Page 40 - EW November 2024

Cover Story

tically welcomed by EducationWorld. Especially the MDG as the state may by law determine”.
to abolish extreme poverty and universalise primary edu- EW comment. EW cover story ’93rd Amendment: Entitle-
cation by 2015. In several news reports and editorials, we ment or Illusion’ (January 2002), while heralding the land-
pressed upon the Central and state governments to legislate mark Act as a “historic milestone in the long struggle for
new policies and provide funding to attain these MDGs in etching the fundamental right to education of all children
particular. into the holy writ that is the Constitution of India,” raised
the question about its effective implementation. More per-
Mission SSA. Perhaps in response, in tinently, it advocated that a ‘law’ to implement the Amend-
March 2001, the NDA/BJP government ment should be drafted and implemented without delay.
led by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpay-
ee launched the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Supreme Court frees Indian education. In
(Education for All) mission. Described as a historic majority judgement in the TMA
a ‘National Programme for Universal Elementary Educa- Pai & Ors vs State of Karnataka & Ors de-
tion’, SSA’s main objective was to provide eight years of livered in October, a full 11 judges bench
elementary education to all children in the 6-14 age group of the Supreme Court by a 6-5 majority
by 2010. An allocation of Rs.500 crore was made for SSA affirmed the right of private unaided (fi-
for 2001-2002. Over the years, SSA has evolved into the nancially independent) professional education colleges to
country’s flagship education programme and in 2018 was regulate admissions, determine fee structure and adminis-
merged with other educational schemes — Rashtriya Mad- ter their institutions with minimal interference from gov-
hyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and teacher training ini- ernment. Simultaneously, the apex court not only upheld
tiatives to form the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan. the right of minorities to “establish and administer edu-
EW comment. EW enthusiastically welcomed SSA, endors- cational institutions of their
ing its objectives especially of increasing student enroll- choice”, but also expanded this
ment, improving infrastructure in schools and providing right to all citizens (including
teacher training. However, your editors also highlighted non-minorities).
insufficient funding for SSA as the prime factor for its lim- EW comment. In a cover fea-
ited success in improving student learning outcomes. In a ture titled ‘Supreme Court’s
progress report titled ‘SSA: Way behind targets’ (EW May freedom charter for Indian ed-
2005), we warned that “given the sheer scale of the un- ucation’ (February 2003), EW
dertaking, and the Centre and states’ deplorable record of hailed this historic judgement
plan and project implementation, in all probability the SSA curtailing government interfer-
programme will fall well short of its ambitious targets”. ence and micro-management
86th Constitution Amendment. In November, the Consti- of private unaided education
tution (Ninety-third Amendment) Act, 2001 (later renum- institutions. “It heralds a new
bered to 86th), which promised to deliver the long-cher- era for Indian education and a rollback of the licence-per-
ished dream of universal primary education for all children mit-quota raj which has migrated from industry into the vi-
countrywide, was unanimously passed by the Lok Sabha. tally important education sector,” commented your editors.
The Act made education a fundamental right of children Saffronisation of school textbooks. In October, more than
and mandatory for government “to provide free and com- two years after the Delhi-based National Council for Edu-
pulsory education to all children of the age of six to 14 years cational Research & Training (NCERT) — an autonomous
subsidiary of the Union HRD (education) ministry — drew
Agitators demand elementary education as fundamental right
up a new National Curriculum Framework for School Edu-
cation (2000), it presented the nation with a new set of
model social science textbooks for classes VI-IX.
These textbooks generated a storm of protest from op-
position parties, historians and academics who charged that
they contained hindutva propaganda of the ruling BJP and
its affiliates such as the RSS, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and
the Bajrang Dal. Several well-established historical facts
were omitted, reinvented and/or 'saffronised' in the new
texts to align with the ideological predilections of the BJP.
EW comment. In a detailed story titled ‘Creeping saffronisa-
tion of Indian history’ (March 2003), your editors warned
government and NCERT — the country’s largest school text-
books publisher — about the dangers of “undermining the

40 EDUCATIONWORLD NOVEMBER 2024