When I was shifted out of Coal Ministry in 2016, I wasn’t surprised because the coal mess had been sorted out and I had myself suggested to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to merge the Coal Ministry with Mines Ministry. However, I was surprised at the Ministry I was posted to. The government was perhaps looking for the most uneducated and illiterate civil servant to head the Department of School Education and Literacy and they found one in me. I had hardly any experience in this sector. Hence, the surprise. Moreover, as I wrote in “Not Just a Civil Servant”, I thought I was now moving out of the dark dungeons of coal mines to the bright lights of school education. It wasn’t so.
It would be an understatement to say that the education sector was in bad shape. Yes, all the investments made by the Government, especially those under the mid-day meal, had resulted in children coming to school. But, as Prakash Javadekar, my Minister, often said, it merely resulted in ‘Aana-Khaana-Jaana’ (coming–eating-going) with very little education being imparted. There was a decline in enrolment in government schools from 72.9% in 2007 to 63.1% in 2014. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 did little to stem the rot.
Ironically, the budgetary allocation for school education had seen a decline even in nominal terms over the few years before I took over . The budgetary allocation for school education was INR 55,115 crore during 2014-15. As a percentage of GDP, it was 0.52% and 3.07% of the entire budget. This amount got reduced during subsequent years. Even for 2016-17, the amount of INR 43,554 crore was less than the allocation made for 2014-15. As a percentage of GDP, it came down to 0.36% and 2.16% of the budget.
On the human resource front too, the situation was alarming. The Department had five Secretaries between 2014 and 2016. A number of Joint Secretaries were also changed during this period. It was like musical chairs reminiscent of my days in UP where it was rumoured that the only industry flourishing was the ‘transfer industry’.
In the two of the biggest states of the country, the positioning of top management followed a peculiar pattern. In UP there were two Additional Chief Secretary level officers manning School Education and Secondary Education separately (creating huge coordination problems). In the State of Bihar, one officer looked after both Education and Health Departments. Consequently, the ‘health’ of education continued to suffer!
There was an enormous crisis. Apart from the aforementioned human resource and budget-related issues, the mafias were having a field day and were eating into the essentials of society like termites. Fortunately, like all mafias, those in the education sector too were not in a majority but played a dominant role in decision making. They were extremely well connected and deeply entrenched. There were a host of mafias dominating various sectors, but the prominent ones were as follows:
- Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) and Diploma in Elementary Education (D.El.Ed) colleges
- Examination Centres
- Publishing of text books
- Private Schools
The bright “light’ that I found initially in school education was Prakash Javdekar. Sound and mature Prakash Javdekar was committed to improving the quality of school education. He was amenable to new ideas and this made all the difference. His pleasing demeanour endeared him to all. Very rarely did he lose his cool.
Some seminal steps were taken in the Department under the guidance of Prakash Javdekar. Thus, schemes like Sarv Shiksha Abhyan (schemes for classes I to V111) and Madhyamik Shiksha (schemes for classes IX and X) were merged and facilities under the schemes were extended to classes XI and XII as well. Flexibility was given to States to chalk out the details themselves. Role of Non-governmental organizations was recognized and public-private partnership was used as a tool in improving the quality of education. Prakash Javdekar found time to attend the conferences organized all over the country to promote such partnerships.
Prakash Javdekar was initially agreeable to take on the entrenched mafias and provided all the support but there were occasions when he found the situation too hot to handle.
As mentioned earlier, one of the mafias was the publishing industry. A handful of private publishers entered into what might be politely called an arrangement with the private schools in the name of quality and compelled the students to buy books that are were almost four to five times more expensive than the NCERT books. If all the students of around 20,000 CBSE affiliated schools were to source NCERT Books, there would be an estimated annual expenditure of around INR 650 crore. As compared to this, if they sourced these books from private publishers, it would have cost them around INR 3000 crore per annum. The difference was huge in order to justify the ‘quality’ argument. With the approval and support of Prakash Javdekar, NCERT had put in place a system from 2018 to ensure that books were made available on time so that students were not compelled to buy expensive books.
I have had the pleasure of reading all the books written by Anil Swaroop. I have known him as a committed & effective officer since 1986 when we both worked in UP cooperative sector.
In this article he shows combination of forthrightness, articulation and highlighting the crux of the matter. Many officers write about ministers and politicians in their memoire. Anil however gives a institutional treatment to the subject. Good wishes to him.