Jaipur: A group of girl students, along with their parents gathered in front of a senior secondary school in Rajasthan’s Bikaner district on Saturday (January 25), chanting slogans against the state’s education minister and threatening to go on a hunger strike.
Their grievance resulted from the fact that the school where they studied – the government girls’ senior secondary school, Jassusar Gate Bikaner – was merged with another government school, run from the same premises.
“We want to study in a girls’ school because our families don’t want us to study in boys’ schools. On one hand the government says that it encourages education but it is closing the girls’ school where we study. Why are we being punished?” a protesting girl student told reporters.
The school in Bikaner is part of the 449 government schools which have been merged by state’s Education Department within a 10-day period between January 7 and 16 citing reasons including less enrolment and separate schools being run in the same premises.
However, the decision of school merger has resulted in severe criticism for the Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma-led BJP government in the state, with students and parents holding protests across several areas in Rajasthan, demanding that the merger orders be withdrawn.
A common reason for the protests in many areas including the demonstration in Bikaner is the merger of girls’ schools into co-ed schools.
The Rajasthan Education Department’s order dated January 16 says that the girls’ school in Bikaner’s Jassusar gate is being merged because of less enrolment.
Among the protesters in Bikaner on Saturday (January 25) was Choraram Chawariya, a man from the Dalit Valmiki community, who said his nieces study in the girls’ school that is being merged.
“Most of the students in the girls’ school in Jassusar Gate are from marginalised communities such as Dalits and Adivasis whose parents are labourers. They cannot afford to send them to private schools. Many families don’t want their daughters to study in co-education schools. We cannot understand what purpose is being served from closing girls’ schools that have existed for many years,” Chawariya told The Wire.
449 government schools merged within 10 days
The sequence of mergers started when the director of the Elementary Education Department issued an order on January 7, directing the merger of 21 government primary and upper primary schools which were being run from the same premises.
“When more than one government primary/upper primary schools are run from the same premises, adequate enrolment doesn’t happen in these schools,” said the order, adding that the schools are being merged to bring qualitative improvement in education.
In another order issued on January 7, approval was given for the merger of 169 government primary and upper primary schools which have zero enrolments. The schools were merged with their nearest schools to their villages.
“Due to government primary/upper primary schools functioning very close to each other, adequate enrolment of students doesn’t happen…As a result, despite posts of teachers being approved under the right to education standards, teachers are not available, adversely impacting the quality of education,” says the order in Hindi.
The two orders issued on January 7 meant that 190 primary and upper primary schools were being merged in the state.
Thereafter, on January 16, the Director of Secondary Education issued an order, giving the approval for the merger of 259 government schools citing reasons including zero/less enrolment, more than one school being run from same premises and schools in very near vicinity of each other.
With the January 16 order, the total number of primary, upper primary, secondary and senior secondary schools which were merged in Rajasthan within a period of 10 days stood at 449.
‘It was the only girls’ senior secondary school in the area,’ BJP MLA writes to minister
The pushback to the decision of merging the schools has come from students, parents and at times even from MLAs of the ruling party.
In Ajmer district’s Beawar, parents such as Mukesh Kumar Gehlot have joined protests against the merger of the school where his daughter studies in class 9.
“The government decided to merge the girls’ senior secondary school in Diggi Mohalla of Beawar with the government senior secondary school in Patel Nagar where boys also study. We are protesting the move as we don’t want the girls’ school to be closed,” said Gehlot.
In Ajmer, locals opposed the merger of an Urdu medium school into a Hindi medium school.
“The Urdu medium school was being run since 1941 but now it has been merged with a Hindi medium school, leading to protests by local residents. We have written to the Education Department requesting it to take back this decision,” said local councillor Azhar Khan.
Locals protest against the merger a girls’ senior secondary school in Rajasthan’s Beawar. Photo: By arrangement
The massive opposition from the public has also resulted in legislators, including ruling MLAs, to ask the government to reconsider its decision.
Following the protests by the girl students in Bikaner against the merger of the girls’ school at Jassusar Gate, Bikaner West BJP MLA Jethanand Vyas wrote a letter to Education Minister Madan Dilawar, requesting him to keep the girls’s school at Jassusar date out of the decision of merger.
“It was the only girls’ senior secondary school in the area, where poor girls living in nearby areas were studying. Due to the social environment in that area, girls feel uneasy about studying with boys. As a result they will be forced to take admission in schools situated far away or will leave education midway, which will be opposite to the government’s desire of developing girls’ education,” says the letter written by BJP MLA Vyas to the Education Minister.
Opposition, civil society slam government, Education Minister defends move
The school merger has also resulted in opposition from the civil society, which has condemned the move, terming it as a “regrettable step.”
“PUCL believes that shutting down government schools based on low student enrolment is against the spirit of the Right to Education (RTE) Act. For marginalised groups such as Dalits, Adivasis, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes, government schools remain the most accessible source of education,” said People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) Rajasthan President Bhanwar Meghwanshi in a statement.
“The government should feel ashamed for closing schools due to low enrollment, as it highlights its failure to attract students. Instead, the government should take steps to make government schools more appealing to students. Affordable education is the best way to achieve equality and social justice,” he added.
The opposition Congress has also attacked the government over school mergers, alleging that the BJP wants to hand over the education system to private players.
“The real aim of the BJP government is to hand over education to private hands, which is part of the agenda of RSS. They want to deprive the children from poor and weaker sections of the right to education and want to re-establish Adarsh Vidya Mandir schools,” said Congress MLA and Rajasthan Leader of Opposition Tikaram Jully.
However, Rajasthan Education Minister Madan Dilawar defended the move to merge the schools, saying that it was done to make optimum use of available resources.
“It is not right to say that the Rajasthan government has closed 450 schools. They have not been closed but merged. It means that those schools have been merged where there was zero enrolment or where more than one school was running from the same premises because there is no meaning for it. We need double teaching staff whereas on merging, we will have one principal, one lecturer for a subject and we can appoint the remaining teachers in other schools where they are needed,” Dilawar told reporters.
Dilawar alleged that it was during the Congress regime that thousands of schools were merged.
