Geetanjali Krishna: Pass-karai fees for the boards

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Board examinations are just round the corner, but there's no exam fever in Rajkumari's house. Her son, Sanju, is appearing for his class X examinations this month, but is not burning the midnight oil, poring over books.

Instead, he's somewhere in Delhi, doing dishes in some roadside dhaba. "We sent him there for a few months to earn some extra money "" the exam is important, but so is this. Anyway, I'm sure he'll pass!" she says.

Rajkumari and Sanju's story is typical of many cash-strapped villagers in eastern UP. He is the first in the family to attend school.

"We have four daughters and a son, and wanted that at least he should be educated," she says. But this came at a cost, as it always does, when the family is poor and educating a 14-year-old means the loss of a wage.

"But the teacher of the village primary school told us that sending Sanju to school would ensure his bright future, so we sent him to study though god knows we could have used an extra income," says Rajkumari.

Last year, she and her husband were forced to take a loan of Rs 5,000 from the local moneylender for their eldest daughter's wedding. "Ever since, we need to pay Rs 250 towards the loan, and whenever we've fallen short, our creditors have come to our doorstep to claim their money," she says. A poor crop last year left them worse off than before. So, when her sister who runs a roadside dhaba in Delhi mentioned she needed an extra hand, Rajkumari and her husband decided to send Sanju to her for four months. This way, they believed, Sanju could earn some money and still carry on enrolled in school. "His salary of Rs 750 has been very useful to us in these difficult times," she says, "and we are going to call him back a week before the board examinations so that he can get promoted!"

How can she be so sure that he would pass after missing most of the academic year? I wonder. By the by, the secret of her confidence emerges. "Passing has been no problem until now," she says, "every year, after the final examinations, the teacher takes a fee from all the students. Then they're promoted to the next class." The fee, says she, is called pass-karai (enabling students to pass the exam), and everyone has to pay it, regardless of whether they are good students or bad. What about his attendance records? I ask. She shakes her head in the negative: "children here aren't kept back for poor attendance, teachers are happy they come at all!"

I inform her that the board examination is a public exam, and consequently there won't be any pass-karai fee to help all students clear it. "Oh but that's so unjust!" she exclaims indignantly, "how will our children pass class X if there's no pass-karai fee?" Those who get passing marks, pass "" I say "" and the ones who don't, fail. Rajkumari is aghast: "What is the point of Sanju's wasting an entire year in school if he doesn't eventually pass! What about the bright future that the teacher promised us?" says she.

Turning to me, she says, "why don't you try to pressurise the government to pass the children of poor people like us in the board examinations? We'll even pay the pass-karai fee "" as we've done all these years to get our children promoted up to class X!"