Page 40 - EW FEB 2022

Cover Story

of educated unemployed is high (es-
timated at 40 million-plus) govern-
ment school (and higher ed) teach-
ers’ jobs are highly prized. With the
Centre having transformed govern-
ment schools into high wage islands,
nepotism and corruption have become
endemic in the public school system,
with a chief minister of Haryana (Om-
prakash Chautala) sentenced in 2013
to a ten-year jail term by the Supreme
Court in a teacher recruitment scam.
With millions of under-qualified
kith and kin of politicians and bureau-
crats serving in government schools,
in 2011 a TET (teacher eligibility test)
was made mandatory for all in-service
and aspiring teachers. With barely 10
percent of teachers passing TET annu- Government school children in Pithoragarh, Uttarakhand: teacher truancy victims
ally, a new racket of leaked test papers
has spread countrywide. of comparative literature at Jadavpur In turn, they award whole or part of
Consequently teacher recruitment University, Kolkata, and former pro- construction contracts to local con-
in several states, notably West Bengal fessor of English at Viswa Bharati Uni- tractors with dubious qualifications
and Maharashtra has been stymied versity, Shantiniketan. and uncertain antecedent, for con-
by disgruntled teachers who have ob- sideration, aka bribes. With razor
tained high court stay orders alleging 5 CHRONIC TEACHER ABSENTEEISM thin profit margins, contractors are
test paper leakages, impersonation IN GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS obliged to cut corners. This includes
and/or fraudulent assessment. On ay back in 1998, a PROBE (Pub- using sub-standard construction ma-
December 17, Tukaram Supe, com- Wlic Report on Basic Education) terial and often ‘forgetting’ to provide
missioner of the Maharashtra State report confirmed to a shocked na- labs, libraries, toilets and drinking wa-
Council of Examinations (MSCE), a tion that 25 percent of the country’s ter facilities. According to Prof. Seeth-
Pune-based government body that 5 million government teachers are aramu (quoted above), the award of
conducts scholastic aptitude exams absent on any given day. Moreover, construction contracts and kickbacks
including TET, was arrested for al- half present don’t teach. According to is the largest revenue source of edu-
leged malpractices in TET 2020. More most educationists, the situation has cation department officials across the
arrests followed as investigations re- not changed for the better. As out- country.
vealed similar malpractices in TET lined above by Prof. Geeta Kingdon,
2018. (See https://www.education- government school teachers’ workload DENIAL OF INFORMATION:
world.in/maharashtra-tet-scandals/). has decreased as children are contin- 7 OPAQUE STATE/LOCAL
“India’s education system which uously fleeing dysfunctional govern- GOVERNMENT EDUCATION
was mandated to promote equality ment schools defined by crumbling BUDGETS
and provide social justice has conspic- buildings, chronic teacher absentee- ontrary to popular belief, the
uously failed to attain these objectives. ism and abysmal learning outcomes. CCentre’s annual budgetary allo-
Corrupt practices have become too But because they are organised into cation (Rs.104,278 crore in 2022-23)
deeply entrenched in the system. The powerful trade unions and supervise spent on Central education institu-
root problem is the reluctance of the polling booths during elections, non- tions (Kendriya and Jawahar Navo-
Central and state governments to ad- performing government school teach- daya Vidyalayas, IITs, IIMs, NITs
equately fund public education while ers are almost impossible to sack. and Central government universities)
spending astronomical amounts on aggregates to a mere 0.5 percent of
defence and building temples, statues 6 DE RIGUEUR KICKBACKS IN GDP. The remaining 3 percent is con-
and structures. By tacitly encouraging CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTS tributed by states for funding state
private education, the Central govern- overnment/public schools coun- government schools, colleges and edu-
ment is widening the gap between the Gtrywide are constructed by the cation institutions. In state education
middle and poor classes,” opines Dr. public works departments (PWDs) of ministries, rackets are rife and access
Samantak Das, incumbent professor the Central and state governments. to data and information is invariably

40 EDUCATIONWORLD FEBRUARY 2022