Whenever a government talks about national interest, citizens should understand who is benefiting from these so-called national interests. Today’s India is standing at a turning point where public services are being handed over to private hands in a planned manner. What we are calling reform is a planned disinvestment, in which the rights of the public are being slowly snatched away and converted into market commodities. The biggest example of this entire process is Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited i.e. BSNL, and now the same experiment is being done on the government schools of India.
BSNL was once a communication system that reached every corner of the country. BSNL had services even in the mountains, border areas and rural areas where no private company could reach. But the governments gradually started slowing down. It was prevented from introducing new technologies, there was a delay in providing 4G service, the number of employees was reduced, and financial assistance was limited. The result was that an important public company of the country gradually weakened. Parallel to this, private companies like Jio were encouraged at every level. They got spectrum at cheap rates, rules were relaxed, and administrative help was also given. Ultimately, BSNL was weakened, and private companies dominated the market.
The same scenario is now being repeated in the field of education. Government schools are being systematically maligned. It is being said that the level of education there is poor, there are fewer students, and the results are not good. But no one asks how many teachers are teaching in these schools, for how many years permanent appointments have been stopped, how dilapidated the school buildings are, where the libraries and laboratories are. What is the transport arrangement to take children to school? All this has been deliberately neglected, so that an image can be created that government schools are unsuccessful.
When government schools look weak, the trust of society will automatically decrease. Then parents will be forced to send their children to private schools, even if their financial condition does not allow it. This is a very deep and dangerous strategy. First weaken the services, then make the public choiceless, and finally push them towards private services.
Today, all the big private schools have some political or administrative person behind them. A minister’s wife’s trust, a former MP’s charitable foundation, a bureaucrat’s NGO – these are the names behind the glitz of private schools. In such a situation, when an education policy is made, only these people benefit. The government itself makes the policy, and its schools benefit from those policies.
Now, the situation is such that even poor and middle-class families are paying huge fees to educate their children in private schools. Admission fees, monthly fees, annual fees, uniforms, books, smart classes, transport – money is taken for everything, and education is sold as a product. If a parent delays paying the fees, the child is humiliated or threatened with expulsion from school. Is this the purpose of education?
Meanwhile, a policy of merging government schools is being brought. Where the number of children is less, there is a suggestion to merge them with the nearby school. But it is not seen whether the distance is too much? Are there enough teachers there? Has the safety of the girl students been taken care of? Policies look good only in figures, not on the ground.
Today, even the Right to Education Act has become a mere paper document. School Management Committees exist only in name. Governments do not give priority to education in their budgets. Expenses are cut, teachers are not recruited for years, and the teachers who are there are put to non-teaching work. Sometimes election duty, sometimes census, sometimes vaccination campaign – teachers are made to do everything except teaching.
Amidst all this, the English language has been presented in such a way as if life is impossible without speaking English. Private schools have made the English medium synonymous with superiority. If a child can speak two sentences in English, he is considered smart and successful, even if he does not understand the subject. On the other hand, no matter how intelligent a child studying in government schools is, if he speaks in Hindi, he is considered backward. This is the height of mental slavery.
Government schools are not just buildings; they are the hope of education for the most backward and deprived sections of society. For these children whose parents are labourers in the fields, rickshaw pullers or domestic workers, government schools are the only means of education. If these schools are abolished, it will be an insult not to education but to social justice.
Here, the question is not only of facilities but also of intentions. If the government wants, it can make government schools model schools. They can be made better than private schools by providing facilities like teachers, a library, a lab, a smart class, sports equipment, and transport. But doing so would go against the personal interests of the people in power, so it does not happen.
The problem is that we have considered education as a means of profit. Now it is not right, it has become a service – and that too a service which is available only to the rich. This is dividing the society into two parts – one who will get expensive education in English and get urban jobs, and the other who will study in Hindi and work as labourers in the villages under broken roofs.
Now the time has come for us should not remain silent. If we do not raise our voice now, then the coming generations will remain puppets in the hands of a particular class. We have to demand that instead of closing down government schools, they should be strengthened. The pillar of education should be strengthened in every village, every town. Teachers should be recruited on time; they should be given only the work of teaching, and schools should be made resource-rich.
We have to understand that privatization of education is not only a path to economic slavery but also to ideological slavery. When a class is not educated to think, question, and recognize its rights, then democracy will become only a vote machine.
What happened with BSNL was an economic game, but abolishing government schools would be a social and ideological crime. If we want the next generation of the country to be independent, empowered, and have an egalitarian mindset, then we must save the government education system today.
