EQUITY AND DIVERSITY (NAVODAYA VIDYALAYAS)
Shri Chitta Basu, MP, General Secretary, All India Forward Block, 28, Gurudwara Rakabganj Road, New Delhi (15.10.90)
- The idea of Navodaya Vidyalaya should be given up and adequate support should be given to all schools.
Prof. S. Guha Ray, Population Studies Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, 203 Barrackpore Trunk Road, Calcutta
- A Common School System, (encompassing public, private schools etc.) is to be built-up.
Shri S.P. Patil, Headmaster, Z.P. Primary School, Pune (30.9.90)
- Common school system should be developed in a 10 year period to strengthen social unity and national integration. In due course these schools can be converted into neighbourhood schools.
- Education system should be restructured to give equality to women.
- Special attention should be given to weak students.
- Fifty per cent budget should be earmarked for education of weaker sections like women, SCs, STs, etc.
Shri Sita Ram Singh, Lecturer, H.N.K. +2 School, Arrah, Bhojpur, (Bihar).
- Neighbourhood school system should be introduced and free and compulsory vocational education should be provided to 9-12 age group.
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Swami Sanatan Shri, Shri Sanatan Ashram, Kursi Road, Lucknow.
- Government should become the guardian of disabled and helpless children and they should be given education upto 15 years of age.
Shri Sawai Singh, Kishore Niwas, Tripolia, Jaipur (5.10.90)
- Instead of exploring the ways of including expensive private schools in the common school system, they should be abolished. This is the only way to make meaningful changes.
Shri G.S. Sharma, President, Karnataka Unaided Schools' Management Association, 9 Vanivilas Road, V.V. Puram, Bangalore (15.10.1990)
- Rural women are mostly working women and are normally engaged in agricultural activities from morning till evening. Their children badly need baby-sitting centres and pre- schools to socialize them and prepare them for schooling. Immediate steps should be taken to start pre-schools or Anganvadis in all Villages.
- The common schools and neighbourhood schools idea may not succeed unless the quality of education imparted in different categories of schools is more or less uniform.
Dr. B.D. Swami, 62/4, Shivpuri, Meerut City-250001 (26th October, 1990)
- The internal assessment suggested in the Paper is likely to encourage favourtism.
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Shri Harminder Singh Dhanoa, Lecturer, Govt. College of Education, Patiala MD Dr. Sunil Dutt, Lecturer, Sohan Lal DAV College of Education, Ambala City.
- Equal educational opportunities should be provided to all irrespective of caste, colour, creed and sex but talented students especially from rural areas should be provided with better educational facilities and so the further encouragement of Navodaya Vidyalayas is justified.
- In order to encourage enrolment and retention of girls in schools, following measures may be adopted:
i) In single teacher schools, the teacher should preferably be women and where there are two teachers, one of them should be a woman.
ii) A number of support services like drinking water, fuel fodder and health care should be made available in the villages.
iii) Parents and society should be educated and encouraged for sending girls in the schools.
Prof. V.N. Wanchoo, Director, Centre for Educational Development, A- 55, Ashok Vihar-II, Delhi-110052 (22nd October, 1990)
- It is not possible to have a common school system in the country as long as capitalistic order prevails.
Prof. Jacob Aikara, Professor and Head, Unit for Research in the sociology of Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Deonar, Post Box No. 8313, Bombay 400088. (6th October, 1990)
- The very idea of the common school system is practically irrelevant to the rural areas, because we do not find substantial heterogeneity among the schools within a rural locality. Hence
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common school system is an urban issue which affects the urban elites people and those rural who can afford sending their children to the urban elite schools. The major controls the government can exercise on school education towards achieving the common school system is through finance and recognition. With the kind of decentralisation and system of examinations envisaged in the document, government recognition may not be of much relevance to the individual schools. Secondly, if the citizens on their own initiative run self-financed schools, financial control by the government as a measure to enforce the common schools system becomes non-existent.
- The preference of parents for particularly medium of instruction is also a hindrance to the implementation of common school system. It is not clear from the Paper how legislation can be enacted to implement common school system without infringing the rights of minorities under article 30 of the Constitution.
- The proposal to make the schools flexible enough to reach out to children outside the school appears sound. If school education can be made as convenient and suitable to the children as possible without diluting quality and without substantial reduction in the content of education, it is a welcome proposal. But there has to be efficient mechanisms of supervision and inspection in order to ensure the quality of education.
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Shri Ashok K. Angurana, Director School Education, J&K State, Jammu (25th October, 1990)
- In so far as inclusion of private schools within the ambit of the Common School System is concerned, it will neither be possible nor feasible due to resource constraint as large number of staff as well as infrastructure created by the private institutions shall have to be taken care of by the government which will require large sums of money. Moreover, if we view dispassionately, some of the private institutions are really the 'Islands of Excellence' in the 'Ocean of mediocrity'. There is a lurking danger of diluting the private institutions by amalgameting them into the "Neighbourhood Schools". We feel that the standard of these Neighbourhood Schools should be raised to that of the better run public schools.
Director, Pre-University Education and Ex-Officio Secretary to the Board of Pre-University Education, Government of Karnataka, Palace Road, Bangalore-560001 (16th October, 1990)
- The proposal not to have schools of excellence is unsound. Certainly the backward students should be given greater opportunities to reach excellence but that should not be a ground for forcing the excellent ones to suffer. If India is to see the light of progress, we need excellence of the highest order at all levels.
Dr. R. Bandyopadhyay, Director, Centre for Applied Systems Analysis in Development, D-5/8, Salunke Vihar, Pune-411022 (19.10.90)
- Idea of having 'common school' to correct elitist aberration of education is a good one. We should, however, realistically assess the barriers, objections, and various difficulties that introduction of 'common school system' has to face.
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- In order to make the neighbourhood school ideas operationally feasible, the following steps should be initiated:
a) Identification of schools in rural, semi-urban, urban and metropolitan (slum/under developed) areas which are below acceptable standards in respect of infrastructure, teaching and other resources.
b) Estimation of the necessary measures (including cost) for improvement of infrastructure (building, equipment, library, laboratory, etc.).
c) Assessment of the requirements for strengthening of teaching faculty both in terms of quality and quantity. Drawing up of a phased action programme to implement improvement programmes.
d) Devising a teacher exchange programme within the cluster of educational institutions and also between a number of clusters geographically closely situated.
- Only when this improvement programme has got underway and public confidence in respect of the standards of the schools are established, the appropriate time for establishing `neighbourhood' school will come. Programme should also be undertaken to inform the public, regarding the various steps taken for improvement of the existing schools and the desirablity of having neighbourhood common school system. Media (television and radio) should be optimally used to generate the favourable climate towards introduction of the common-school system at primary and secondary school levels.
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Prof. Hira Adyanthaya, Dean, Tilak Maharashtra Vidya-peeth, Vidyapeeth Bhavan, Gultekadi, Pune 411037 (16.10.90)
- Among the more notable recommendations made by the committee is the one in favour of neighbourhood schools. If neighbourhood schools are to be established, the problem of dual system of education - one for the poor and another one for the rich will have to sorted out first.
Shri K. Narahari, President, Karnataka State Secondary Teachers' Association, 1357, 7th Main Road, Sriramapura, Bangalore-560021 (4.10.1990)
- Concepts of Common School System and Educational Complexes are worthy to be experimented. But social cohesion and national integration as envisaged by Common School System will suffer severe set back, if the minority institutions are exempted from this as per article 30 of the Constitution.
- In the Navodaya Vidyalayas, if all the seats are reserved for rural students only then they can be continued. In such cases curriculum should be rural oriented and capable of motivating the students to serve the rural areas after their education.
Shri R.S. Bharadwaj, General Secretary, Bharatiya Shikshan Mandal, K- 30, Green Park Main, New Delhi-110016 (9.10.90)
- The scheme of Navodaya Vidyalayas has to be reviewed. Our country with limited resources cannot afford to spend huge amounts of public finances on a few talented students, while thousands have to go without even teaching and reading material and other basic needs of the schools.
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Shri P.D. Sachdeva, General Secretary, Government School Teachers' Association, Delhi, Govt. Co-ed Sr. Sec. School, Kitchner Road, New Delhi (20th October, 1990)
- There should be no segregated nurturing of talent in separate schools. Even in the ordinary school it is not impossible to identify and respond to the needs of the exceptional child. For this we do need the right kind of Heads of Schools and the right type of TEACHER. We have to abolish elitism or elitist aberrations through a concerted effort, may be through legislation.
Shri Omkarnath Das, Lecturer (Mech. Engg.), ITT, Chowdwar (8.10.90)
- The Navodaya Vidyalayas must not be discarded. They are to be accepted as a standard for the schools established or being established by the State Governments.
Dr. Usha Nayar, HOD, Department of Women's Studies, NCERT, New Delhi (23.10.90)
- Almost all the rural schools are neighbourhood schools and fall in the category of common schools. It should be possible to implement common school system in urban areas with in a year i.e. from the coming academic session by issuing just an administrative order. One need not wait for 10 years to implement this simple reform.
Shri S.S. Salgonkar, Jt. D.E. (School Education), Directorate of Education., M.S., Pune (10th October, 1990)
- The existing set up and structure of Navodaya Vidyalaya may be recast so as to make it more realistic and economical. The scheme can further be introduced in the remaining districts by identifying one of the existing viable secondary schools and developing the
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same into a Navodaya Vidyalaya by giving some additional inputs in terms of residential facilities, better qualified staff etc.
- To encourage education of girls Government of Maharashtra runs schemes such as free uniform and textbooks, free education for girls upto class XII etc. The scheme of attendance allowance to tribal girls is also under consideration. The state government is liberal in granting per-mission to open separate schools for girls wherever necessary.
- The concept of neighbourhood school is not practicable because in urban areas schools are not conveniently located. Morever parents can not be forced to send their children to neighbourhood school only. The question of quality in respect of schools run by local bodies is debatable.
Shri B.R. Mutagi, Headmaster, D.Y. Chaugule Bharatesh High School, Belgaum and Chairman, The Belgaum District Headmasters Association, Belgaum, (October, 1990)
- The proposal to have a common school system is a welcome one. But measures like discontinuance of state aid to the schools imparting education otherwise than in the medium of regional language need to be re-considered In the context of Constitutional protection provided to the linguistic minorities.
Shri B.L. Seth, President, Rajasthan Shikshak Sangh, 45, Ganesh Nagar, University Road, Udaipur (22.10.1990)
- The idea of common school is a welcome one. The standard of education imparted in every school should be of a desired level. However, it will take time to reach this stage. Till then the private schools should be allowed to operate.
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Dr. G. Subramonia Pillai, Prof. & Head, Department of Education, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai (27.10.1990)
- The idea of nurturing of talents without segregation is not practicable in the present circumstances as our teachers are not equipped for the same. Therefore, special efforts will have to be made for the education of the 'gifted'.
Prof. Suraj Bhan Singh, Chairman, Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology, West Block VII, R.K. Puram, New Delhi 110022 (29th October, 1990)
- The Common School System was recommended by the Kothari Commission in 1966. The main reason for its failure was the poor standard of government-owned and government-aided schools besides the social bias in favour of English medium schools. Raising the standard of all such schools would require a substantially larger allocation of funds and a close monitoring system. Since, this is likely to take time, the Committee may propose an alternative model for the interim period. A network of schools for instance on the pattern of Central Schools with some modifications will be a more practical proposition.
- The Navodaya Vidyalayas enable the meritorious amongst the poorest and the underprivileged from rural areas of receive free education of the highest order. It is also an attempt at national integration. It will, therefore, be a pity if before the common school system is introduced and the common schools are qualitatively brought somewhere near an optimum standard., the Navodaya Vidyalayas are discontinued or their growth stopped. However, in view of the financial constraints, the quanitative
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growth of Navodaya Vidyalayas be restricted to only one-third of the original stipulated rate of growth spread over a longer period.
Shri R. Slattery, Principal, Teacher's Training College, Sitagarha P.O., Hazaribag Distt., Bihar (22nd October, 1990)
- The proposal for a common school system will work only if the community is heavily involved and the teachers have a real sense of team work and commitment. The system should be experimented on a pilot basis in selected blocks.
Prof. M.M Bokadia, Retd. Prof. & Head, School of Studies in Chemistry, Vikram University, Ujjain, 118, Dashera Maidan, Ujjain, (20th October, 1990)
- The institution of Navodaya Vidyalaya in rural areas is a novel idea and the concept is to be boosted in every respect. In fact their scope should be enlarged entrusting them with all sorts of educational activities in that region.
Shri T.B Govinda Rao, Project Officer, Rashtrotthana Parishat Non- Formal Education Project, Kempegowda Nagar, Bangalore-560019 (Dated 10.10.90)
- Public schools and Navodaya Schools should must be converted into schools of excellance where extraordinarily intellegent students are brought together.
Dr. S. Unnikrishna Pillai, Principal, Regional Engineering College, Calicut, Kerala-673601 (18.10.90)