The Supreme Court's refusal to intervene in the ban imposed by multiple state governments on visits to government schools by outsiders—a response to the CJP's School Thik Karo campaign—suggests that the campaign has raised concerns within the Indian establishment. This reaction is understandable, as education serves purposes beyond acquiring basic numeracy and literacy skills.
It can be a liberating force, freeing minds from superstition and irrationality toward scientific temper. However, improving infrastructure in government schools is only a first step. Physical upgrades do not automatically improve schooling quality or reduce dropout rates, as illustrated by Delhi's experience during the AAP government.
Historically, denying education to workers—the Sudras and the untouchables—was a key tool for perpetuating upper caste hegemony. In the 21st century, a similar outcome has been achieved by dividing primary schooling into private and government institutions. Children of better-off sections attend private schools, while the poor enroll their children in government schools. Government schools have been made largely dysfunctional, with some exceptions. Despite often being dilapidated and run down, they remain preferable to many private schools for a large number of parents. Government schools are losing students because of a widely held perception that teachers in these schools do not teach. This perception is grounded in reality, as numerous ASER surveys attest. Many government teachers do not attend school regularly, paying off supervisors or recruiting others to fill the roster. Even when they attend, little teaching occurs in most schools. One explanation offered for this neglect is a historical feudal mindset that questions who will do manual labour if everyone becomes educated.
Seventy-five years after independence, the ruling classes have created a schooling system that ensures vast masses of the population remain functionally illiterate. According to the 75th round household survey by NSSO in 2017-18, the number of out-of-school children aged 6 to 17 years is 3.22 crore. The primary schooling system is not divided merely into government and private categories; numerous subcategories exist within each. Government schools include central schools, Navodaya Vidyalayas, Model schools, and now PM Shri schools. Private schools range from basic schools charging Rs. 500 per month to those charging astronomical sums for the upper middle classes. Indian society, divided into numerous castes, has reproduced these divisions within primary education. This ensures a supply of cheap and docile labour that will never be able to unite.
A common schooling system is the only means to achieve universal foundational literacy and numeracy skills, the basis for any modern nation. As long as two systems exist—one for the rich and one for the poor—the system for the poor will never work effectively. Most major countries, including the most capitalist ones, have a common school system. Education has been the focus of numerous commissions, policies, and civil society initiatives in India. However, except for the first post-independence Kothari Commission in the sixties, none engaged seriously with the common school system. While the Kothari Commission recommended its adoption, this recommendation was never implemented. Subsequent policies have been silent on the theme. The most significant legislation on the subject, the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009—pushed fervently by civil society—enshrined schooling until 14 years as a fundamental right but did not include the concept. Instead, it sought a quota for disadvantaged children in private schools. The common school system does not even find mention in the New Education Policy document.
Both civil society and the state have largely taken a techno-managerial rather than political approach towards "fixing" the current education landscape. The role of caste and class prejudices in denying education to marginalised sections has never been acknowledged by either. The ASER survey, otherwise meticulous with extensive data on various educational parameters, has no caste-related data to capture the differential reach of education among different castes. Caste remains the proverbial elephant in Indian society, determining everything yet acknowledged nowhere.
Unless this basic dichotomy in the current elementary education system between private and public schooling is eliminated by mandating a common school system, the goal of achieving universal foundational numeracy and literacy will never be achieved. The CJP must carry forward its movement to improve government school infrastructure to its logical conclusion by adopting the demand for a common school system.
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*With the Centre for Labor Research and Action
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