People's campaign for common school system:

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People s Campaign for Common School System
(Samaan Skool Pranali ki Jan Muhim)
RIGHT TO EDUCATION: BASIC PRINCIPLES AND CORE AGENDA IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT
Basic Principles
We can identify the following underlying principles that may guide us:
The primary purpose of education is to help build a democratic, egalitarian, secular
and humane society, both at the national and global levels; at the same time, it must also promote universal human values and respect for India s composite culture and her rich ethnic, socio-cultural, religious and linguistic diversity.
The education system must strengthen the commitment in every citizen to the goals as
enshrined in the Preamble to the Constitution, especially sovereignty, secularism and
democracy and to secure socio-economic and political justice, liberty of thought and
faith, equality of status and opportunity, dignity of the individual and integrity of the nation.
 Education is a means for unleashing the full human potential in the larger public
interest as well as a path to social development with equality and social justice; it has a critical role in generating knowledge for the welfare of the masses, rather than for profit, subjugation or concentration of power.
 It follows that education is not a commodity or service that can be traded in market and, therefore, must not be allowed to be used for commercial purposes.
 For the purpose of allocation of public resources or otherwise, elementary education is not to be juxtaposed against secondary, higher, technical or professional education, each sector being critical to people s welfare and national development.
 No cause (or budget head) that does not fall in the category of Fundamental Rights
can have a priority over elementary education of eight years in allocation of public
resources.
 It is the Constitutional obligation of the State to ensure adequate financial support for the development of education in such manner as to guarantee various Fundamental Rights (Part III) in consonance with the Directive Principles of State Policy (Part IV) of the Constitution.
 As a consequence of 86th Constitutional Amendment and induction of Article 21A, all
schools, including the private and non-government ones, aided or unaided, need to be
viewed as instrumentalities of the State that are under obligation to play their due role in ensuring that all children between the age group of 6-14 years realize their
Fundamental Right to free and compulsory [elementary] education .
 The Supreme Court of India, in the case of Unnilrishnan J.P. vs. State of Andhra Pradesh and others (S.C. 2178, 1993), gave all children a Fundamental Right to !free and compulsory education" until they !complete the age of fourteen years" and stated that this right !flows from Article 21" when read in conjunction with the original Article 45; this shall include, as per the amended Article 45, free early childhood care and pre-Page 22 primary education; further, the Supreme Court in the same judgment ruled that, after the age of fourteen years, the Fundamental Right to education continues to exist but is subject to limits of economic capacity and development of the State! as per Article 41.
 Right to Education is meaningful only when provided along with other Fundamental
Rights, especially those enshrined in Articles 14, 15 and 16 relating to equality and
social justice. In this sense, the Right to Education agenda can not be delinked from
the agenda of Common School System (including private unaided schools) founded on
the principle of Neighbourhood Schools.
 Curricular and pedagogic reforms in the present multi-layered education system are likely to subject under-privileged children to even greater disadvantage, discrimination and marginalization than what they may be suffering from at present.
Core Agenda
The following Core Agenda emerges from the Basic Principles listed above:
1. The National System of Education shall be built as a Common School System from
the pre-primary stage (linked with early childhood care) to the Plus Two stage wherein each school, irrespective of its type of management, Boards of affiliation or sources of income/grant, shall act as a genuine Neighbourhood School for all children belonging to its specified neighbourhood and provide them absolutely free education of equitable quality.
2. No school, including the unaided private or non-government schools, can either deny admission or charge any fee (or other charges) whatsoever from the children belonging to
its specified neighbourhood for providing them education of equitable quality.
3. No school can practice selection or screening either at the time of admission or before a public examination.
4. Free educations implies freedom from not just tuition fees and other school charges but also all incidental and contingent expenses (e.g. on textbooks, stationery, uniform, teaching aids, laboratory material, computer fees and accessories, mid-day meals etc.); it further includes opportunity costs for those children whose parents survive on minimum or lower wages but decide to send their children to regular schools.
5. Child labour in all forms has to be banned by law since it prevents children from
completing elementary education through regular schools; even later, the children up to 18 years of age have an inherent right to proceed to secondary and senior secondary schools so that they will have equal opportunity to access various professions and careers.
6. The minimum norms and standards of all schools in the Common School System
shall be those of the Kendriya Vidyalayas (Central Schools).
7. The curriculum, teaching-learning process and the socio-cultural environment of the Common School System shall promote the values enshrined in the Constitution in
Page 33 such manner that the children from various sections of society, including SCs, STs, religious and linguistic minorities and the disabled, with focus on girls in each of these deprived sections, shall have a place of dignity and be fully included in the Neighbourhood School. No school, private or otherwise, can take shelter under either its affiliating Board or the argument of market choice, to violate these principles.
8. The State has a Constitutional obligation to regulate all categories of schools,
including the unaided private or non-government schools, with the primary purpose of
checkmating commercialization of education and maintenance of equitable quality of
education while, at the same time, giving them the necessary autonomy for the purpose of pursuing creativity, flexibility and contextuality in the curriculum and teaching-learning process.
9. The management of the schools needs to be decentralized with optimum and
democratic participation of students, parents and teachers while keeping in mind (a) the framework of 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments; and (b) the Constitutional
obligation of the State to provide adequate public resources for ensuring free
education of equitable quality for all children.
10. Elementary education must lead to free and universal secondary and senior
secondary education in order to give access to each child to the world of work .
11. The State must commit all the necessary public resources for promoting secondary/
senior secondary, higher and technical education such that its benefits accrue equitably to all sections of society.
12. The 86th Constitutional Amendment must be urgently reviewed in order (a) to expand it to include all children up to 18 years of age and (b) to make it a powerful means for gaining equality and social justice.
13.Prohibit the entry of FDI and/ or external assistance in all sectors of education,
unless there is objective evidence to show that this will help in ways that can t be
achieved through mobilization of internal resources by reprioritisation of national
economy.
14.Mobilise public opinion to prevent the Govt. of India from offering education as a
negotiable service under GATS and making any commitments whatsoever thereunder
without promoting a transparent and nation-wide debate on the matter and, since
education is a concurrent subject, involving both the Parliament and the state legislatures in decision-making.
04 September 2006