Educationist Vinod Raina wasn't just an activist, but a link in the chain of thought on what ideal schooling should be. With Raina passing away last week, that chain is now broken.
Various events last week raised questions on the link between education and society. After a child was found dead after being bullied in school, the school campus saw heated exchanges between parents and teachers. A day later, a Delhi court pronounced death penalty for the four accused in the December 16 gang-rape case.
For Raina, who co-founded an alternative education organisation called Eklavya, education wasn't just about ensuring children learnt how to read and write, but about making a difference to society. Despite being part of various decision-making bodies in the government (he was member of the central advisory board on education), he failed to convince policymakers of this belief of his.
Raina was one of the architects of the Right to Education Act. That the Act was a watered down version of what Raina sought so passionately is another matter. He had sought a uniform schooling system for all, even insisting every government school be modelled on Kendriya Vidyalayas. The government, of course, dismissed these ideas, happy with a mere shell of the Act, without any substantial value addition.
Perhaps, one aspect on which Raina may be criticised is the fact that he chose to bear this betrayal of trust, rather than disassociating himself from the government and its plans to reform education which, he knew, was just a sham. He believed merely enrolling 200 million children and teaching them English or how to count was no solution.
One may say he was too much of an optimist, hoping a national curriculum would right all wrongs. A couple of months ago, he had pinned the failure of the Right to Education Act not on the Act itself, but the fact that the state education infrastructure had become inactive through the years. He blamed lack of monitoring, as well as a dearth of funds.
In his heart, he knew nothing was working and it wasn't with his powers to ensure things worked. Probably, this affected him more than the cancer his body was afflicted with.
If education ministers and policymakers start dreaming of the future Raina pictured for children, the society could be saved from a cancer that is slowly but surely nibbling away at its roots, a cancer that leads to parents and teachers blaming each other and razing down schools.
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