The scope of quality primary education for children of the marginalised section in the State has not changed to the desired extent due to low budgetary allocation and inadequate steps to curb institutional discrimination against them.
The different varieties of educational initiatives of the State Government are only limited to micro schemes that benefit very few without bringing any qualitative structural change in the education system for all the marginalised poor children. The populist schemes such as Anwesha very insignificantly benefit a few and suffer limitations of improper monitoring and negligence in addressing inherent issues of institutional discrimination that defeats the very purpose of education.
The SC and ST Development Department of the State Government has introduced the Anewsha scheme to provide free quality education to the SC and ST children in private English medium schools of urban areas in the State. It was introduced from the academic session 2015-16 in 17 districts such as Angul, Bargarh, Balangir, Deogarh, Ganjam, Gajapati, Kalahandi, Koraput, Keonjhar, Kondhamal, Malkangiri, Mayurbhanj, Nabarangpur, Nuapada, Rayagada, Sambalpur and Sundargada. The ratio of ST and SC students is 70: 30. A district level committee under the chairmanship of the district Collector has been formed to select students.
It is told that all expenses such as hostel fee, boarding, school fee, books, uniform, school bus and other miscellaneous charges towards education of selected children from Standard 1 to XII in private, aided and Government schools will be borne by the State Government. The annual school fee with maximum ceiling of Rs 25, 000 per student has been allocated for about 5,000 students per year. It is targeted to cover 23,000 students during next five years. It is reported that only 2,684 students of SC and ST communities have been enrolled under the scheme in the year 2015-2016. The schools are chosen based on the criteria of academic performances, infrastructure, trained teachers and student-teacher ratio etc.
A recent surprise visit by the SC and ST Development Minister in the current month to two private English medium schools in Rayagada district revealed that the SC and ST children, who get admission under Aneshwa scheme, are being discriminated in the school with separate seating arrangement. It is most unfortunate that schools are not a discrimination free place and all students are not being treated equally by the school administration and teachers. There are similar complaints from other districts also where SC and ST children are facing difficulties and there is no proper monitoring and complaint resolving mechanism to address these issues of institutional discrimination. The poor students coming to the English medium schools are the first generation of the learners of the family and a majority of the parents are illiterate and not aware about the standard and procedure of the schools usually reserved for the upper caste and rich class people. The literacy rate of SCs and STs in 2011 census was 69 and 52 per cent respectively which is less than the State and national averages. There was only 15 per cent increase in the literacy level of both the communities during last ten years from census 2001 to 2011. Therefore, they need handholding support and proper counselling while sending their children to such schools. The State Government must have a mechanism in place to ensure that there is no caste, gender and ethnic based discrimination in urban schools against poor SC and ST children. It is fact that the amount of financial support and other facilities provided to the students is not enough to meet the expenses and the social environment in schools and hostels is also not socially and economically inclusive to accommodate the poor SC and ST students which needs special care and protection.
The important aspect must be taken care of by the school authorities. The elected peoples representatives, MlAs and MPs and the departmental officials like DEO, DWO and WOs at the district and block levels have equal responsibility to intervene in the issues by regularly visiting educational institutions. The SC and ST Development Department sources revealed that as part of a comprehensive monitoring, the WEOs have to visit all residential schools once every month and the DWO, the PA ITDA, the DI, the SI and the ADWO have to visit minimum five schools every month and share the report with State level monitoring officials.
Along with officials, there is absence of involvement of parents of SC and ST children in school education matter. Even they have very less scope to inquire about their children’s performances, mostly in private schools. There has been mushrooming of private schools with support of Government. Many of them are not following RTE Act provisions for weaker section and anti- discriminatory provisions for children of marginal sections due to lack of proper monitoring by the Government.
The State Government is also running Eklavya model residential schools (EMRS) for tribal students. It is suggested that English language lab setup in 13 EMRS in the State to improve the language skill of students must be extended to all residential schools.
The student enrolment in the ST and SC Development Department schools during 2014-2015 was about 4.5 lakh. Currently, the department has about 1,670 residential educational institutions. The students from the tribal dominated backward regions such as Mayurbhanj, Rayagada, Koraput, Nuapada and Sundargarh have more number of students in residential schools.
At primary level in the year 2014-2015, 11.32 lakh SC and ST students were covered under pre-matric scholarship out of which 7.31 lakh were ST and 4.18 lakh were SCs. The pre-matric scholarship provided to SC and ST students of class 6th and 7th is Rs 15 per month and for high school it is Rs 150 per month for ten months. The students in hostels get only Rs 600 per month for ten months with an additional yearly grant of Rs 750. The paltry amount itself speaks about the Government investment on education for the SC and ST children in schools and hostels. The students in the residential schools do not have a decent and dignified life in the absence of basic infrastructure and the very caste attitude of the teaching and non-teaching staff. A majority of the staff belongs to non-SC and ST communities who are socially and culturally not close to students. The minimum amount supported by the Government is not enough to live decently as it is average Rs 20 per day but students have to manage within that stipend amount which is very difficult for them. Even there has been report of mismanagement by non -teaching staff managing the hostel mess.
Here a question arises is how we are going to bring social equality when our educational institutions follow practices of discrimination against poor Dalit children and Government spending on their education is abysmally lowIJ
(*manasbbsr15@gmail.com)