A lost childhood, a run-away mother, a broken marriage, a 13 year old son and an elderly father to take care of -- none of these deterred Jaya Rawal from continuing her education. Jaya’s voter id shows she was born in the year 1979 and yet, she says she is not sure of her real age. In her fragile physique, she conceals a dogged determination to continue her studies and to get ahead.
It is said, 'when the going gets tough, the tough gets going' and that is absolutely correct in the case of Jaya. When the mother left her in her early teens, Jaya had to take charge of the family. That meant she discontinue her studies and take care of her siblings. Her father was with the Telecom Department, but, due to lack of a minimum period of service, is not eligible for a pension. Presently, she does nearly four-five hours of tailoring every day, earning around Rs. 3000 per month, to meet her family's needs. She hardly gets to eat three rotis a day!
In spite of all these and more, she wakes up at four in the morning and studies for three hours, and in the evening, she is with books for another three hours till midnight, in order to pass her Secondary School exams under the Rajasthan State Open School (RSOS) Board.
Now, imagine two friends. They were studying together in the same class at the Secondary School in 2006. Fast forward to 2012. One of them became a teacher, while the other one became..guess what, her student! This might sound filmy, but it did happen to Jayashree Khairvasiya and Deepika Vyas. While Jayashree is a tutor, Deepika is her student. Deepika could not clear her ninth grade exams and thereafter, she discontinued her studies. Mean while, Jayashree continued her studies and she is now in her final year of graduation, where her main subject is astrology. Unfortunately for Deepika, stars did not smile at her. But, she is quite determined that she would clear her secondary school exams this year through RSOS.
These are just few of the dropouts, I, as an intern in Pratham Education Foundation, Rajasthan, met. And these cases are not exceptions. The most outrageous statistics I found in recent times is the huge gap between the male and female literacy rates in Rajasthan. As per Census 2011, 75.7% males are considered literate, while the corresponding figure for females is a mere 43.9%- almost a whopping 32 percentage points difference, the highest for any state in India!
Contrary to the popular perception that the medieval 'purdhapradha' culture is hindering the process of female education, I found the girls eager to get themselves educated and their parents quite supportive. This is evident from the fact that there is hardly any significant difference in the enrolment figures of boys and girls at the Secondary and Senior Secondary levels, here in Rajasthan.
It needs to be mentioned that it is no easy task to pursue higher education here. The schools are scattered and are accessible mostly by private vans only. In most places, roads are in pathetic condition. The distance between schools varies from 8 to 35 kilometers. Even in such adverse circumstances, students - boys and girls - travel, often, hanging dangerously to the sides of private Jeeps and vans, to the schools. They too are the 'nirbhayas' of this country. Nonetheless, many of them dropout due to various physical, social and economic reasons.
Coming to the supply side, the teaching fraternity is a mixed bag. Seven out of twelve Secondary Schools I visited in just one block of Rajasthan have teaching positions in core subjects lying vacant. From my interactions with them, I found that, many of them are knowledgeable, competent and sincere. Yet, there were many, who were just sitting idle, chit-chatting over tea, during class hours. They say, because of the 'no fail' policy followed till eighth grade, students coming over to the Secondary level have such poor basics and therefore, it is beyond them to 'repair' them.
They are right too. On the 14 of February, 2013, a reputed local daily ran a front page news of the District Collector' inspection in a Government Primary School in Jalore district of Rajasthan. It was to no one's surprise that, almost all the students in the sixth grade could not even write their names in English or do some basic multiplication. The shocker was, even a teacher in the fourth grade of that school could not write a particular word in Hindi! Even the HM of that school failed to write it correctly. That word was 'karthavya', which in Hindi means duty. Now, how do we expect a teacher, who cannot even spell the word 'duty' correctly in their mother tongue, do their duty?
Still, girls and boys continue to hang on to the sides of the Jeeps and vans to go to school.. only to get 'dropped out' in the middle.
Vinay Sankar is with the Tata-Dhan Academy, Madurai, Tamil Nadu and an Intern, Pratham Education Foundation, Rajasthan. vinay.sankar@gmail.com
Keywords: gender empowerment, girl child, rural education, school dropouts
As per Vinay's observations, its not due to lack of commitment on
students side, not due to irresponsible parents but absence of the
spirit of 'Karthavya' on part of Tutors and as usual... lack of good
governance.Study after study seem to point to this singular fact but
whose gonna bell the cat?
As shared by Vinay, this is the reality in all northern states
regarding education. But why it is happening, we have to search it,
reason behind it in all states.
I would like to share status of Bihar, what is happening there. Nitish
kumar has recruited many teachers for providing primary level
education on the basis of degree,not on test. Due to this, Most of the
teacher do not know anything,not even they are able to speak. what
they will teach to children?
Second one thing which i have found is very critical thing in
government types of job. Once any person got government job, they left
to reading and writing. Due to this, Nothing they will able to bring
new things in any sector, mostly happen at middle level type of cadre.
It is a good observational study, and the reasons cited for poor educational delivery and attainment are valid. However, the discussion shouldn't merely focus on the teacher's ability to write a word or their education level. The discussion should be more broader that contains making whole system accountable, and obviously District Collector is a part of the system. At current scenario there is no accountability at any level. Second, we shouldn't only focus on learning outcomes because it don't provide answer to any question. But we should try to look at learning process, what is happening in class, because it is the place where interaction of all school inputs and students' learning happens.Efforts should be made to standardize the learning process and its effective monitoring.
Insightful piece that reveals a lot about the die-hard spirit of many such young ladies in India..This is the sorry state of affairs in many schools across the country.The Govt. of India has been levying an education cess since the past two years or more,where is the change in the secondary and primary education system..Unless we give our young children a good,basic education how can we progress as a nation?? The roots have to be watered first!! I feel that the govt. instead of loosing money to scamsters in the various NREGA programs could instead focus on getting our basic education system right..
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