No Sh*t!!

The Prime Minister has launched, with much fanfare, a programme to clean India over the next five years, just in time for the Mahatma's 150th birth anniversary.  A thoroughly laudable objective, but one that sadly runs the real risk of being reduced to tokenism and forgotten once the cameras have been put away. Already there are snickers in the media and cynical comments about the mess left behind after the inaugural ceremonies, proof if any were needed, that it will be difficult to change public perception in a hurry.

Along with the plans for building toilets in schools and villages, there has also been discussion about IEC programmes - information, education and communication - to create mass awareness about the importance of cleanliness and good sanitation.  And with good cause - nearly 53% Indians still defecate in the open, with 47% finding it "pleasurable and more convenient", and the less said about our cleanliness habits the better.  In many ways, the situation is reminiscent of 1950s America, where more homes then had television sets than bathrooms.  And yet, in the space of a few generations, that picture has changed completely.

In all the public debate resulting from the PM's initiative, it seems to me that an important component of IEC has been missed; or at least, has not found significant mention.  This is of course, the need for a comprehensive Water & Sanitation programme to be run in our schools.  If we are truly serious about ensuring a clean nation, we need to begin young.  And what better place to begin than in our schools?  The present generation may or may not be educatable, but a well designed programme implemented in school over the next five years could change the future of this country.

Many years ago, I used to run a joint Government of India and UN project called Janshala.  In Karnataka, where the project ran in a few blocks, we implemented a Water & Sanitation programme with the help of UNICEF that involved teaching children how to use the school toilets.  This included usage, cleaning and personal hygiene, and helping the children to understand how disease could spread due to poor sanitation habits.  The programme was a great success in improving attendance and retention rates in the schools, particularly of girls who are the most vulnerable to dropping out in the absence of toilets.

More interesting however, was the unintended fall out of the programme.  A longitudinal study taken up at the time showed that as the children got accustomed to using toilets in school, they began to demand them at home.  Over time, this led to the construction of toilets in village homes, and to families of these children also acquiring good sanitation habits.  The school programme ended up having a multiplier effect, impacting not just the children's cleanliness habits, but also their families.  It is precisely this kind of programme that we should be planning for the schools now.

Instead of prescribing Mr Dina Nath Batra's flights of fancy to young minds, wouldn't it be great if State governments worked out and included a WatSan module in the school curriculum?  Combined with the mass construction of toilets in schools by governments and companies undertaking CSR works, this could be the one thing that changes the India we know.

The History of the Right to Education Act

Speaking to a group of young professionals and interns at the Planning Commission a couple of months ago, at the invitation of my old friend and colleague, Pawan Agarwal, I realised that many of us are unaware of the background to the Right to Education Act.  Why indeed, did Parliament find it necessary to consider making education a Fundamental Right, much before it considered a Right to Food or a Right to Livelihood?  Here’s the full story.

From the earliest times, education in India had always been exclusive; only the Brahmins and some very rich families had opportunities for their children to be educated.  The rest managed by acquiring the skills they needed to earn their livelihood.  It was only towards the end of the nineteenth century, as the Freedom Movement began to pick up momentum, that a demand for mass education began to be articulated.  Among other things, leaders of the time realised that education was a tool that could be used to mobilise the masses, thereby increasing the pressure on the British to consider leaving.  For instance, one of the earliest political steps initiated in Gujarat in the 1920s by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel involved taking over the management of local municipal schools.

The first formal demand for compulsory primary education was raised in 1910 by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who introduced a Bill for the purpose in the Legislative Council, based on Britain’s own Compulsory Education Act of 1870.  Not surprisingly, it saw no progress.  Mahatma Gandhi called for universal primary education in the 1930s; an apocryphal tale says that he was told by the wise men that primary education could only be universalised by imposing a cess on liquor sales, thus forcing him to choose between two deeply held beliefs.  Gandhi, being the man he was, is reported to have retorted that if the only way to educate India’s children was through a cess on liquor revenues, it was better for them to stay uneducated!  His articulation of Nai Talim in 1937 was thus at least partially in response to those who believed that education was not for the masses.

The debates in the Constituent Assembly link the question of education intimately to the very foundation of our democracy.  When the issue of suffrage was debated, one school of thought held that only educated citizens should be allowed to vote.  Nehru, Ambedkar and others differed, holding that it would be unacceptable to fritter away freedom hard won from the British by creating yet another society that differentiated between its citizens.  They believed, and said so forcefully, that every citizen of the fledgling democracy then being fashioned should be treated as an equal, such equality being translated into universal adult suffrage, or the right of every citizen to participate in our democracy.

What a powerful vision of the future our founding fathers had, and what a leap of faith they took!  To be so forward thinking in the late 1940s as to imagine a country in which everyone, high or low, rich or poor, educated or illiterate, could participate in was unbelievably hopeful.  Remember that these were people who had themselves grown up in a country ruled by foreigners, and in a world order that took things like caste and social stratification for granted.  The reach and scope of their forethought is almost dizzying in its audacity.

And yet, though they wished to make education the bedrock of our democracy, sadly they were unable to overcome the constraints of resources.  Despite its best efforts, the sub-committee set up by the Constituent Assembly reluctantly concluded that it would not be possible for the newly independent India to fund universal primary education as a Fundamental Right; as a compromise, the Assembly agreed to include reference to free and compulsory education as a Directive Principle of State Policy in Article 45[1] of the new Constitution.  And in a nod to the importance of this provision, the Article was the only one that came with a time frame of ten years for its implementation.

Unfortunately the time frame of ten years was never respected, and even though an attempt was made to articulate a vision for education through the National Policy on Education in 1968, it remained largely forgotten till the early eighties.  The declaration of a new National Policy on Education in 1986 marked a revival of interest in the subject, and was accompanied by international commitments made in the nineties (Education for All, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, etc), as well as greater civil society and governmental action.

The judiciary also played an important role in steering the country towards a universal right to education.  In the case of Mohini Jain vs State of Karnataka & Ors in 1992, the Supreme Court held that the right to education is concomitant to the right to life, that every citizen had a right to education, and significantly, that the very act of recognition by government of a privately managed institution created an instrument of State that could be used to deliver the obligations of the State.  Reviewing this decision in 1993, the Supreme Court, in the case of J P Unnikrishnan vs State of Andhra Pradesh & Ors, held that the right to education is implicit in and flows from the right to life guaranteed under Art 21, and that every child has a right to free education until she completes the age of 14 years; thereafter her right is circumscribed by the economic capacity of the State.

Both these judgments were significant in bringing about the right to education.  It was as a result of the latter judgment that the Constitution was amended through the Constitution (86^th Amendment) Act of 2002, which introduced a new Article 21A providing that “the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine”.

The Amendment Act also modified the original Article 45, to now provide that “the State shall endeavour to provide early childhood care and education for all children until they complete the age of six years".  And finally, it modified Article 51, to stipulate that it would be a Fundamental Duty of every parent/guardian to provide opportunities for the education of their children/wards.

Unlike other Fundamental Rights in the Constitution however, this one was worded in a manner that made the enactment of a specific legislation essential for its operationalisation (the critical words being “in such manner as the State may, by law, determine”).  Thus it was that several versions of the Central law were drafted and discussed between 2003 and 2009, before the law was finally passed as The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009.

So there you have it – the story of the Fundamental Right to Education guaranteed by our Constitution.  A right that is deeply linked to our identity as citizens, and to the quality of our participation in the democracy that is India.

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[1] “The State shall endeavour to provide, within a period of ten years from the commencement of this Constitution, for free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen years.”

The Value of Early Childhood Education

The other day, I attended a talk in Delhi by the Nobel Laureate James J Heckman, Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago (he of the Heckman Equation).  Organised jointly by the University of Chicago and the Centre for Civil Society, Heckman's discussion focused on the value of investing in early childhood education, a proposition long recognised but sorely neglected not just in our country, but in many parts of the world.

 

It is almost universally accepted in theory that the early years of a child determine her progress and well-being in later life.  Good, wholesome nutrition, appropriate medication and supplements, and preparatory education are all equally important for development of the child.  Equally significant, a lack of appropriate stimulation in early childhood can have a lasting impact on the individual's mental and physical development.

 

Heckman’s work has shown that investing in early childhood education can lead to a 7-10 percent rate of return for society per annum, in terms of greater productivity, reduced health costs, lower crime rates, etc.  However, in his view, merely establishing preschool education centres is not always the most appropriate solution; he believes that a substantial part of early stimulation should originate through a closer bond with the parents, who need to be helped to play their role more effectively.

 

In India, it has frequently been observed that children who have had some form of preparatory education before the age of six years are more likely to continue on to elementary and secondary education, and less likely to drop out before completion.  The importance and impact of early education has been acknowledged by thinkers and policy makers, and finds mention in the major policy discourse; here too, the link between the pre-school and the family has been discussed and emphasised.  Acharya Vinoba Bhave described it best, stating that for effective learning, “home should enter the school and school should change into home”.

 

The 12th Five Year Plan also articulates the importance of preschool education, saying that “...research from around the world highlights the importance of early childhood education, and suggests that high-quality early childhood education may have the highest long-term returns in terms of improved human development.  The Twelfth Plan will therefore place a high priority on universalising pre-school education and improving school preparedness – especially for historically and economically disadvantaged children”.

 

The primary government vehicle for early childhood education remains the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme, launched in 1975 to address the problems of malnutrition and disease among young children, and to ensure their holistic development through preschool education.  However as a departmental committee examining this issue in 2004 noted, the number of children enrolled in preschool centres through ICDS and allied programmes was not more than 20 percent of the total eligible children in this age group; the rest were either enrolled in private preschools, or not enrolled at all.  This position has not changed substantially in the ten years since.

 

One of the problems is that ICDS tends to focus more on the nutritional aspects of the programme, to the detriment of the education component.  The government’s Allocation of Business Rules place education policy in the Ministry of HRD, and early childhood education in the Ministry of Women and Child Development; as a result, the latter often tends to fall between two stools, with neither department paying much attention to it.

 

The original Directive Principle under Article 45 of the Constitution enjoined the State to “endeavour to provide free and compulsory education to all children below the age of fourteen years”, thus accepting the importance of early stimulation before the beginning of formal education in Grade 1.  However when the Constitution was amended in 2002 to make elementary education a Fundamental Right, it was restricted to the age group of 6-14 years only.  This was largely due to financial reasons, but also perhaps because the sponsoring Ministry (HRD) was not directly concerned with the subject!

 

Although ICDS has now been “universalised”, its focus remains on the non-educational aspects of the programme.  As with other government schemes, it is plagued by allegations of mismanagement, leakages, and downright corruption.  And the preschool component remains weak.  Superficial universalisation, of the “mile-wide and inch-deep” kind so beloved of our politicians, carries with it more risk of damage than not doing anything at all.

 

Today, preschool education is largely in the hands of private managements; in itself, this may not be a bad thing, but it does limit the availability of preschool services to only those who can afford to pay for them.  No permissions are needed to start a preschool; as long as you have the necessary space, even if it is within your own home, you can start a preschool for children below six years.  Naturally this has implications, including those of safety, security and the quality of care and education delivered to the child.

 

Given the research of Heckman, Robert Lynch, and others, it is clear that the social, economic and financial benefits of government investing in early childhood education are extraordinary.  One can only hope that the next government will give this area the attention it so desperately needs.