Allahabad HC orders UP officials, politicians to send their kids to government primary schools

-Times of India  18th August 2015

The Allahabad high court on Tuesday took a serious note of the pathetic condition of primary schools in the state and directed the chief secretary to ensure that children/wards of government officials/servants, those serving in the local bodies, representatives of people and judiciary, etc., send their wards to these schools.

"Only then would they be serious enough to look into the requirements of these schools and ensure that they are run in good condition," the court observed.
Hearing a slew of writ petitions filed by Umesh Kumar Singh and several others, Justice Sudhir Agarwal directed the chief secretary to take steps within six months so as to make the aforesaid directions effective from the next academic session of primary schools.

The court also directed him to submit a compliance report immediately after the lapse of six months.

The issue involved in the writ petitions was with regard to appointment of assistant teachers in state's primary schools.
During the course of hearing, the court noticed the deplorable condition of these schools and observed that although they are catering to the needs of 90% population of children, their condition could be described as "shabby."

The court further observed that as officials responsible for running these primary schools are treating them in a shabby manner, these schools have given rise to multiple litigations. 

Education System in India

Literacy (2011) Total 74%
 Male 82.2%
 Female 65.5%
Enrollment (2011[)
Total Primary 93%
Secondary 69%
Post secondary 25%

Education in India is provided by the public sector as well as the private sector, with control and funding coming from three levels: central, state, and local. Under various articles of the Indian Constitution, free and compulsory education is provided as a fundamental right to children between the ages of 6 and 14.

India has made progress in terms of increasing the primary education attendance rate and expanding literacy to approximately three-quarters of the population in the 7-10 age group, by 2011.

At the primary and secondary level, India has a large private school system complementing the government run schools, with 29% of students receiving private education in the 6 to 14 age group. Certain post-secondary technical schools are also private.

The private education market in India had a revenue of US$450 million in 2008, but is projected to be a US$40 billion market.

As per the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2012, 96.5% of all rural children between the ages of 6-14 were enrolled in school. This is the fourth annual survey to report enrollment above 96%. Another report from 2013 stated that there were 229 million students enrolled in different accredited urban and rural schools of India, from Class I to XII, representing an increase of 2.3 million students over 2002 total enrollment, and a 19% increase in girl's enrollment.

While quantitatively India is inching closer to universal education, the quality of its education has been questioned particularly in its government run school system. Some of the reasons for the poor quality include absence of around 25 percent of teachers everyday. States of India have introduced tests and education assessment system to identify and improve such schools.

In India's education system, a significant number of seats are reserved under affirmative action policies for the historically disadvantaged Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes.

In universities, colleges, and similar institutions affiliated to the federal government, there is a minimum 50% of reservations applicable to these disadvantaged groups, at the state level it can vary. Maharashtra had 73% reservation in 2014, which is the highest percentage of reservations in India.



Although India is amongst the ten fastest growing economies in the world, it still has a third of the world’s illiterates. According to global education report of 2004, India’s ranking was 106 out of 127 countries in the education sphere. With 34 per cent of the illiterate population in the world, India has the largest number of illiterates by far – with second placed China at 11 per cent. Sixty years after independence, with 40 per cent of its population under 18 – India is now confronting the perils of its failure to educate its citizens, notably the poor.

India, being a mixed economy, needs government intervention in the area of education because education driven by profit motive cannot benefit the masses. But the condition of government schools in India is pathetic. Except for two or three states, all the Indian states have poor educational statistics. More Indian children are in school than ever before, but the quality of government schools has sunk to spectacularly low levels. The children in these schools come from the poorest of families — those who cannot afford to send away their young to private schools elsewhere, as do most Indian families who have the means.

India has long had a legacy of weak schooling for its young, even as it has promoted high-quality government-financed universities. If in the past, a largely poor and agrarian nation could afford to leave millions of its people illiterate, that is no longer the case. Not only has the high growth ensured that we have a shortage of skilled labor, the nation’s many new roads, phones and television sets have also fueled new ambitions for economic advancement among its people — and new expectations for schools to help them achieve it.

Even though many children attend schools, they remain ill-equipped. A survey in 2007which was conducted across 16,000 villages, found that while many more children were sitting in class, vast numbers of them could not read, write or perform basic arithmetic, to say nothing of those who were not in school at all.

In USA

Education is an instrument of the broader social order. When society changes, education, sooner or later, also changes. Few activities or agencies, however, change as slowly, or in such small increments, as formal education–both schools and colleges as well as both public and private institutions. Education's roots are deep and wide, penetrating almost every facet of society. Hence, education is subject to virtually every political force, including those that want change and those that want to protect the status quo.

Public K–12 education–which operates across fifty states, 14,000 local school districts, and 100,000 schools; involves 5 million employees and more than 48 million students; and costs more than $2 billion each day–is too large, too costly, and too enmeshed in political dynamics to change quickly. 

American culture contains three strongly held values that significantly influence public policy in general and education policy specifically. They are equality, efficiency, and liberty. Government actions regarding national defense, housing, taxation, antitrust regulation, racial desegregation, and literally hundreds of other policy dimensions, including education, are motivated and molded by one or more of these three values.

The overwhelming majority of the public views equality, liberty, and efficiency as conditions that government should attempt to maximize. The historical roots of these values are deeply embedded in the cultural streams that comprise the common heritage of the United States. These values permeate the ideologies promulgated by political parties, religions, schools, and other social institutions.