Lesson for Education

editorial:
Primary school students at Sanganath Secondary School might find themselves housed in better classrooms before the skies open up for the monsoons. A new building cannot be erected for them in time, but they can be shifted to more respectable accommodations than the contraption of GCI sheet shack they presently take classes in [click here for background details]. Now that the news has come out in the papers, the Department will obviously do something about the situation the kids at Sanganath find themselves in. But that is obviously not enough. The news-report in question was not just about the denial heaped on the children at Sanganath, but also, equally, if not more, a report on the departmental attitude towards the well-being of the young in Sikkim. The reason behind the privations of the kids in this South Sikkim village is emblematic of the insensitivity which appears to have overcome government offices, where projects are reduced to numbers and outlays, shorn of any emotional quotient, which is baffling, because developmental works should always be driven by the urgency of people’s need, not the convenience of officers or contractors.
At Sanganath, the School Management Committee was forced to erect GCI-sheet shacks because the primary wing of the school, pulled down some time back, had not been constructed in time for the new academic session. The official excuse - something as casual as delay in release of construction material by the Department to the contractor!
Delay in construction of school buildings is not rare at the Human Resource Development Department. The audit report for the year ended 31 March 2009 [by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India] mentions a weird case from Daramdin in West Sikkim where the construction of a composite school was sanctioned by the Cabinet in September 2001. It took a year for the department to finally award the work budgeted for Rs. 1.84 crores in August the next year. It was to be completed by Feb 2004. When the CAG auditors checked records in January 2009, a full 5 years after the construction should have been completed, they found that work had been abandoned mid-way. Hopefully, the students at Sanganath will not suffer a replay of this departmental lethargy, although they are already experiencing a taste of it.
As mentioned earlier, the Sanganath episode should not be seen in isolation. It might be unique in the kind of destitution imposed, but it is definitely not alone in the display of noticeable lack of concern in how the Department handles student affairs. Sample this: as of 2009, 38 per cent of the government schools in Sikkim did not have playgrounds, an astounding 34 per cent did not have drinking water supply, an inexcusable 51 per cent did not have segregated toilets for boys and girls, a disturbing 19 per cent did not have toilets at all and an alarming 69 per cent had to do without electricity supply. That was two years ago. Given the manner in which priorities appear to be set at the HRDD, it is unlikely that the situation has improved much. And it is here that the real problem lies. Quality education will remain a token pursuit until we learn to ensure dignity for the students. The denials quoted here reveal that respect for students is still not top-priority. It has to be with this that all marches towards Quality Education should begin. One needs to realise that when one seeks respect for students, it is with the end result of these children growing up into self-respecting, confident and responsible citizens themselves. This possibility is denied to them when they are provided schools where infrastructure is allowed to waste away, when basic amenities like clean toilets and drinking water are not provided, when they are allowed to complete entire terms without adequate delegation of teachers. The Sanganath deprivation holds up the mirror on this collective failure and needs to be approached with a commitment to reorganise the priority list for education across Sikkim, with the students at top. It goes without saying that the conditions at Sanganath Secondary School should be improved at the earliest, but what is also important is for this episode to trigger honest soul-searching to roll out earnest corrective measures.