MUMBAI, 14 May 2008 — If the BMC (Mumbai’s municipal corporation) were a private education provider it would have been shut down long ago for gross neglect of duty and inefficiency. Students are dropping out at an unexplained, alarming rate, particularly in predominantly Muslim-populated schools.
The international press is ringing alarm bells over teacher absenteeism, which is at an all-time high and apathy among education officials is spreading, virus-like, through the system.
The current education minister tested all schools across Mumbai to find out what students learn by the time they get to the 10th standard. The results were appalling and he pledged sweeping reforms. The promises were widely reported by the press, but nothing materialized according to NGOs who have taken it upon themselves to provide the services that the government guarantees to its citizens.
Charities working to uplift some of the most impoverished sectors of society say education is a powerful tool in correcting the balance of power in a society, and Muslims are wasting a chance to harness its strength.
“I don’t agree with useless talk about discrimination against Muslims. We have an opportunity here that we are wasting: it is Muslim headmasters and teachers who are in charge of Muslim students but talk about their pension, not ways to improve. How can we better our society when we turn away from our own people? Everyone should have the basic right to education, but it is sadly not the case. Without education, opportunities to contribute to the professional world are lost,” said Dr. Abbas, who represents Mesco, a trust that provides free education and higher education loans to those in the predominantly Muslim slums of Mumbai.
Besides crippling apathy among education providers, there are serious structural problems: there are 205 primary Urdu medium schools meant to accommodate Muslim children. Each class would ideally have 40 students, in reality there are up to 60 students assigned in a class, but the headmaster cannot create another section till the number of students crosses 70. If a headmaster dies or retires, the system assigns his job to the most senior teacher on their books. That senior teacher is invariably near retirement, looking forward to his pension, and subsequently not interested in making any improvements. Hundreds of students fall through the structural gaps in the system every year and are left to fend for themselves on the unforgiving streets of Mumbai.
Many of these problems are not particular to Urdu medium schools typical of Muslim areas. They apply across Mumbai’s schools, whether they are English, Marathi or Gujarati medium. One example is the lack of accountability for headmasters: the municipal corporation oversees education from grade one to seven, but it is the state government that looks after secondary schooling, which is from grade eight to 10. “Muslim schools are not the only problem, no matter which school you look at, the headmaster has no idea who to report to and so reports to no one,” says Dr. Abbas.
However, according to the Sachar report, Muslims are particularly badly hit by problems because they tend to live in the most destitute pockets of the city.
Mesco looked at the size of the classes and realized that 50 students in a class means that teachers cannot pay enough attention to what a student is actually learning, so they hired teachers to repeat the lessons after school in smaller batches of 30. Test scores showed that their results improved almost instantly. Initially, the children seemed enthusiastic, but then they began to drop out suddenly and silently. Undaunted, Mesco surveyed the students and uncovered a sad scenario that proved simple enough to fix.
Take an example of Qader Hussain Ali, 16. Hunger was eating at his insides but was too shy to say that he had left home without breakfast. He didn’t want to admit to anyone there was no food in the house. Faint with hunger, he would skip the free extra tutoring classes after school, and lie still in his bed hoping to sleep till it was time for his one meal of the day.
“We began to provide a bata wada (mashed potato in bread bun) snack when we realized these kids couldn’t study because they were starving. They come from homes where they can barely afford the 4 rupees for bus fare to school, so a snack for school is out of the question,” said Dr. Abbas.
He is outraged by the apathy that Muslim teachers and headmasters have shown toward the poorest of Muslim children in R.C. Mahim, the municipal school Mesco has adopted. When the NGO approached the school to have only five sections that they could support through grades eight, nine and 10, maximizing the effect of the extra classes, the headmaster showed only sullen resistance. But the charity persisted in pressing forward: Look, they said, this way they could avoid losing students arbitrarily and not have to disappoint hard-working students as well as ensure that students who showed up to extra tuitions had time to improve. All this, Mesco promised, would not be at the school’s expense, nor would it take a jot of the administrations time.
“But they were not interested in making changes to better the system or correct the inefficiency. The headmaster flatly refused. No teachers were interested in shaking up their system as long as they draw salaries. Where is their conscience?” asks Dr. Abbas.
When Mesco took over the school, they found the institution’s 1,300 students could not use the school grounds because “hooligans had taken over the grounds, using it for cricket, for cycling or more sinister activities.”
Tube lights flickered incessantly, doors were falling off their weakened hinges and there was a massive gaping hole in one of the outer walls.
The headmaster is expected to pay for repairs out of his own pocket and then be reimbursed at the end of the year. Mesco offered him 5,000 rupees cash, and told him to collect the receipts, apply for reimbursement and repay them. But the headmaster was alarmed at the idea of having to keep track of any extra paperwork and refused.
Mesco installed new lights, filled the hole and fixed doors, shelving their educational agenda for a while. They hired two private security guards and repaired a gate that had been vandalized to the point that it served no purpose at all. They stopped slum dwellers from walking into the schoolyard and filling buckets from the taps, and policed the grounds at night so drug addicts could not use it for their nocturnal dealings.
Still problems persisted. Teachers wouldn’t show up to do the one task entrusted to them in their job description: teach. Teacher absenteeism soared to over 50 percent a month while students wandering the corridors in search of random amusement.
“This is the time they need to concentrate on lessons but if the teachers don’t show an interest what lesson will the children learn. How can they be expected to contribute as Muslims or citizens? These teachers are not concerned and there is no accountability,” says Dr. Abbas, sounding resigned.
But he treats the failures in the education system with anything but resignation. He has launched a full frontal attack on the problem.
Mesco employs nine teachers who make up for lost time by filling in for teachers that have disappeared from the register, or retired and remained un-replaced.
“After a teacher retires or quits, it takes a year before the Municipal Corporation finds a replacement. That’s one year after the school applies for one. We make sure we put in teachers who report to us and teach properly in their place.”
But Mesco is not interested in brooding on the problems. It is solutions that they are interested in. Despite the poorly designed educational system, they receive applications from thousands of students with stellar grades for help for their graduate studies.