School Rationalization: Policy Brief

School Rationalization: A Brief Review of the Popular Policy

Over the last few years, tens of thousands of schools have been shut down across several states of the country, in a move by the respective state governments to save money on the operation of surplus schools or schools with inadequate enrollment, to maximise utilisation of resources and teachers, and to enable children to access to “fully functional neighbourhood schools”. It began in 2014 with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in Rajasthan consolidating 17000 schools in the first year alone. By the end of 2019, close to 36000 schools in Madhya Pradesh, 1800 in Odisha and 4300 in Jharkhand were also merged, under a joint programme with NITI Aayog. Assam, Bihar and other states have followed the course, as well. Despite some strong resistance, the policy was once again backed and recommended to be implemented across the country, in the draft National Education Policy released last year. In this context, it is important to understand whether and if the policy, that goes by a number of names including school rationalization, mergers, consolidation, and amalgamation, has been fruitful, and whether it does possess the potential to transform the education sector.

The rationale behind the policy of school rationalization is that small schools with few enrollments have higher cost of operation, making it infeasible for the state to deploy an adequate number of teachers, and provide for other resources or proper infrastructure to the children at these schools. A study on school consolidations in Rajasthan shows that the policy could have minimised multigrade teaching, improved teacher-grade ratio, and enabled children access to increased infrastructure facilities. Media reports, however, reveal a different picture, disputing any attempt to link school consolidations to a better learning environment, or access to improved infrastructure. Besides, consolidations were also revealed to be followed with an increased decline in enrollment, while a likelihood of these dropout children engaging in child labour or being married early (if female) was indicated in yet another study. These studies further point towards the amplified impact on the marginalised sections, wherein, the decline in enrollment among differently-abled children post the merger was found to be 22%, compared to the average of 7% only.

Closure of schools, or technically called as school rationalization, has certainly caused trouble for thousands, possibly lakhs of children and their parents across the country, henceforth, the first step should be to halt the implementation immediately. The policy, as one study pointed out, could perhaps lead to a reduction in multi-grade teaching and an improvement on other parameters, which, when coupled with transportation and residential facilities, could minimise dropout rates that consolidations generally seem to cause. But, in order to be able to transform the education sector, due processes need to be followed strictly, and, perhaps a principle of “first create, then destroy” could ensure that negative impacts are weeded out. Facilities like transportation and residence, as envisioned in the draft National Education Policy 2019, must be created first, before the old structures of nearby schools are demolished. Similarly, the “fully functional neighbourhood schools” must be created first, before the old poor-performing schools are destroyed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

  1. Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. (2019). “Draft National Education Policy 2019.” URL: https://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/Draft_NEP_2019_EN_Revised.pdf (accessed on January 15, 2020).
  2. Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. (2017). “Guidelines for Rationalising Small School. URL: https://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/Guidelines%20for%20Rationalization.pdf (accessed on January 15, 2020).
  3. Bordoloi, Mridusmita & Shukla, Ritwik. (August 2019). “School Consolidation in Rajasthan: Implementation and Short Term Effects.” URL: https://cprindia.org/sites/default/files/School_Consolidation_Rajasthan_Final-.pdf (accessed on January 15, 2020).
  4. Rao, Srinivasa & Ganguly, Sriti & Singh, Juhi & Dash, Roma. (2017). “School Closures and Mergers: A Multi-state study of policy and its impact on the public education system – Telangana, Odisha and Rajasthan.”  URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320056186_School_Closures_and_Mergers_A_Multi-state_study_of_policy_and_its_impact_on_public_education_system_-_Telangana_Odisha_and_Rajasthan_2017 (accessed on January 15, 2020).
  5. Gupta, Ruchi. (November 2014). “How the Rajasthan Government is Throwing Children Out of School.” URL: https://www.dailyo.in/politics/how-rajasthan-government-is-throwing-children-out-of-school/story/1/822.html (accessed on January 15, 2020).
  6. Chowdhury, Shreya Roy. (May 2017). “Cramped Classrooms, Long Commutes, Dropouts: How Rajasthan’s School Mergers Have Hurt Students.” URL: https://scroll.in/article/835687/cramped-classrooms-long-commutes-dropouts-the-impact-of-rajasthan’s-school-mergers (accessed on January 15, 2020).

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