benefit of free-ships in private schools go to this section on a priority basis.

The last argument is about the lack of finance. There are three simple ways to deal with this issue. One, private schools should stop being extravagant in their extracurricular activities and infrastructural facilities. Two, hike the fees. It will only mean lower consumption of cold drinks, pizzas or ice creams at home or less frequent vacations abroad! Third, the government can help build a special fund for the children on free ships by contributing money equal to what it spends per child/year. This fund can be used to meet the cost of uniforms, stationery, books and other contingencies.

Several misconceptions about the Com-mon School System have been systematically promoted by pri-vate school lobbies. For instance, it is the farthest thing from a uni-form school system. Rather, it lays the basis for responding to the rich geocultural diversity of the country. The UPA govern-ment may consider supporting a nation-wide debate on this issue. Advanced economies of the world, including USA, Canada, several European countries or Japan, were built on the founda-tion of a publicly-funded efficient school system that ensured education of equitable quality for all children. This sociological princi-ple of educational planning, hitherto ignored in India, is the basis of the Common School System. It also flows out of the CMP's commitment to womens' empowerment and "full equality of op-portunity, particularly in educa-tion and employment for SCs, STs, OBCs and religious minori-ties". Indeed, it is the only histori-cal option before us. The CMP can ignore this principle only at grave risk to India's survival as a civilised nation.

The government lack of political will often leads to the detriment of the weaker sections of society... paralell systems of low quality education started as a substitute to the Common School System

Although the policy was committed to establishing a common school system through the promotion of neighbourhood schools, as recommended by the Kothari Commission (1964-66), the parallel stream of non-formal education became the dominant policy imperative. This effectively marginaliesd the concept of common school system and the constitutional principle of equality. Quality education rapidly became the preserve of the privileged, making education a commodity.

The policy was pushed forward ruthlessly in spite of wide public criticism and the principle of equality enshrined in the Constitution. The government's refrain of `something is better than nothing' seemed to justify, instead of questioning, the collapse of education policies during the past 56 years. The concept of a parallel stream was first institutionalised by the 1986 policy in the form of non-formal education for the poor, especially child workers.

The concept of the common school system was, however, incorporated thrice in education policy — in 1968, 1986 and 1992. Yet, the past decade played havoc with the idea by instituting a variety of parallel, low quality educational streams, such as non-formal centres, alternative schools and EGS centres, essentially through World Bank-sponsored school interventions.

- Back to Basics: CABE Examines Social, Cultural Basis of Education, ANIL SADGOPAL, Times of India, 18/08/2004, [C.ELDOC.N20.18aug04toi1.html]

Directionless Elementary Education Policies : The Government, composed of by the upper caste and upper class bureaucrats and political leaders, never showed any sincerity to introduce common schools in the education system. This is evident from the fact that the Central Government declared setting up of Central Schools and Sainik Schools in 1968, making separate syllabus with well-furnished school buildings and infrastructure for the central government employees soon after the First Education Policy in 1968, belying the objectives of the common school system to acquire equality. The National Policy for Education (NPE) (1986) also talked about the uniformity in school curriculum. But the same policy also envisagedto start one Navodaya Vidyalaya in each district of the country, assuming that such schools would be a pace setter to all the schools of the district.

How can a Navodaya Vidyalaya, which spends Rs 12,000 per student per year on an average, contradictory to a Government school which spends Rs 350 per child annually, become a pace setter? Besides, a Navodaya Vidyalaya gets at least Rs 3 crore for the construction of school building, whereas a Government school hardly gets more than Rs 20,000 at a time for the same purpose (Sadgopal 1998:5-19).

There are disturbing media reports that the Delhi state government is at present negotiating with the public school lobby to lower the percentage of seats for freeships from 25 to 10 per cent or even less under the pretext of making rules for ad-missions from the weaker sections of society. What right does the government have to even undertake such negotia-tions and that, too, with the violators of law? These negoti-ations, deplorable and unhealthy as they are, can be chal-lenged in the court. The government is morally bound to withdraw from such negotiations forthwith and start con-sultations instead with parents' groups belonging to the weaker sections of society for whose benefits these rules are supposedly being framed.Quota System Government Schools

Thereafter having been pulled up by the High Court, the government issued a list of as many as 142 defaulter schools with percentage of freeship under the allotment letter.

It is unfortunate that both the government and the DDA have deliberately failed to honour the High Court verdict by not compelling the schools to discharge their social and legal obligations.

- Is the Government Taking the Weaker Sections for a Ride as Regards Their Integration in Public Schools? Ashok Agarwal, Legal News and Views, 01/09/2004, [J.ELDOC.N20.010904LNV27.html]

Common School System creates autonomy, allows communities to decide the kind of quality of education they receive...

Contrary to popular perception, CSS does not mean a uniform type of education across the country. Rather, the word common guarantees a common equal quality of education to every child from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. Every child here means every child. And this is irrespective of her economic class, caste, gender, disability, religion or any other discriminatory factor. The instrumentality of CSS is the neighbourhood school funded solely by the government but controlled by the neighbourhood.

There is decentralisation of real powers to such a school as opposed to mere decentralisation of instructions from Delhi. Thus the school decides budgets which are dutifully paid by the state; the community has a say in the hiring of teachers, the curriculum content and other issues critical to the running of the school. Most important, the quality level in each neighbourhood school in CSS is such that ordinarily a parent does not feel the need to send her child to expensive private schools outside the system.

Reports:

Policy
1. National Policy on Education 1986 (As modified in 1992) National Policy on Education, 1968, Government of India, 01/01/1998, [R.N00.34],
- Equalisation of Educational Opportunity- pg 40-42 (scan)

2. Common School System, Retrospect and Prospect, NCERT, 1999

3. - Report of the 2nd Open House on ‘Fundamental Right to Education: Whose Responsibility?’, Avehi Abacus, 12/03/2004 FRE, SSA, Common School System, Enrolment, Government Schools (good report), [R.N21.51]

4. BCPT Meeting: Municipal School Education in Mumbai – A meeting of VOs, on 25/08/04 at SNDT Women’s University, Speakers: Farida Lambay, Ramesh Joshi, Trevor Miranda, Bina Sheth N21 (Put CED Code)

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Books:

Inequality in Education
1. Education For Social Change, Desrochers, John, Centre for Social Action, 01/01/1987, B.N00.D2, - “Common School System and Neighbourhood Schools” pg 300-301

2. Kothari Commission, Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd, [B.N00.B16] . “Common School System” – pg 160

3. Ch 3 Implications of a Divisive School System p.g 44, What is Worth Teaching?, Kumar, Krishna, Orient Longman, 1992, [B.N21 put CED code

4. Education and Democracy in India, Ch 11 The Meaning of the Old School Tie: Private Schools, Admission Procedures and Class Segementation in New Delhi, Anne Waldorp pg 203 ,Manohar, 2004, [B.N00.V1]