A revolution unfolds in classrooms as Himachal invests in future

A revolution unfolds in classrooms as Himachal invests in future
ANUPREETA DAS

MANDI, JULY 9: Why do you like going to school? Ask Janki, a nine-year-old girl in a Mandi village in Himachal Pradesh and she says: ``We play kabbadi, we sing songs and we learn new poems everyday.'' If her school, the Rajkiya Prathamik Pathsala, sounds like fun, visit another primary school in neighbouring Teguber in Kullu. The teachers there have painted a quarter of each wall black. So that students can practise writing.

On the surface, these may sound like scenes from a DAVP promo film, but there's more evidence of a schooling revolution in Himachal Pradesh in the figures. Literacy rates in the state have risen from 83 per cent for boys and 52 per cent for girls in 1991, to 94 per cent and 86 per cent in 1999, as per the results of the PROBE 1999 (Public Report on Basic Education) sample survey. Only Kerala and Goa have higher literacy rates. ``The equity principle is very strongly ingrained in Himachali society when it comes to people's access to the basics, like education, water or health services,'' points out a senior official in the Department of Education, who was part of the PROBE team.

Moreover, Himachali women, he observes, are bound by a strong sense of solidarity since it's a ``money-order economy, where almost every family has one male member in the Army or employed with the government'' and participate much more in decision-making, than, say, their counterparts in neighbouring Haryana. In such a social atmosphere, pragmatic strategies by the government, such as instituting Mother Teacher Associations (MTAs) instead of the usual PTAs, have benefitted children's education. ``At our last MTA meeting, we had a turnout of more than 1,000 women. There were not just mothers, but unmarried sisters, mothers-in-law, grandmothers and to-be mothers,'' laughs Sunil Gujral, Kullu Programme Coordinator of the Rs 160-crore World-Bank funded District Primary Education Programme (DPEP).

At roughly Rs 700 per annum, per capita expenditure on education in Himachal has also been among the highest in the country since 1989-90 (the average national per capita expenditure is about Rs 350). But while high government expenditure can explain the presence of over 16,000 primary schools in the state, it cannot explain why nearly 93 per cent of the children who are enrolled in school stay on to complete their basic education. In Kullu district, for instance, the primary school dropout rate is a negligible 0.7 per cent, which is well below the national average of 2.1 per cent. ``The state has been able to create an atmosphere conducive to education, through active government intervention and involvement of parents,'' explains Prabodh Saxena, Deputy Commissioner, Mandi.

Take, for instance, the role of literacy movements, which were introduced in almost all districts in the beginning of the Nineties. The district administration's literacy movement in Mandi in 1992 has ensured that the top demand of villagers from a visiting minister is for a new school; today, there are 1,691 primary schools in Mandi, with an average of 80-110 students in each. Enrolment numbers swelled after the Total Literacy Campaign was introduced in Kullu, from 14,000 boys and 13,616 girls in 1995, to 22,827 boys and 20,094 girls in 1998.

While nearly 12 per cent of Bihar's primary schools have only one teacher (despite the Central government's Operation Blackboard scheme of 1986, which attempted to eliminate single teacher schools), single-teacher schools have all but disappeared from Himachal, from 28 per cent in 1986 to less than 1 per cent now. At present, there are over 31,000 government teachers employed in Himachal's 16,000 primary schools. The school in Teguber had four teachers, four blackboards and a library, while the Nalsar Primary School in Mandi had five teachers -- one for each class, and a Central Head Teacher. Himachal also has a special VolunteerTeacher (VT) scheme, to recruit literate but unemployed village youths. Under the VT scheme, a Class 12 graduate can be employed as a teacher in his village primary school, while simultaneously undergoing a teacher training programme.

Additionally, the teacher-student ratio in Himachal is 1:32, which is below the official recommended average of 1:40. ``We go to the villages regularlyto encourage parents to send their children to school,'' says Jamna Devi, a teacher at Rajkiya. All the schools this reporter visited had mostly women teachers, which is indicative of the fact that a large number of Himachali women are employed outside the home. In Nalsar, 40 per cent of the women are either government clerks -- a few are teachers or doctors -- or work in the fields as daily wage earners. Says Premlata, a mother of two school-going children: ``If my girl does not go to school, how will she earn? No one will marry her if she is not educated.''

Consequently, there is a low gender bias in schools: in Rajkiya, there were 45 boys and 47 girls, while the Nalsar primary school had 73 girls and 77 boys. There are also government incentives such as free textbooks for girls (and SC/ST children) up to the university level, and special scholarship schemes to address any socio-economic disparaties in access to education. School calendars are adjusted according to the agricultural cycles in each district, so that children don't miss school in order to help in the fields.

One of the most frequently stated reasons for high primary school dropout rates (according to the Department of Education) is the non-accessibility of schooling facilities. Schools are too few and far between, or disparities in class and caste prevent disadvantaged families from sending their children to school. Things are a bit different in Himachal, where there are functional schools within every 1.5 km radius, and easily walkable roads linking villages. Consider this: in a 10-kilometer stretch from Sundernagar to Baggi, both in Mandi district, there are seven primary schools and five secondary schools.

Also, class differences in Himachal are not as sharp -- ``Himachal may not be a rich state, but there is no abject poverty here,'' says Saxena -- because of a high rate of employment. ``Hill communities are less separated by caste differences, and this community strength makes for better response to government intervention,'' adds Suraj Kumar, programme advisor, Human Development Report Centre, UNDP India.

Not surprisingly, there are very few private schools in Himachal. As Mehr Chand Thakur, a peon in Baggi, with three school-going children says, ``private school ka kya bharosa? (There is no guarantee for private schools.''