I often feel that the people I run into in Eastern Uttar Pradesh offer me a reality check like none other. For instance, the other day I met a man who has completed school and is now enrolled in BA third year in a private college in Mirzapur district — but he has been a stranger to the classroom all his life. The only time he has gone to school or college is when he has to collect his admit card for final examinations. His story made me wonder if the quest for higher literacy rates has created a system in which schools and colleges feel compelled to pass almost every student they have, lest the failure rates expose their own shortcomings.
Twenty-four-year-old Lavkush Singh’s quest for an education that he could sustain along with a full-time job began when his father, an impoverished carpet weaver, decided that his son should earn some money instead of wasting his time attending school. “However, I dreamt of becoming a graduate and holding a government job one day,” he said. So I begged my father to let me continue in school. “Soon, a solution that suited both of them came to light. The school he was studying in was quite strict about attendance. However, a private school about 30 kilometres away was not. So he enrolled in that school, but started working in a neighbouring farm. At the end of the academic year, the school issued him an admit card for the examination, and Singh took 15 days off from work to study. This system worked satisfactorily till Singh reached Class X when the studies got a little hard, and there was a public exam at the end of the year. At that stage, he surmised that the school administration would be red-faced if too many of its students failed — a likely outcome as few students there ever attended class. It would, therefore, be in their interest to ensure a high pass rate — if not by fair means, then foul.
“I was, therefore, not surprised to see that cheating was rampant and authorities turned a blind eye to it,” said Singh, even as he averred he never had to resort to it. The same thing happened when the Class XII board exams came up, and Singh was able to pass even though by then he was working full-time as an agricultural labourer and tractor driver. While many of Singh’s contemporaries, who had also sailed through school without attending class, decided not to study further, he still nursed dreams of graduating from college.
His family fortune was still precarious, but Singh was confident he could hold a full-time job and get a college degree at the same time. “I again looked for a private college, for in my experience, although they didn’t teach much and charged a higher fee than government schools, they really want the students who are interested in studies to pass their exams and get promoted,” he said. “It’s social service, really.”
Soon Singh, the son of an illiterate weaver, will become the first in his family to graduate, and come closer to realising his dream of getting a government job. “With my educational qualifications I am sure to get something good,” he said. He had to leave, he said, as he had taken to copying chapter after chapter from his textbooks every morning to understand them better. As the diligent student left for work, I was left wondering at the wisdom of an education system that is churning up unemployable and uneducated literates — without even filling up its classrooms.
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