Maharashtra Govt Asks Data About Smaller Schools, Fuelling Fear of Their Closure

Zilla parishads have sent letters to schools asking them details such as the number of students enrolled with them.

The Maharashtra government's decision to collect data about schools with less than 20 students has raised alarms across the state. Teachers, education experts and civil society organisations have expressed the fear that the Eknath Shinde-led government is planning to shut these schools.

The government schools in the state were given letters by the zilla parishads asking them to furnish details such as the number of students in their school, the nearest public school from their own, and the distance between the two schools. The teachers told The Quint that the government is assessing the possibility of merging two or more nearby schools into one.

When The Quint spoke with Minister for School Education Deepak Kesarkar, he neither confirmed nor categorically denied this. When this reporter asked him why the government was collecting data about schools with less than 20 students, he didn't comment.

Closure of Smaller Schools May Lead to Dropouts

Amit Pachapurkar is a primary schoolteacher whose school is located in a small hamlet called Hatticha Pada in the Palghar district. His school may shut down if the government goes ahead with its plan as it has only 13 students.

Pachapurkar told The Quint that if the schools are shut down and the children are asked to attend another school nearby, it may lead to dropouts. He said that making students attend school even now is a bit of a task and if the children have to walk farther, even if they don't drop out outright, the number of days they attend school may decrease.

Another schoolteacher from Palghar, whose school has less than 10 students and who wished to stay anonymous, told The Quint that teachers play an important role in brining children to school in padas (small hamlets) and in interior, remote villages.

"If a teacher spends two-three years in a pada or village, they get to know the students' families, their socio-economic background, their migration patterns. The teacher manages to build a personal rapport with the pada. If the students have to go to another village to attend school, a bigger school, the teachers there cannot have this kind of relationship with the families in the hamlet," he said.

"If the children drop out or attend less days of schooling, their nutrition too will suffer as they will not be able to avail midday meals," stated Vibhuti Patel, Distinguished Professor at the Impact and Policy Research Institute.

National Education Policy's Provision of 'School Clusters' 

Education experts pointed out the contradiction between the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 on the one hand and the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 on the other.

Satyashodhak Vidyarthi Sanghatana, which works to bring Dalit-Bahujan, NT-DNT (Nomadic Tribes/De-notified Tribes) groups into mainstream education, protested against the government's proposal to shut smaller schools in front of Jalgaon collectorate office on 17 October. It has held similar protests in Aurangabad, Dhule, Sindhudurg and other parts of Maharashtra as well.

Amol Kharat, who is a PhD scholar in Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad and a member of the organisation, said that the root of the government's proposed decision to shut schools is in the NEP.

Dinanath Waghmare, who is the convenor of Sangharsh Vahini, a civil society organisation working for the NT-DNT communities and migrant workers, also held the NEP responsible for the government's proposal. He pointed out that the NEP has a provision to merge smaller schools to form what the document calls "school complex".

Schedule 7.6 in the NEP states,

"This Policy strongly endorses the idea of the school complex/cluster, wherever possible. The aim of the school complex/cluster will be greater resource efficiency and more effective functioning, coordination, leadership, governance, and management of schools in the cluster."

The NEP 2020 calls smaller schools "economically suboptimal". It says, "[The] small school sizes have rendered it economically suboptimal and operationally complex to run good schools, in terms of deployment of teachers as well as the provision of critical physical resources."

Waghmare takes strong objection to government's intent to shut schools on the grounds of their financial non-viability or economic inefficiency. “I cannot accept it if the government closes schools citing financial difficulties as the reason. If we are not going to spend money on education, then what else are we going to spend on?” he asked.

Patel points out that there has been a continuous decline in social sector budgeting since the new economic policy of 1991. "The government should ideally allocate 6% budget to education but currently it is way less. On the other hand, the government heavily subsidises special economic zones, commercial hospitals and so on," she said.

Schools Understaffed

Amol Harad, who teaches at a government school in the Palsai village, Palghar, said that the government hasn't appointed new teachers in the last few years at all. Pachapurkar corroborated this saying many teachers have retired, some even died in the coronavirus pandemic. This has led to a large number of vacancies.

"Government doesn't fill vacancies, gives us non-teaching administrative work and also expects quality education. How is it possible?" asked Pachapurkar.

Harad pointed out that the RTE Act rules for Maharashtra say that for children studying up to fifth standard, the school should be within the distance of 1 kilometre and for sixth to eighth standards, it should be within three kilometres. If the smaller schools are shut, the distance the students will have to traverse to reach school, will invariably increase.

"The government itself has made these laws and they only are flouting them," said Waghmare.

The smaller schools are usually located in the remote, hilly, interior parts of the state, mostly in pockets where there is a predominance of Adivasi population. According to a Marathi daily, the number of schools with less than 20 students in Maharashtra is 14,895.

"The children walking to the school sometimes have to cross streams, rivers, tributaries, forested areas and have be careful about snakes, scorpions, wild animals and even predators who may harm children," said Patel.

"It is a short-sighted policy. Girls will suffer the most and there will be an increase in child marriage and child labour," she further added.