Page 42 - EW FEB 2022

Cover Story

Parliament and enacted the Right
of Children to Free and Compulsory
Education (RTE) Act, 2009.
Typically, legal eagle Kapil Sibal,
the Congress party’s champagne so-
cialist education minister at that time,
engineered “partial backdoor nation-
alisation” of private schools. Under
RTE Act s.12 (1) (c) it is mandatory
for private aided and unaided (inde-
pendent) schools to reserve 25 percent
of capacity in class I for poor children
in their neighbourhood and provide
them free-of-charge education until
they complete class VIII. However,
to partly compensate private schools,
s.12 (2) directs state governments to
pay private school managements the
Vernacular language chauvinists in Karnataka: lucrative business opportunities equivalent of per child expenditure
incurred in government schools.
a strenuous and time-consuming ex- neta-babu brotherhood have multi- Predictably numerous rackets and
ercise. This difficulty is deliberately plied. As a result, errors-strewn text- scams have mushroomed. Corrupt
compounded by state government books are written by under-qualified education ministry officials are having
officials, who citing professed love of subject authors, shoddily printed by a field day collecting bribes for certi-
their native languages, insist on pro- small-time publishers, are purchased fying ‘poor households’ and defining
viding papers and data solely in the in bulk by state and local govern- ‘neighbourhoods’. Moreover schools’
dominant vernacular. Bilingual or ments and foisted upon captive chil- dues under s. 12 (2) are unpaid for
translated documents are very rare. dren in government schools. In 1994, months and often years. According
Surprisingly, neither the Union through issuance of a notification, to Kulbhushan Sharma, president of
government nor the growing number the Karnataka government decreed the Delhi-based National Independent
of education champions across the Kannada or mother tongue the sole Schools Association (NISA), which
country press for bilingual (vernacular media of instruction in all primary represents 60,0000 mainly BPS (bud-
and English language) departmental schools until class VII. Although this get private schools), an aggregate sum
publications and documents in the notification was observed more in the of Rs.10,000 crore is due to private
interests of transparency and data breach by English-medium schools, schools under s.12 (2). Sharma adds
analysis. Moreover, it’s well-known the latter were forced to buy and junk that bribes are also demanded — and
that over 90 percent of the education vernacular textbooks and pay continu- often paid — to release legitimate dues
budget of every state of the Indian ous bribes to the education ministry under this section.
Union is consumed by teachers and for over a decade until 2013, when
administrators’ salaries and perqui- this notification was struck down by SHAKEDOWNS AND EXTORTION
sites. the Supreme Court following a writ 10 UNDER S.19 AND SCHEDULE OF
petition filed by KAMS as elucidated RTE ACT
8 TEXTBOOKS WRITING AND above. ARTE Act, 2009, prescribes mini-
s recounted above, s.19 (1) of the
PRINTING RACKETS
ernacular language chauvinism 9 RTE ACT, 2009, S.12 (1) (C) mal infrastructure norms — building
Vand self-serving championing SCAMS safety, teacher-pupil ratios, hygiene
of dominant languages in the states n 2009, half a century after suc- etc — for private schools. Govern-
have been converted into lucrative Icessive governments at the Centre ment schools are specifically excluded
businesses by politicians and bureau- continuously disregarded Article 45 from the ambit of this provision. NISA
crats. With state governments’ insis- of the Constitution which directed the sources report that education officials
tent on making the dominant state government to provide free and com- in several states routinely extort bribes
vernacular compulsory in school edu- pulsory education to all children until from private school managements for
cation, opportunities to award text- they attain 14 years of age, the Con- overlooking infringements of s.19 (1)
book writing and printing contracts gress-led UPA government piloted a on pain of heavy fines and/or forced
to under-qualified kith and kin of the constitutional amendment through closure.

42 EDUCATIONWORLD FEBRUARY 2022