In the middle of elections when the leaders are slinging it over each others’ manifestos and promising the moon, civil society groups are working to spotlight children’s education.
A public manifesto for the Education of India’s Children to spotlight the legal entitlements and rights of the children was released by four networks viz., Right To Education (RTE) Forum, The Campaign Against Child Labour (CACL), Forum for Creches and Childcare Services, and Alliance for Right to Education in March 2024.
“We brainstorm on what are the issues which we should bring up in the coming elections primarily focused on education so that the political parties will include in their political agenda,” said Chirashree, a member of the Alliance for Right to ECD and National coordinator of FORCES.
“We have ground-level meetings, on how people take it up because unless we get feedback from the people, we cannot put it up in the public manifesto. Once we get their feedback, it gets translated into the local language, Bengali, Oriya,” she added.
The five-page manifesto was released ahead of the elections. “This is the time, political parties come to the public and interact with the public,” she said, adding, “During the election, this is the right time they engage with common people and common people are prioritised, and they take up such issues in their political agenda. So the election is the right time.”
The manifesto emphasised that only 25.5% of schools in the country are RTE compliant. 8.4 lakh teacher positions are vacant and there is a constant shift towards contractual teachers, 19% of schools in India are estimated to have teacher vacancies and one school in seven is run by a single teacher. While the quality of education cannot be ensured without professionally qualified and motivated teachers, 44% of all teachers across the country work without job contracts, many fail to receive social security benefits, and all are pressured with non-academic work which is estimated to account for 20-25% of teachers’ working hours.
“Education is not being prioritised, by the political parties, it’s not a priority for them. It is being neglected by them because if we see the data, Right to Education, every year they come up with the RTE implementation, only 25% of the schools comply with the RTE standard,” she added.
“We know that the fund allocation has also been reduced, unless it is a people’s agenda from the ground, from the society organisation, if it is not taken up as a priority by us, it will not be taken up by the political party,” Chirashree continued.
The manifesto emphasised the importance of extending the right to education under the age of six, as the right to education in India currently only applies to children within the age group of 6-14.
“Education is the backbone, without education, the country will never grow. I think the basic fundamental is if a country wants to grow, education should be a priority.”
Over the past ten years, from 2014-15 to 2024-25 (I), the budget for the Department of School Education has increased except for a reduction in 2015-16 and 2021-22. There has been an increase of 32.46% and an annual growth of 3.5%. As a percentage of the total budget estimate, the percentage has been reduced by 50% from 3.07% to 1.53% during the same period. In 2024-25(I), Rs 73,008 crores are allocated to the department, with a meagre rise from the revised estimates of 2023-24.
Over the last decade, the average budget-allocated utilisation has stood at 92.4%. However, in the recent three years – 2020-21, 2021-22, and 2022-23 – the utilisation rates were recorded at 86.6%, 85.3%, and 92.4% respectively. Some of the major expenditures of the department are Samagra Shiksha, POSHAN, and autonomous bodies.
Congress, BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal) and SP (Samajwadi Party) have incorporated the components of the demands by the civil society groups in their party manifestoes.
“We have met with the manifesto committee and they responded positively and told us that it is an important issue, some of the components have been taken up by the manifesto committee, but everything depends on the intentions,” she said. “It should not be written only in the manifesto it has to be translated into programmes. If it is not done, it is only the commitment that the government is doing so that will not work. If the Government wants to do anything seriously, it has to be translated into programmes and budget allocations.”
The Congress adopted 14 demands in their party manifesto, while the RJD has adopted four demands. Additionally, both the BJP and SP have each adopted 2 demands. The 12 joint demands include: Ensuring complete implementation of the RTE Act by 2026, eradication of child labour, extending the RTE Act up to age 18, increasing education expenditure to 6% of GDP, stopping closure and merger of government schools in the name of rationalisation or consolidation, filling teachers’ vacancies, developing and enforcing an enabling national regulatory framework for all private schools and ECCE centres to curb the commercialisation of education, particularly regulating school fees, removing barriers to education for marginalised groups, implementing Child and Adolescent Labour Rehabilitation Fund to support children freed from child labour, bringing dropout and out-of-school children into education, promoting mother tongue education, revising National Education Policy in light of the above demands.
Angeline Kez is pursuing a master’s degree in media and cultural studies at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and is an intern at The Wire.
