Adarsh Schools – The right policy at the wrong time - 28/02/2008

ADARSH SCHOOLS – THE RIGHT POLICY AT THE WRONG TIME

Introduction

That the Punjab schools system needs urgent reform is beyond doubt. Amongst many weaknesses it suffers from:

1. the highest drop out rates in the region, ranging from 23-25% at primary level to 44-48% for higher classes
2. the Punjab Government itself finds that 30% of children up to class 5 cannot read or write
3. the World Bank report titled “Resuming Punjab’s Prosperity” states that on any given day 36% of Punjab state school teachers are absent, this being the third worst in the country with only Bihar and Jharkhand being worse.

With 19,732 odd schools in Punjab, of which 2072 are in defined municipalities, and where the cost per state funded pupil is of the order of Rs.800 per child per month, the scale of the task to improve the system should not be underestimated.

The need for schools where excellence can be demonstrated in both teaching and learning is beyond doubt. Many developed countries have them, with titles like “Pathfinder” and “Beacon” schools, where the primary objective is for these best performing schools is to act as a catalyst to improve the standards of neighbouring schools.

The Punjab government proposes to set up 144 Adarsh schools; one school in each block. The schools are meant for the “intelligent poor”. The schools are to be funded by a Private Public Partnership (PPP) with industrial houses and NRIs as sponsors, with the government typically building the school on panchayats allocated land and private partners contributing 30% of the running costs.

Deficiencies in the Adarsh Proposals

1. Mr Prakash Singh Badal has been promoting this idea since 1979 when he started the first 9 Adarsh schools. So impressed was he with the success of these in his second term as CM that he forgot to add to the strength of Adarsh schools in his third term in spite of listing this as a key government objective in the 1997 Governor’s address to the Punjab Vidhan Assembly.

2. In the last Vidhan Sabha session, the CM claimed that the Vice-Chair of the Planning Commission, Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, was so enthused by the Adarsh proposals that he stated it should be extended to the whole country. I have checked this with Mr Ahluwalia who stated that:
a. He was only expressing a general view that schools of excellence are required in the country
b. He could not have endorsed the Adarsh school proposals because he had not, and has not, been presented with any such proposals.

3. Continuing with the vast waste of public money for party political communications today’s papers carry large colour ads featuring a beaming CM promising one Adarsh school in each block “in the 1st year” of this government’s term. Perhaps the CM has forgotten that he has just finished one year at that this target remains a distant dream.

4. The same ads envisage an investment of Rs.400 crores to set up 141 Adarsh schools, yet the Punjab Government’s own submission to the Union Planning Commission dated 2 August 2007 , estimated the cost per school of Rs.580 lakhs and admitted that “sufficient funds may not be available from the normal budget of the State” !!

5. Not only can the government not add up but it also needs to explain to the people of Punjab where a government that cannot pay its employees and hast to borrow vast sums to fund its illogical atta-dal scheme, will find the Rs.817.8 crores to set up the 141 proposed Adarsh schools. Is it solely dependent on Union assistance along the lines of the Rs.75 crores Additional Central Assistance (ACA) that it requested from the Planning Commission in the afore-mentioned communication and for which an additional application for Rs,50crores ACA is being planned this year?

6. It creates a 2 tier system with the 99% plus of schools that are non-Adarsh relegated to second rate, where neither pupils nor teachers are sufficiently motivated or involved. If the government actually implements its ill-conceived idea to have a separate teachers’ cadre for Adarsh schools it will not only invite the wrath of the teaching unions but it will shatter the confidence of teachers outside the Adarsh-cadre.

7. Designed for the “intelligent poor” the government ignores the fact that a block is not a geographically small area. Most students simply will not have the resources to travel the average 12km odd distance to each Adarsh school and certainly those children at the periphery of each block will have neither the time, nor the resources, nor the inclination to cover the typical 25km distance to the Adarsh school.

8. The number of schools which the Adarsh school is meant to inspire (approximately 130 per block) is far too great a number for there to be any effective motivation

The Alternative

1. If centres of excellence are to be set up they should be along the lines of the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyala (KGBV) residential schools central government scheme. Then travel becomes a non-issue allowing access for the “intelligent poor” and especially the girl student for whom transit on rural roads can sometimes be a harrowing experience. At approximately, Rs.9 crores these KGBV schools cost a little more than the Punjab Adarsh schools but they achieve the dual objectives of excellence and gender-performance-redressal far better than any Adarsh school ever will.

2. Stop politically motivated teacher transfers. Allow teachers to define a place of residence. Verify that except on grounds of marriage for female teachers, this is actually where the teacher has lived for the past 3 years. Implement transparent rules that allow the teacher to be posted within a maximum distance dependent on where the teacher’s place of residence has been accepted. Publish on the internet the mean distance between home and school for each teacher in the last 5 years together with the average for all teachers resident in the same block. Yes, we have an imbalance of teachers in Punjab, with a disproportionate number having historically been recruited from Majha, but this imbalance can be corrected in the medium term.

3. Create Local Area School Education Boards (LASEB), may be 10 per block with about 9 primary schools and 4 higher level schools. These boards should be composed of:

a. Parent representatives elected by the parents of the constituent schools
b. Teacher representatives
c. Head Teacher representatives
d. Government appointees.

Parent representatives should constitute not less than 40% of the members of the LASEB, which should have adequate administrative staff to deliver on the government’s educational policies and educational achievement targets.

4. Set educational achievement targets for all schools. Judge schools on value additions, not just solely on percentages, as schools in economically weaker areas will inevitable be poorer in pupil and teacher performance.

5. Measure teachers’ performance and attendance in a just and equitable manner. Biometrics technology can deliver appropriate results and is affordable.

6. Delegate recruitment of teachers to the LASEB. This will result in local teachers being recruited for local schools. No teachers will have to travel more than 12km to school, most will travel on average about 5km. This will boost teacher moral and significantly reduce teacher absenteeism.

7. Start a School Bus Service. Punjab suffers from unviable school sizes. Even with pupil-teacher ratios of (as per 2004 figures) 30 for higher secondary schools, 27 for middle schools and 42 for primary schools, many villages simply do not have sufficient pupils to fill each class, resulting in the same teacher simultaneously teaching children across the age group, not just 6 year olds with 7 year olds, but also 9 year olds and 12 year olds, all in the same classroom. The School Bus Service will collect children from smaller villages and transfer them to schools in larger villages. Do not close the small schools but give parents a choice of whether they want to send their child to the local, invariably, small school or by school bus to the larger school where all the children in one class will be from the same grade. The school bus service is a critical component of every rural community, be it USA, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. About 6 buses will be required per block. Girls will be happier that they do not have to walk or bike between villages. Rationalisation of rural schools will be the inevitable medium term result, not by government action but by parental selection.

The Future

There will be a time for schools of excellence, by the Adarsh name or by any other name. This should happen when the gap between the poorest and best performing schools is much narrower than that today. Only then can a school of excellence truly inspire the poorer performing state schools. At the moment the gap is far too wide and the Adarsh schools concept will break the back of the state school system. For the sake of today’s school children, on whom depends the future prosperity of Punjab, please Badal sahib:

1. put my above suggestions to active consideration by your education team, including non-governmental educational experts.
2. invest more in all schools, not just Adarsh schools
3. defer the Adarsh school scheme for 10 years during which time all schools can be improved to meet the challenges posed by centres of excellence.
4. be wary of your education team endorsing a policy just because you proposed it in 1979. A generation later much has changed; so have the needs of today’s school children.
5. do not let 99% of today students be inadequate for tomorrow workplace just because they did not attend an Adarsh school.

I pray that good reason and common sense with prevail.

Jassi Khangura MLA
Chandigarh 28.02.08