Our unequal socio-economic systems sustain sources of discrimination based on class, caste, gender and ethnicity. These affect our children in schools that have been identified as issues of concern of our country since Independence.
Children need such environment at school as to realise their rights and get protection from discrimination. Children below 18 years of age constitute over one third of India’s population.
They also constitute 19 per cent of the world’s population of children. In Odisha, the children below the age group of 18 years constitute 38.8 per cent of the population.
The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) was set up with a view to provide safety and ensure fulfillment of child rights in 2005 and the State Government also set up Odisha State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (OSCPCR) as a constitutional mandate and in affirmation with international convention like United Nations Convention on Rights of the Children (CRC), 1989 which India has ratified in 1992.
Articles 21A & 39(F), 45 and 47 of the Constitution speak for protection of children and promotion of education as a fundamental right. Such education should be compulsory and free.
This has been manifested in the Rights of Children to Free and Compulsory Education, Act, 2009. In order to ensure protection of children against discrimination and exploitation in any form there are a number of protective laws like Child labor (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 and The Protection of Children From Sexual Offences Act, 2012, Juvenile Justice (Care and protection of children)Act, 2000 etc.
But in spite of all this, there are historically structured and graded inequalities in our social system, which affect the most vulnerable sections of our society.
They are at such tender age being forced to experience man made socio-psychological abuse in schools. Dalit children are triple discriminated as poor, untouchable and child in our formal schools and hostels specially built for them.
Dalit children in the State constitute one fifth of our children who were found as child laborers, dropouts and always outside the school but now a days, a majority of them are struggling to access education mostly in Government run schools and residential schools run by the Schhol and Mass Education Department and the ST and SC Development Department.
The SC and ST Development Department runs 1,649 educational institutions with about 4.29 lakh students,including 1.82 lakh boys and 2.38 lakh girls continuing their study. There are 4,696 hostels that provide residential facility to 3.96 lakh students out of which 2.96 lakh are girls. In the villages, the Anganwadi centers are places of discrimination against Dalit kids where they are not being treated equally. Dalit women are not allowed as Anganwadi workers in caste Hindu villages violating Supreme Court guideline of appointing Anganwadi workers.
Over fifty Dalit children studying in Chakada-Gogua high school in Mahakalapada, Kendrapada area were allegedly disallowed to break coconut shell and offer prayer to lord Ganesh while upper caste students were allowed to do the same during Ganesh Chaturthi. Similar incident happened in Salapada primary school under Badachana police station of Jajpur.
About 14 Dalit students left the Gahirapal project upper primary school, Dasarathapur, Jajpur, forever due to discrimination because the school authorities had removed a Dalit cook from the school.
The Dalit cook was replaced by a cook from the dominant caste.
The school teacher segregated the caste and Dalit students into two groups to provide mid-day meal in two rows for which many guardians of Dalit children protested against the discrimination in school.
There were also reports of Dalit children being singled out in school and forced to sweep and mop classrooms and clean bath rooms in various parts of the State.
It is known to everyone that Dalit children all across the State are routinely humiliated during midday meal even by cooks who serve them from distance.
They are also segregated in class-room, identified with caste names, and not being allowed freely to play with mates and use drinking water at school. The discrimination in school has very negative impact on the tender mind of the child and in many cases the Dalit children are being discouraged to join school with inferiority complex.
In many villages, the parents are not being able to find a tutor for caste reason. Many Dalit families in rural areas are migrating to different urban locations which affect the education of their children.
In residential schools, sexual harassment of girl children and physical and mental punishment to the children is rampant. It is also reported that low quality and unhygienic food is served to inmates in the Government ashram schools.
Many hostels have no boundary walls and the inmates are unsafe even without electricity, toilets and clean water in interior parts, inside forests, and areas without proper communication.
There are incidents of snake-bite, poor health care and unsafe building which lead to death of children.
There is a need for human rights and value-based education. It should be based on principles of UDHR, and Constitution of India. The secular and casteless values established by our forefathers like Phule, Gandhi, Tagore, Ambedkar and many others who fought against inequality, hegemony and dominance and established liberty, equality and fraternity and values of democracy not only in politics but also in our social life should be fo lowed. Our education curriculums should carry these ideas to our children and build their mindset with principles of equality. The School and Mass Education Department and SC and ST Development Department with child rights bodies and institutions should develop a road map to fight social discrimination based on caste and ethnicity in schools.
Issues need to be understood from a broader human rights and development prospective but not as a charity, sympathy or fever to Dalit children.
We have to establish the rule of law, human values against our age-old unequal ideas prevailing in our socio-cultural life that denies basic human dignity to fellow human being.
The education programme run by Govt. and private bodies need to be more inclusive so that education can reach across different social groups.
Social discrimination should not become barrier of education of children of Dalit communities. On the other hand, education can be used as a powerful tool to eradicate such social evils.
Can our educational institutions, our teaching communities, both and Dalit and non Dalit, become free from discrimination in any form and specially discrimination based on caste and practices of untouchabilityIJ The clause (c) of Section 8 and 9 of the RTE Act, 2009 and Section 5(i) of PCR Act, 1955 need to be implemented in true spirit. The equality manual prepared by NCPCR should reach each and every school in regional language.
(The writer is a rights activist, who can be contacted at ojaabbsr@gmail.com)