A ‘Dark Zone’ of School Education: A Reflection

By: Saswati Paik

1. Schools in difficult settings

Imagine a child in school washing plates after lunch without water. The child picking up a handful of sand to wipe off the oily remains from utensils and finishing it with just a touch of a wet towel! This is how bad the water shortage in the school is. Also, try to imagine that your child, while in school, is rushing to a nearby field to collect milk from domestic animals roaming there to prepare tea for teachers or any sudden visitor? The children do this because there is no single shop nearby, no electricity for the luxury of preserving milk in a refrigerator. If you have never seen this, you must visit public schools located in the semi-arid fringe area of the Thar desert in Rajasthan. In Sheo block, located around 50 km from Barmer city, which was the biggest block in Barmer district till the recent past, public elementary schools run within numerous constraints. Such constraints are hardly recognised or publicised and are rarely addressed.

You may find thousands of CSR initiatives and NGOs working and flooding resources in the government schools near Bengaluru City, but you will rarely find any footprint of such organisations in those areas declared as ‘dark zones’ mainly due to a natural scarcity of water resources. What happens to the schools and children there? That is just beyond your imagination if you have always been a city dweller.

2. Location of Barmer district and Sheo block

Barmer is the second largest district in Rajasthan, smaller only than Jaisalmer. Located in the western region of Rajasthan, Barmer shares its borders with Pakistan to its west, Jodhpur and Pali districts to the east, Jaisalmer district to the north, and Jalore district in the south. With a total area of 28,387 sq km, Barmer covers 8.3% of the total area of Rajasthan (Azim Premji Foundation, 2013).

Productive land and livelihood opportunities both are very limited here. 49.11% of the total area in Sheo is cultivable, only 0.62% of which is irrigated. In villages, water is supposed to be available from the Indira Gandhi Canal, but most villages hardly receive this water. The possibility of fetching water from this canal through pipelines is questionable given the distance of the canal from the villages (around 200 km), and the prevailing geophysical and climatic conditions. A few schools have initiated rainwater harvesting, but rain is extremely scarce. Due to the huge water crisis, utensils used for the mid-day meal in schools are first cleaned by sand, followed by wiping by a wet towel. One can imagine what happens to the maintenance of toilets. Schools are located in isolated places, shops are rare. Teachers depend on cattle in the nearby fields for milk to make tea, often children are sent to the field to collect it. I still remember a Head Teacher telling us that ‘humare paas chalta phirta refrigerator hai’ (we have a walking refrigerator). He was referring to the animals grazing around the school premises. Of course, young children there are very skilled in milking animals.

3. Human Development Parameters in Sheo block

As per the HDI of the districts in Rajasthan, Barmer ranks the lowest having an HDI value of only 0.4035 while Jaipur, the top-ranking district of the state, shows 0.7308 as its HDI value (Singh and Keshari, 2016).

Table 1: Ranks of districts of Rajasthan as per HDI values

According to Census 2011, 714 villages in Barmer district do not have a primary school, of these for 32 villages this facility is available at a distance of more than 10 km. Also, 1490 villages do not have any middle school. Of these, for 579 villages this facility is available at a distance of 5-10 km, for 111 villages at a distance of beyond 10 km. For most of the villages, the degree college is available at a distance beyond 10 km. Here, mention must be made that this district is mainly covered by the Thar desert where access by public transport has remained challenging till date.

Population in many parts of Barmer, including the Sheo block, is very sparse. The block has remained backward in terms of many human development parameters, as shown in the table below, presenting the latest census data.

Table 2: Sex ratio and literacy rate in Sheo block, Barmer (Rajasthan) as per 2011 Census

4. Types of schools in Sheo block

There are mainly eight types of schools in the Sheo block as per the management and grades offered and described below. The next table shows the number of each type of schools in this block as per 2017-18 DISE data. Table 2 below shows the details.

1. Schools run by the local body, grades offered 1-IV (Government Primary School or GPS) (medium of instruction: Hindi).
2. Schools run by the Department of Education, Rajasthan, grades offered I-VIII (Government Upper Primary School or GUPS) (medium of instruction: Hindi).
3. Schools run by the Department of Education, Rajasthan, grades offered I-X (Government Secondary School or GSS) (medium of instruction: Hindi).
4. Schools run by the Department of Education, Rajasthan, grades offered I-XII (Government Senior Secondary School or GSSS) (medium of instruction: Hindi).
5. Sanskrit Schools run by the Department of Sanskrit, Rajasthan, grades offered I-VIII in three schools and I-X in one school (medium of instruction: Sanskrit).
6. Private Schools run by private agencies.
7. Madrasas (run by Madrasa Board).
8. Shiksha Karmi Schools.

Table 3: Types of schools in the Sheo block, Barmer (Rajasthan) as per 2017-18 DISE data

What is most noticeable here is not merely the number of schools, but the grades taught in these schools. There are only 22 government schools in this block which education provide up to the 12th grade, whereas the number of elementary schools is quite high. There is no college in this block, the nearest college in Barmer is quite far and not well-connected with the remote villages.

5. Schools in the ‘dark zone’: Some questions around promises and reality

The 86th Amendment of the Indian Constitution inserted Article 21-A ‘to provide free and compulsory education of all children in the age group of 6-14 years as a Fundamental Right in such a manner as the State may, by law, determine’. As per the RTE Act 2009, free and compulsory education till completion of elementary education is supposed to be provided in a ‘neighbourhood school’.

5.1 What is ‘free’ for elementary school students here?
Only textbooks and tuition fees are ‘free’, not even the school uniforms. As per the latest school report cards available in the DISE data, most of the schools did not even receive textbooks for all children. How far are the ‘neighbourhood schools’? – the distance ranges from 2 to 10 km without proper roads.

5.2 What about the promise of free transportation and residential facilities?
The RTE Act of Rajasthan stated that the ‘State government or local authority shall make adequate arrangements, such as free transportation and residential facilities for providing elementary education’ in challenging areas, including the desert areas. But that promise has not been kept, schools are even not connected by roads.

5.3 Where are the basic infrastructural facilities?
Let’s look at the other areas of RTE compliance. Numerous schools do not have a sufficient number of classrooms or seating arrangements. Electricity connection is a luxury in many schools, even if it is there, most of the time, there is no electricity supply. Forget about Government Upper Primary Schools, even numerous high schools and higher secondary schools do not have computers for students’ use. Even in schools that are fortunate to have computers, those are mostly used for data collection and processing for administrative purposes. While visiting some of these schools, the pertinent question arises, ‘Is the term “right to education” just a promise on paper for these children?’

5.4 What are the motivational factors for students and teachers?
In many remote areas, schooling remains a policy on paper. For many children, the main incentive is the mid-day meal, their only meal of the day. Children come to school by walking barefoot from distant ‘dhanis’ (small hamlets). During summer vacations also, schools have to arrange the mid-day meal as per government policy if a drought is declared. Imagine a child walking barefoot on a sandy terrain for 8-10 km in 40-50°C temperature just to have lunch!! Also, imagine a teacher staying in such a remote area sacrificing his or her summer vacation just to serve mid-day meals to students.

Children in a school, sitting on the sand for their class

When I visit such places, I usually unlearn all theories related to teacher motivation, children’s outcomes etc, because all theories seem to be absolutely irrelevant to me. If people do not have the basic amenities, how can they even think of receiving or providing education? Education seems to be absolutely a luxury for the children and the teachers; and, teaching merely a ‘government job’ without the basic, minimum facilities in these remote areas.

5.5 What is the future of education beyond elementary education?
Numerous children do not get educated beyond 8th standard, obviously, girls are more vulnerable. Female teachers are rare in remote villages, most male teachers belong to districts other than the ones where they are posted. Apparently, to ensure teachers’ presence in schools, the transfer system has been made little complicated for the Barmer district. But it is unclear what motivation is expected from these teachers who belong to other districts and are keen to get transferred back to own districts to be with their families. The operational aspects expected in a decentralised set up of educational governance are missing.

5.6 Where is the association between schools and the community?
Despite the mandate of constituting School Management Committees (SMCs) in the RTE Act, there is hardly any functional SMC in the schools located in remote villages. How will these schools function? Illiteracy among the adults is widespread and those who are literate and able to come out of their homes are mostly males who often are against girls’ freedom and their education. Thanks to isolation from the enlightened world and absolute underdevelopment, this area nurtures all kinds of hardcore conservative norms of typical patriarchy from female foeticide, infanticide to child marriages and dowry deaths. Even a teenage girl can tell you stories about the killing of girl children in such areas.

6. The ‘whys’ that have no answer

In the Sheo block, there are only 13 high schools and 22 higher secondary schools against 174 primary schools run by the government. The nearest college is in Barmer City, which is 50-70 km away from the villages. The question arises. ‘Is the government at all willing to provide the opportunity of schooling to the children living here? If yes, then why couldn’t it provide public or school transport to the children to ensure their access to schools beyond elementary level? Why can it not plan for a better life for the teachers getting recruited in these areas so that they do not see it as a ‘punishment posting’? If the government doesn’t have the bandwidth to provide such facilities, why can’t it mandate the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs to invest in these areas rather than flooding schools in and around city areas with excessive and unnecessary resources?

A special drive to promote education among the local people to ensure the recruitment of teachers from the local communities is an immediate need here. Also, empowering the communities to take part in school-related activities may bring changes in resources and practices in schools. Will our new education policy provide a space for such a drive?

AUTHOR

Saswati Paik, Faculty, School of Education, Azim Premji University