As Delhi goes to vote tomorrow, many of us would be basing our votes on the reforms brought about in the Delhi Education System by Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party over the past five years. Garnering great appreciation and some pretty staggering outcomes in India and catching international eyeballs. Delhi schools have witnessed a great change for the better under the current government. But what exactly did the AAP do to achieve this? What is the ‘Delhi education model’? And does it really deserve a pat on the back?
Let’s try and find out.
Delhi government schools were recently in the news when they beat their private counterparts in overall passing-percentage. The schools registered passing percentages of 94% against the city’s overall 91.87% in the 2019 12th CBSE Board Exams.
Along with that, the Kejriwal Govt. took a big step by developing new and better infrastructure for existing government schools. The AAP did not fulfill the promise of building 500 new schools as per their manifesto, developing 30 new schools instead. Land shortage in the capital has been cited as the main reason for not building the promised number of schools as per Akshay Marathe, the media adviser of the AAP.
However, to match the deficit, 8000 new classrooms were built in 30 existing schools under the Delhi Government. Now, in a country where only 60% of government schools have electricity and 27% have access to computers, such focus on infrastructure is a welcome step forward.
That commitment is visible in how the AAP’s leaders have spoken on infrastructure development. The blatantly sad situation of not having even desks to sit on and then comparing themselves to private schools’ students was a major concern we wished to resolve for our students, said Manish Sisodia, the Deputy Chief Minister who also handles the department of education. Atishi Marlena, the former educational advisor to the AAP, further reinforced how the state of the school is directly related to the performance and the learning outcomes of the students. She’s also spoken about how teachers, staff, and students alike felt a sense of ownership and appreciation when they looked at their new improved schools, only which motivated them to work harder.
To further bolster the idea of ownership and participation in the school, the Delhi Government made sure to setup School Management Committees or SMCs. Under Article 21 of the Right To Education Act of 2009, it is compulsory for schools to have SMCs, which was not the case before. Despite the mandate, SMCs in Delhi schools were not functioning optimally. A School management committee is comprised of teachers and parents of the students of the local school, who help in monitoring and maintaining the functions of the school. They are given 5 lakhs rupees per shift, which they decide how to spend, for the maintenance and betterment of their school.
Apart from this, appointing Estate Managers for the school, regular training sessions, and adding happiness curriculum and entrepreneurship curriculum to syllabi in schools are some other steps that AAP took in the past five years to develop a robust education system.
Now, with dropout rates going up to almost 15% for both girls and boys in our country, it is not easy to dream of a strong education system. To combat these high dropout rates, the Delhi Govt. introduced the “Chunauti” scheme in 2016. Inspired by Nobel Prize winning economist Abhijit Banerjee’s model, the scheme divides students into three groups based on their ability to read and write Hindi and English and solve mathematics.
Students from grade 6 are put into three groups: Pratibha (for the best performing students), Nishtha (for the average performers) and Neo Nishtha (for those who barely pass). These students are given special classes to bridge the learning gap, and are taught in a different manner to counter their chances of dropping out of school once they reach higher classes.
And yet not all is rosy about this picture. According to a report published by various newspapers the higher pass percentage is due to a large number of students failing in 9th standard examinations. As per data with the Delhi government, of the 3,11,824 Class 9 students in government schools, only 1,64,065 made it to Class 10 in 2016-17. In the same period for private schools, of the 1,05,187 students in Class 9, around 97,714 made it to Class X — a pass percentage of 92 per cent.
The Govt has been accused of deliberately filtering out students from 6th standard onwards which boosts the pass percentage in the board exams since only capable students end up giving the exams. The AAP blames the no-detention policy till 8th standard for this result where no student is held back based on his/her performance. Due to which the students are not given proper attention by the teachers because their results don't matter to them going to the next year.
The Chunauti scheme put in place to boost students’ performance has also come under scanner. Many educationists have warned that segregating students into different groups can adversely impact their mental health and confidence. For example, in an article by the Hindustan Times, Janaki Rajan, and educationist and teacher at Jamia Milia Islamia said that this kind of labelling is dangerous and violates the RTE Act.
“The major issue with Chunauti is that children are being labelled and it also violates provisions of the Right to Education Act. Children cannot be termed as slow learners by testing them on lesser known set of books. There are times when children cannot talk until they are two years old. But after that they speak entire lines fluently. This is the magic of development. But this kind of labelling is extremely dangerous and fascist.”
Delhi’s education system is far from perfect, and given that it’s still struggling to balance a shortage of teachers and schools with an ever increasing population, improving it is a big mountain to climb.Yet, despite the shortcomings and the occasional pitfalls, the current govt has shown the strength and political desire to improve this system.
If the ability to learn from our mistakes, which we often preach to our young, is also imbibed by the govt and the policy makers; we can truly hope to achieve the level of education that we have been yearning for.