Debate over poor in big schools

EDUCATION EQUALITY - PART I

A debate is on among agencies concerned with school education over the draft Bill for Free and Compulsory Education for children between the ages of 6-14.

The Bill, from the stable of the previous National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, has been recirculated after the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) assumed power at the Centre.

The Bill speaks of, among other things, reservation for the deprived sections of society in all schools and integration of students from these sections along with regular fee-paying students. The limit for reservation has not been set yet but the government hopes it will be 25 per cent.

The Bill also seeks to put in place a multi-tiered system of bodies and mechanisms like a habitation level elementary education authority, a local elementary education authority, district and metropolitan level authorities and a state-level authority. But what is being debated in academic circles is the question of integrating students from poor homes with fee-paying students.

Schools, which have received subsidised land from the government, are required by the law to accommodate the children of the deprived sections of society. Most schools have not set a quota for such students. In most cases, seen in several Delhi schools, students from such sections of society are accommodated in afternoon classes.

According to educationists like Karan Tyagi, the convenor of National Alliance for the Fundamental Right to Education, this goes against the spirit of equity that the law envisages.

The human resource development ministry, therefore, set up a committee headed by Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal, as part of a sub-committee of the Central Advisory Board on Education, to look into the matter.

This, however, failed to satisfy educationists like Anil Sadgopal, who were part of the sub-committee. According to sources, Sibal, in a report, had advised keeping private institutions out of the Bill's purview.

"The CABE report categorised private institutions in three ways""those not receiving any government aid, those not receiving any running expenses, and those which have received only a one-time capital grant like land from the government," said a top source.

The report was rejected at a stormy meeting in July this year, with Sadgopal accusing Sibal of keeping private institutions out of the ambit. Sibal submitted another modified report, but the jury is still out on that one.

The implementation of the Bill and its framing have the potential to be a rare experiment in "positive discrimination". While the government grapples with the various pulls and pressures on the issue, Delhi schools require to come up with a plan to integrate students from the deprived sections of society with fee-paying students.