USING MODULE 16 IN A TRAINING PROGRAM

THE RIGHT TO EDUCATION

GO TO SECTION I - MODULE 16

This module should help trainees understand/clarify for themselves:

• the international standards related to the right to education and related state obligations.

Suggested Methods

¨      Case study discussion: The following case study could be given for discussion in small groups. The participants should identify the problems and explain how they are linked to the question of right to education.

Educational Backwardness in Mewat

"Two hours to the middle ages” would be a fitting sign on the road from Delhi to Mewat.  That is all it takes on this road from the capital of India to reach a place where the social environment takes us centuries back in history.

Mewat is inhabited chiefly by the Meos, a community of recent Muslim converts who used to be Rajput Hindus.  Many retain their caste names, and celebrate both Muslim and Hindu festivals.  The women do not observe purdah (veil).  The Meos are very poor, depending as they do on small rain-fed farms supplemented by animal hus­bandry.

The Meos today are the most disadvantaged communities in India.  Take any devel­opment indicator and you will find them at the bottom.  Female literacy, for example, is 1.8 per cent-the lowest in the country.  The average household size is 9.5, and the infant mortality rate is as high as 85 per thousand.  The female-male ratio is 884 per thousand against the national average of 927.

Though many factors contribute to this situation, the persistent backwardness of Me­wat has much to do with its abysmal lack of education.  Yet this lack of education is due neither to the lack of schools nor to the indifference of the community towards education.  Mewat remains backward because of apathy of government officials and the lack of accountability in all schools. 

The Meos want schools that function, and are properly equipped.  Instead one finds broken chairs, peeling plaster, broken window panes and no toilets or drinking water.  The schools are usually empty, with a few idling teachers who tell you that students do not come to school because the Meos do not value education.  The villagers tell a different story: teachers arrive at 10.30 or 11.30 a.m. for classes that are supposed to begin at 7.30 a.m.  Children come to school, play for a while, and then go away.  Par­ents do not want children to idle around.  Nor do they want their daughters to go to schools where teachers are absent, and where they have to relieve themselves in the open for lack of toilets.  Though initial enrolment is high, retention rates after the lower primary level are low.  About 85 per cent of girls are withdrawn after the lower primary level.

Schools should be sensitive to the wishes of the community.  Meos would like Urdu, their mother tongue, to be taught at school though they do not mind Hindi as the me­dium of instruction.  This is ignored.  Similarly, Meo parents are averse to sending their girls to coeducational schools, or schools outside the village.  This concern is not addressed either. 

That Meos are keen on education is evident from the far better retention rate found in the few private schools.  A girls’ school established by a young Muslim sarpanch (village leader) with community help has 200 students . . . The success of this school shows that parents will send their daughters to school if the conditions are right.  Un­fortunately, most Meos cannot afford the schools in which the conditions are right.  Schools run through voluntary effort have to struggle endlessly for resources and of­ficial recognition. 

Mewat is generally regarded as a lost cause.  We did not find it to be so.  On the con­trary, we saw much reason for hope, which lay primarily in education as well as in a process of building the community’s confidence and its ability to fight against apathy and corruption in the administration. 1