Teach Telangana – The urgent imperative 

Despite claims of being the rich state, the new state of Telangana remains one of the most backward states in the country in terms of human development. The construction of Human Development Index combines three dimensions of development viz., (i) per capita income, (ii) longevity and health standards, (iii) literacy and education.

Human development is the much better indicator of living conditions of the people. Especially in the knowledge economy, education holds the key for human empowerment and economic prosperity both at the individual and societal level. Telangana ranks 25th in the country in terms of literacy. The rates of literacy are much more abominably low among scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Women significantly lag behind men in attaining literacy.

The literacy rate in the state is not very encouraging. Only 66.5 per cent of the population was literates during 2011. Improvement in literacy between 2001 and 2011 was only 8.5 percentage points. Literacy rates differed significantly between rural and urban areas. The rural literacy rate was only 57.3 per cent as against 81.1 per cent in urban areas. Thus, there was a gap of 23.8 points between rural and urban areas.

Telangana state had the highest level of rural-urban gap with 23.8 points as against the national average of 16.3 percentage points. When rural literacy rate is considered, the state was at the bottom and even Bihar showed a better performance than Telangana 57.3 per cent in Telangana as against 59.8 per cent in Bihar. It will take more than three decades to bridge the gap between rural and urban areas.

‘In Reinventing Telangana, The Way Forward (Socio Economic Outlook 2016),’ the Government of Telangana itself acknowledged this in the following words: “It is an irony that while Telangana State has made some important strides by achieving high economic growth and prosperity, performance in health and education sector is rather poor.

Social sector indicators such as literacy rate, male-female literacy gap, IMR, MMR are still a cause of concern, especially in some of the districts. It has been recognised that economic progress without social progress is unsustainable in the long-run. The Telangana government has rightly promised KG to PG free education. More precisely, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has assured that the new Telangana government would ensure that collector’s child and the attender’s child study in the same school.

In fact, several commissions and educational thinkers have been advocating the importance of common and neighbourhood school system. In this context, Chief Minister’s remarks raised enormous hopes for improving the educational standards in the state. But, there has not been any significant effort since the formation of the state to improve the educational status of Telangana.

The promise of KG to PG free education remains elusive. Even the political leadership has acknowledged this many a time. But, despite laudable goals and lofty promises, the education in the government sector is increasingly being drawn into crisis.” The document placed in the state legislature during the budget session of the House in 2016 rightly anlaysed the causes of crisis in government educational sector. But, the solutions are not forthcoming. Budgetary allocations are not provided.

The Kothari Commission which is considered as Magna Carta of Indian educational policy recommended 30 per cent allocation for education in the state budgets. A decade ago, in the united Andhra Pradesh, the budgetary allocations for education stood at 16 per cent. This fell to 11 per cent at the time of bifurcation. It plummeted to as low as 8.7 per cent now in Telangana.

This low fiscal priority to education is deplorable as Telangana is far away from realising the goal of universalisation of school education. Investing in people is critical for even achieving economic growth. As the Human Development Report, 2015, UNDP observed: “People are the real wealth of nations, and human development focuses on enlarging people’s choices.”

The proportion of children of 12 years completing primary education was 67 per cent in Telangana according to 2011 Census. The drop-out rate at the primary level in the State was 23.1 per cent during 2011-12. The people in the rich Telangana cannot be educationally deprived. There is an increasing parental preference for educating their children in English medium right form primary stage. But, government schools do not offer Kindergarten sections.

This seems to be a primary factor in dissuading parents from admitting their children in government schools. The Telangana government has permitted English medium sections from first standard in government schools from this academic year. But, no additional teachers are allotted. It defeats the purpose of introducing English medium if KG sections are not opened and additional teachers are not provided. English medium section should be introduced right form KG-level along with the Telugu medium sections.

This would give the choice to the parents. Minimum infrastructure including teachers should be allotted. Transport facility to government schools should be provided. These are the minimum requirements for the government schools to compete with those in the private sector. The schools in aided sector are in serious crisis as majority teacher posts remain vacant for over a decade.

The rationalisation of schools is done in an unscientific way seriously impairing the education. Schools are closed and teacher posts are abolished when there is a decline in student enrollment. But, no new schools are started and no new teacher posts are given when the enrollment increases. Thus, the raionalisation cannot be a one-way process.

The existing strength of students in the schools cannot be the sole criteria for ratioanlisation of schools. The total number of children in the relevant age group should also be taken into consideration for rationlisation of schools. A comprehensive action plan should be evolved to Teach Telangana after wide ranging discussions with the stake holders and civil society. (The writer is the President of Telangana State United Teachers Federation (TSUTF))

By A Narsi Reddy