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Editorial

FIRST POSITIVE REPORT ON PRIVATE SCHOOLS Policy (NEP) 2020 which was official-
ly released seven days later on July 29.
NEP 2020 has set inspirational goals
he private schools in india this elusive explanation and in the and has ideated several path-breaking
report (PSIR) 2020, jointly re- process, convincingly rebuts official initiatives such as according high pri-
Tleased by the Delhi-based Cen- anti-private schools defamation. For ority to early childhood education and
tral Square Foundation and Omidyar one, PSIR proves that the great ma- universal foundational learning and
Network India on July 22 proclaims jority of private schools are not elite numeracy, and has proposed several
— for the first time — the huge con- institutions patronised by children of intelligent governance reforms. How-
tribution that India’s much maligned the rich and famous. Seventy percent ever it again exposes the unwarranted
private schools have made to the na- of them levy tuition fees of less than prejudice that the neta-babu brother-
tional development effort. Rs.1,000 per month, and 45 percent hood and the Left-dominated acade-
The official line supported by the less than Rs.500 ($6.66), says the re- my entertains towards private schools.
academy and media infiltrated with port. NEP 2020 reiterates the intent of
Left ideologues and fellow travellers, For the first time, PSIR reveals government to protect “parents and
is that the country’s private schools the truth that India’s private schools communities” from allegedly “com-
are elite institutions that shut out provide arguably the world’s most af- mercial practices” of private schools
children of the majority through high fordable private education with con- and higher education institutions.
tuition fees and discriminatory en- sistently better learning outcomes This declaration of intent of gov-
trance tests. The conundrum of over- than government schools, citing data ernment is a pointer that the educracy
whelming preference of the populace from the Annual Status of Educa- intends to continue to focus on micro-
for fees-levying private schools when tion Report (ASER) published by the managing private schools rather than
the alternative of free-of-charge pri- highly respected Pratham Education turn its attention to improving and
mary-secondary education is readily Foundation. This is why the percent- upgrading the country’s dysfunctional
available in the country’s 1.20 million age of children enrolled in private government schools. Although it was
public/government schools, has never unaided schools has risen from 9.2 perhaps released too late, PSIR 2020
been satisfactorily explained by the es- in 1993 to 34.8 percent in 2017, says provides sufficient evidence that the
tablishment. the report. country’s 450,000 private schools
The valuable public service ren- PSIR 2020 has to be read in con- need greater autonomy, not closer
dered by PSIR 2020 is that it provides junction with the National Education supervision.

REVERSING INDIA’S DESCENT INTO ANARCHY governments at the Centre have failed
to make larger provision to expand
and improve the judicial system.
t’s easy and normative to dismiss as recommending ways and means to The root cause of this malady which
a case of just desserts, the suspi- unlock the wheels of the archaic jus- has infected the body politic is pain-
Icious gunning down by policemen tice delivery system, the legal process fully clear. Post-independence India’s
of gangster Vikas Dubey on July 10 in is often more punitive than harsh- socialist economic development model
Kanpur, where a week earlier he had est verdicts. Unsurprisingly, on the has stifled the inherent native spirit of
reportedly killed eight policemen in global Rule of Law Index 2020 of the private enterprise. It simply doesn’t
a late night ambush. Such encounter independent US-based World Justice allow sufficient wealth creation which
killings — police personnel gunning Project, India is ranked #69 — below would increase the government’s re-
down suspected criminals on grounds Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Senegal and South sources and taxes revenue, and permit
of self-defence and/or attempted es- Africa. the substantially greater investment
cape — are welcomed by the public Quite obviously massive investment required by the law and order and jus-
because of the notorious delay of con- in expansion and modernisation of the tice systems. It’s hardly surprising that
temporary India’s dysfunctional jus- judicial system is imperative. For de- contemporary India also has perhaps
tice system. Surprisingly, even educat- cades together, India’s ratio of judges the world’s lowest police-people ratio
ed middle class citizens are willing to to population has been among the low- — 14 per million.
overlook the reality that extra-judicial est worldwide — 20 per million people Learned judges of the Supreme and
torture and murder has become a dan- currently. Against this, the ratio of high courts would do well to look be-
gerous habit of police. judges per million in the US is 70, Chi- yond interpretation of pedantic points
The logical response to the law’s na (144), Russia (210) and Lichtenstein of law to examine ways and means to
agonising delay — currently there’s a (1,837). Despite this, the allocation of reform obsolete, time-wasting legal
backlog of 30 million pending cases in the Union ministry of law and justice procedures and enable the ease of
the country’s inadequate and under- in the Central government’s budget wealth generation in India.
manned courts of law and delays of 2020-21 is a paltry Rs.2,200 crore. They should note that in the matter
ten-15 years between filing of cases Yet it’s not enough to merely de- of enforcement of contracts, India is
and their adjudication is normative mand larger budgetary outlays for ranked #63 on the World Bank’s Ease
— is to reform the justice delivery upgrading the justice system. Deeper of Doing Business Index. In the final
system. Yet despite over 120 reports examination is required to understand analysis, it’s money that greases all
of high-powered Law Commissions why for over half a century, successive machinery.

12 EDUCATIONWORLD AUGUST 2020