Primary education in a mess
Meenakshi

In the 12-rung school education ladder in Punjab, the first five steps, which form the foundation of education, are no better than missing. As per a snap survey conducted by the Education Department of the State in May last, 6% of the 12,000 odd government primary schools are without teachers, 20% (nearly 2400) have only one teacher for five classes and a little over 7000 (60%) schools are two teacher, two room schools.

Most others have 3 to 4 teachers even when the number of students goes beyond 200-250. Nearly 20% schools have no boundary walls, hence no trees or playgrounds. On an average in primary school, three classes remain unengaged throughout the day because they have no teacher to teach them, have no room to provide shelter. Schools work for 200-220 days in a year and teaching hours are scuttled because 75% teachers are invariably put on non-academic duties for 60 to 70 days in a year. The head teachers and the control head teachers, teach any class. This further reduces the strength of working teachers.

The 1952 Rule of sanctioning one teacher for every 50 children prevails unchanged although a teacher-pupil ratio of 1:20 has been recommended by the Expert Committee for Elementary schools. It will be too much to heed the observation of Bertrand Russell that ‘one Child makes an ideal class, two can do, but three children make a crowd’. We have a ratio of 1:45 and by and large our schools are sans teaching aids, fresh air, potable water, toilets, even cleanliness.

Probably the gravest part of the story is that the syllabus is very heavy and so are the schoolbags. Children are made to read three languages, mathematics, social studies, general science, physical education, drawing and environmental studies despite the fact that teachers are in short supply, working days too few and teaching aids not available. All this against the advice of the NCERT which has recommended the teaching of the mother tongue, mathematics and environmental studies alone in the primary schools and the advice of Yashpal Committee to keep the satchel as light as possible.

There is no provision for any contingent grants for day-to-day purchase, pay electricity and water bills or appoint part-time safai karmacharis. Although education is free, yet every child is forced to pay Rs 50-60 per month as PTA or other fund. The fund factor forces poor parents to withdraw children from schools midway.

As soon as the new government took over, overwhelmed by financial constraints it ordered the abolition of 12000 vacant posts of teachers.

The central scheme titled the Sarv Sikhia Abhyan which aims at universalisation of elementary education by 2010 and which has 85% central assistance attached to it, has been treated most casually and grants amounting to hundreds of crores of rupees have been allowed to lapse or not utilised fully.

Money provided for the recruitment of 2010 teachers last year could not be used because the state government failed to formulate recruitment policy well in time.

Again the Finance Department failed to release Rs 18.6 crore as grant for girls education, Rs 2.24 crore for primary education and Rs 6.57 crore for computer education in time and the central grants lapsed.

Government declarations made in the document called Punjab Education Policy — 2002 are no different from smoke screens. It was announced thrice (in October 2002, April and July 2003) that all 12000 primary schools and 2500 middle school would be clubbed together into 8-year integrated elementary schools. For this purpose the Directorate of Primary Education was christened as Directorate of Elementary Education. Till date no such school has come into existence.

Nowhere is teaching being done regularly because the state has no supervisory machinery. Raids conducted by the Vigilance Department have shown large-scale absenteeism among teachers, high rate of failure in examinations and “sub-letting” of teaching posts to young matriculates on Rs 300 per month by regular teachers.

The BPEO’s and DEO’s have been instructed to visit a fixed number of schools every month, but the orders have not been implemented as yet.

Primary education is in a very bad shape. According to NCERT assessment, illiteracy and schooling coexist in primary schools and 62% of children passing out of primary schools fail to acquire permanent literacy.

When (and if) the government wakes up to the problem, it would be, perhaps, too late.

The writer is the Head, Education Department, Punjabi University, Patiala.

Why children skip school
A.N. Chopra

Infections and other diseases often result in a child skipping school. This may lead to his worrying about dropping behind others in his class. A common example is asthma. Many parents keep their asthmatic child away from school when he has the slightest wheeze. As a result, the child drops behind in his work and worries all the more and so keeps away from school longer still. It is vicious cycle. The mother, if overanxious about the child’s health, may make him neurotic.

Learning disorders may lead bad to truancy. Clumsiness of movement may invite unkind remarks from the teacher who a child’s bad writing may be ascribed to carelessness and naughtiness. Defect in hearing or seeing may result in the child being unable to follow instructions.

A child who finds the work too much either because of a learning difficulty or because his IQ is lower than that of others in his form may lose heart, become worried, depressed and insecure.

Epilepsy leads to behaviour difficulties in several ways. The child may be rejected by a school because of epilepsy or may be treated differently from others; for example stopped from swimming. He may live in fear of having a convulsion in the class.

He may have temporal lobe epilepsy, which causes bad behaviour, leading, for instance, to outbursts of temper.

Anti-epileptic drugs may make him clumsy, drowsy, and irritable and may effect concentration.

Phenobarbitone is particularly liable to cause undue irritability and bad behaviour.

Some bad behaviour may be due to hypoglycaemia. Some children (and adults) become bad-tempered when hungry. Others behave badly because they are tired as a result of an infection or anaemia. Chronic diarrhoea, such as that which occurs in ulcerative colitis, leads to bad temper and irritability.

Any chronic handicap, such as diabetes, haemophilia, chronic arthritis or defects in hearing or seeing.

Somatic symptoms may arise from psychological problems. They include diarrhoea, abdominal pain, vomiting, frequency of micturation, dysuria, dysmennorrhoea, bed-wetting, polydipsia, polyuria poor appetite, indigestion and peptic ulcer, obesity, nail biting, headache and limb or chest pain.

There is a psychological component to several skin conditions, such as eczema, urticaria, lichen planus and pruritis. Many other somatic symptoms can be caused by psychological problems.

Natural intelligence is apportioned in unequal measure at the moment of birth. ‘Intelligency’ is a socially beneficent force. Nature does not concentrate all gifts in one individual but bestows a few of them on each.

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