Akhilesh Yadav not keen to implement HC order for officials to send kids to govt schools

On August 18, 2015 the Allahabad High Court had instructed the Uttar Pradesh government to implement within six months an order making it compulsory for all persons receving benefit from the government, people's representatives and judges to send their children to government schools. Such a system should have been put into place beginning academic session 2016-17. However, the UP government has not done anything.    

The education system in this country is a failure. Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 is in place in India but education is neither free nor compulsory. People who can afford have to spend enormous amounts in sending their children to school. The lower middle class and even the poor who can afford it are now sending their children to private schools.

This is an unnecessary burden on parents. Children of poor who constitute 90 per cent of school going children attend schools where there is no teaching. 50 per cent children drop out around class VII. Those who are able to continue have to indulge in cheating to pass their board examinations.

By making a compulsory payment of Rs 5,000 one can pass the Class X examination of UP Board and by paying double the amount you can have somebody else write the examination for you. A large number of children are still engaged in child labour who never see the inside of a school. 60 lakhs children in India are out of school. It is a mockery of the "compulsory" part of the Act. Can the country progress on the basis of this kind of farcical education system?

The only way to rectify the situation is if children of government employees, people's representatives and judges start attending government schools. It will revolutionise the Indian school system. It will transform the quality of government schools overnight when the children of those responsible for running these schools study in them. They will then have a stake in improving its quality. And this will not take time.

When a district magistrate's child will go to a government school the quality of teaching and infrastructure will improve instantly. It'll have two benefits. Children of poor will get good education for the first time in their lives. A report says 90 per cent children of poor, even after completing class IV, remain illiterate. Moreover, middle class will save money on sending their children to private schools.

Wherever in the world universalisation of education has been achieved it has been done only through a government common school system with the concept of neighbourhood school implemented. For example, private schools in Sri Lanka are banned.

Socialist Party (India) also believes that is should be made a necessary service condition in the government that employees will have to send their children to government schools. It is not fundamental right of anybody to send their children to a school of their choice. Like Justice Sudhir Agarwal says, anybody benefitting from the government if decides to send their children to private school they should be penalised and asked to submit an amount equal to that they spend in private school in government's account. Moreover they should also suffer in terms of losing increment and promotion.

Socialist Party (India) has taken a stand that only people who have studied in government schools should be eligible for government jobs or for contesting elections at any level in this country. Moreover their children should also study in government schools. In fact this idea should be extended to health care sector also. People receiving government salaries should only go to government hospitals for their own treatment as well treatment of family members dependent on them.

Privatisation in the field of education and healthcare should be ceased by the government by taking over all private educational and health care institutions. Education and healthcare should be free for all citizens in real sense.

Time is running by. I decided to sit on an indefinite fast from June 6, 2016 in Lucknow to get the abovementioned judgement of Justice Sudhir Agarwal implemented in UP. On June 8, I got an invitation from Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav on the intervention of (retired) Justice Rajinder Sachar, for a dialogue.

However, the CM is least inclined to implement the above order or consider the idea of common school system. He is enamoured of private schools and thinks he would like to disseminate videos of good teachers from these schools to children of even the remotest schools. The idea of activating a huge cadre of government school teachers, who are more qualified than the private school teachers, doesn't come to his mind.

It was even suggested to him that just like Nitish Kumar has become popular among the poor masses of Bihar by implementing the ban on liquor, he too could repeat the phenomenon in UP by implementing this HC order, dramatically improving the quality of government schools and improving the lives of the children of poor.

It seemed like a difficult decision first to implement ban on liquor but when Nitish Kumar took a resolve he was able to do it without much difficulty, the benefits of which are for everybody to see. The family money which was wasted on liquor is now being spent on essential items and villagers seem to be overall happy. A unintended consequence was that expenditure of candidates in panchayat elections dropped down many times.

Similarly implementing the Allahabad HC order may seem difficult for Akhilesh Yadav but once he decides to do it he'll definitely win the support of the poor. If the quality of government schools improves most people would like to send their children to government schools as it'll be less costly. Moreover children who're out of school will get an opportunity to attend school. The pathetic state of government schools need to change.

This struggle is against a system which corners all benefits for the ruling elites and leaves the poor in a state of continuous deprivation.