Suman
In Andhra Pradesh government shut down 636 adivasi schools namely Satellite school without any prior information. This closure affected the study of nearly 9000 adivasi children. Government cited the provisions in RTE as the closure ground of these schools.
These schools were mainly run by adivasi youth volunteer. Because of the difficulty of the terrain and dearth of availability of teacher adivasi youth were selected through DSC. These schools were scheduled to start last June i.e. June 2012 but became operational only in December 2012. The closure came into effect in April 2013 without any written circular. The volunteers were verbally communicated.
Government said that these children will be absorbed in the Government primary schools. And if the primary schools are away from the respective villages then reimbursement of transport charges were promised by the government.
To investigate the ground reality in the district of Srikakulam district a three member team was formed. The members of the team are: Suman Chatterjee, Ramalu, G. Kondayya..
We sampled couple of villages in the district on 2nd and 3rd of August 2013. We interacted with the drop outs, Sat school volunteer and the parents of the drop out children.
From our discussion with the aforesaid people it was emerged that the difficulty of the terrain and the distance had restrained the children from attending the schools. Also the livelihood of the parents played a major contributing factor in the steep drop out numbers.
The volunteers of the villages except Mauri Mani Guda who is a local youth, all used come from nearby villages. They had to travel a distance of minimum 5km. Considering the scarcity of transport and the hilly region it was a tough job for them as well.
The geographic position of these villages in the high hill region makes it an uphill task for the children in the age group of 5-10 to commute to school daily. Even we felt like running out of oxygen when we visited Chapraiguda.
Scarce availability of transport has allied with the difficult terrain where people have to come down by 1km to catch the car. Also the age of the students don’t permit their parents to let them travel alone.
In all the villages we visited the parents of the drop out children said that the distance is a major problem for continuing study. As their prime profession is cultivation they can’t manage time to get their children to school which is as far as 28 km and then come back and work in the field and again go back to pick them up from the school.
Also they can’t let the children stay at hostels as they are too young to take care of themselves. This rules out the possibility to continue study from boarding schools for the children in the age bracket 5-10.
It was emerged from our visits that distance, adverse terrain, scarce transport resource and age are the main contributing factors for the discontinuation of study of these adivasi children. Interestingly their parents want them to study but in the current system are helpless.
In the Right to Education act the distance of the school from the house is clearly stipulated for different age groups. But Andhra government is clearly violating these norms by admitting the children of the shut down schools in the government schools which are sometimes as far as 28km.
There are more to the series of violation of RTE. As per the act government is supposed to provide the primary children with text books and uniforms. But during our visits we found out that this is not being followed.
In Kondowadi Gora there was no mid day meal system in the Satellite school. Which is also a blatant violation of Right to Education that stipulates giving mid day meal to students a compulsory.
Visit to Baddumasingi Village Primary School and Mandal Parishad Elementary School: In the Baddumasingi 3 children from the Chilakavalsa village have been absorbed. The teacher their said that he did not receive any circular notifying him about the impending tie up with the Satellite school. He was verbally intimidated by the ITDA P.O.
He has also not been told anything about the payment of transport bill of Satellite school children. Children come by walk.
Our next stop was Mandal Parishad Elementary School. 8 out of 12 children have joined this school from Kondowadi Gora village. Here children have been given textbook only, not uniform.
In both the schools teacher-student ratio are abiding the existing provision in RTE. But in Baddumasingi village the teacher is marking the absentee to withdraw their quota of mid day meal.
Both schools are getting maintenance fund and using it as well in papers but when we visited the schools we found that only fan is operational under that the teacher sits.
After studying the ground reality and topography of the region I think that a wonderful idea died because of lack of vision and understanding of the philosophy of RTE. If the philosophy of RTE is to spread education across the spectrum then Satellite schools were the best possible mode of educating adivasi children of those rough terrains.
You can’t erect school in a village for only couple of children. Also providing residential schools to these children won’t work as they are too young to stay at hostel and continue their study.
The alternative, proposed by the government also failed to yield result. Number of drop outs and the reason mentioned above corroborates this claim.
I think government should retain these Satellite schools to disseminate education. The teacher of these schools should be given some training time to time to upgrade their skill and knowledge. Children of these schools should be given free text books, mid day meal. In my view imparting education is more important than the infrastructure of the place where it is being done. If the motive of running of these schools is achieved then government should go with it.
The writer is journalist)
chatterjeesuman07@yahoo.com
