 "Academics up in arms against Delhi govt's education Act changes")
The Delhi government’s move to amend provisions of the Delhi School Education (DSE) Act, 1973, and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, has met with opposition from right to education (RTE) activists and educationists.
The DSE (Amendment) Bill, 2015, tabled in the Assembly by Education Minister Manish Sisodia on November 20, proposes to remove, among other things, Section 10 (1) of the Act, which provides that the employees of a recognised private school are not paid less than their counterparts at a government school.
Explaining the loopholes in the proposed amendment, Supreme Court advocate and All-India Parents Association President Ashok Agarwal says: “It takes away the right to pay parity for employees of recognised private schools guaranteed by Section 10(1) of DSE Act. The section says that all employees of recognised private schools are entitled to benefits under provisions of Central Pay Commissions, revised from time to time. If this proposed amendment is passed, no employee will be entitled to pay and emolument benefits under the 7th Pay Commission coming into force from January 1, 2016.”
“The 42-year-old provision, which was achieved by workers after a long struggle, has been taken away by the state government in one stroke… It will allow schools to exploit teachers,” he adds.
Commenting on the matter, Shantha Sinha, former chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, says: “It will affect the way we look at teachers. They have to be seen as qualified professionals like doctors and lawyers. Diluting qualities of the profession is unfair. When you talk of private schools playing to the market, there can be a situation where the amendment will dilute the salary of private school teachers.”
Both Agarwal and Sinha are members of India Campaign for Education, a national forum that is opposing the amendments proposed by the Delhi government.
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The government has a different view on this. Atishi Marlena, advisor to the Delhi education minister, says: “A few laws are only on paper, not in reality. As of now, pay parity exists only on paper. Private schools say they need to charge a fee of about Rs 2,500 a month from each student to pay teachers according to the 6th Pay Commission provisions. According to our data, 70 per cent of private schools in Delhi do not charge so much. There are over 1,000 schools in Delhi that charge less than Rs 1,000 a month from each student.”
“Leaving apart the top 20 per cent of schools, private school teachers at the primary level in Delhi are paid an average salary of Rs 5,000 a month,” she added.
Explaining the need for the amendment, Marlena says: “If we strictly impose the current law on pay parity, we will have to close down a large number of private schools in Delhi. That will not be in the interest of teachers and also create an educational crisis. These schools that charge less cater to certain economic strata. We cannot turn a blind eye to corruption and teacher exploitation. We are not removing Section 10 (1) of the DSE Act; instead, we are amending it to put in an enabling provision that says private schools will pay salary to teachers as prescribed by the government.”
“The government will set up a committee to look into the accounts of schools. There are two proposals. First is fixing a gross revenue share that a private school will have to spend on salaries. And the second is setting up bands, where salaries will be correlated with the fee charged by a school. The ones that can afford to match the government school pay will continue to do so.”
Another amendment, through the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Delhi Amendment) Bill, 2015, proposes to remove Section 16 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, which provides for non-detention of children till class 8. Sinha says this will demoralise children. “The purpose of the RTE Act is to ensure children go to school, and not drop out. The impact of detention has often been that children drop out. At least 28 states already had a non-detention policy in some form when the RTE Act was implemented.”
On September 17 this year, Rajasthan had also passed a Bill for amending the RTE Act to do away with the non-detention policy in recognised government schools.
Agarwal contends that this move is being taken at the behest of the government school teachers’ lobby. “There is a general perception, with some justification, that government school teachers do not do their jobs properly. There has been no difference in the learning levels of children before and after the introduction of the policy. However, it provided these teachers an excuse — that they cannot ensure quality education if they cannot detain a student,” he says.
Defending the removal of the non-detention policy, Marlena says: “The Delhi government believes in stress-free education. In a perfect world, we would have wanted such a policy. However, this is a policy whose time has not yet come. In a completely broken government school system, the policy removed all accountability of teachers, students and parents. There has been a steady decline in the results of summative assessment.”
Agreeing that removing the policy will not have an overnight impact, Marlena says: “Removing the non-detention policy alone will not improve learning levels. We have introduced other programmes for that. We are looking at improving schools through teacher training, capacity building of school principals and a focused outreach on basic learning levels. We are also looking to bring improved evaluation methods. However, we also need some level of accountability.”