Inside the Walls of a Government School

 

Why aren’t you studying in a government school if your parents are government teachers? This question was asked by the school principal during my headboy interview, leaving me momentarily without a response. However, I believe I now have a concise answer to address this question accurately

According to the latest report of UDISE+, the number of rural schools in India is 12.34 lac which is a whopping 82.9 percent of the total schools.
Let me give you a glimpse of what a typical government school looks like. Picture a school with 45–50 children and only two classrooms. While electricity and water are becoming more common, computers and a library remain distant dreams. The government has assigned two teachers, but there is no principal, no clerk, and only one cook. With such limited resources, how does a school like this actually function?

Early mornings in these schools are fairly chaotic. There are children coming to school at various points of time. It is when you enter a class room when the scene takes a sombre turn. Imagine one teacher trying to teach classes-one, two, and three-altogether in one room while their peer is teaching classes four and five. It’s a math class, and the teacher is left wondering what to teach. Should they be teaching numbers from the first-grade textbook or perhaps addition from the second-grade textbook, or maybe multiplication from the third-grade textbook? In the end, the teacher resorts to singing multiplication tables, but despite the children reciting them, very little learning takes place. and it’s no different when we get into English or Hindi, the teacher is genuinely lost in terms of what to teach.
After a couple of hours, the teacher moves to the staffroom since there is no clerk. They take on additional responsibilities, such as managing accounts, taking attendance, and transferring scholarship funds to students’ bank accounts. After lunch, the teacher makes half-hearted attempts to gather the students back into the classrooms, but the efforts are futile. By 1:30 p.m., the entire school disperses.

It’s difficult to label this as a school. At best, it resembles a daycare centre that provides meals. Neither you nor I would consider this an adequate educational environment.
This is the condition of the majority of the government schools, ranging from the primary to intermediate level. Due to the abysmally poor learning levels among children in government schools, it is improbable that increased access alone will significantly affect their future earnings or enable them to pursue high-paying careers.
Then there is the never-ending obsession of Indian households with the cliched brown dad phrase, “Mera beta engineer banega!” Every year, millions of students appear for various entrance exams held in the country. These exams demand hard work and smart work to stand among the best of the best. One of the critical issues plaguing these exams is the glaring disparity between the number of available seats and the vast pool of exam takers. This problem gets worse because the exams use a “one size fits all” approach, making it even harder for students at these schools.

The Union government may have made the right to education a fundamental right, but government schools are lagging far behind in providing quality education. Given that India’s strength lies in its young population, it becomes imperative for the government to undertake concrete measures to enhance the standard of education offered in these schools.