Leadership With A Moral

R, Anandkumar

He wanted her to know the grass roots or may be set a trend.  Erode District Collector R, Anandkumars decision to admit his daughter A Gopika in a government primary school did take the district by a pleasant surprise.  More so, when the queue of parents with their wards in town outside private schools seem to just wind and wind to eternity.

On 15-06-2011, the collector and his wife Dr. M. Shrividya went to the Tamil medium Panchayat Union (government) school at Kumalankuttai near the Collectorate, stood in the queues along with other parents, and got their daughter Gopika admitted in the school in standard Two.  His surprise presence created a stir as some teachers thought he was there on an inspection.  Later as soon as it was known that his daughter was studying there, officials of Veerappanchatram Panchayat inspected the school to ensure that it had all basic facilities in place.

Gopika, who was initially seen crying, soon got along well with other children in the class. Sitting cross-legged on the floor with her classmates, six year old Gopika, a student of Class II slowly traced alphabets on a slate, unaware of the attention she is drawing. Gopika's schoolmates were children of dyeing unit workers, auto drivers, daily-wage labourers and weavers.

Rather interestingly, of the nearly 250 students in classes I to V of that school, there were no children of government officials.  Even teachers of that school didn't send their children to this Tamil medium school.  However while taking admission the Collector also told headmistress, S. Rani that his child would take the midday meal served in the school rather than eat lunch sent from home.

If all those on the government payroll – officials, Members of Parliament, Members of the Legislative Assembly, Minister, members of the judiciary and, of course, teachers of schools, colleges and universities – take the cue and get their children admitted in neighbourhood government schools, it is bound to bring about two revolutionary changes. 

First, this expression of trust by the powerful elite and its allies will set the entire government school system on a decisive course of recovery to its heyday of the 1970’s – before the middle class began its “grand” escape from the government schools to private schools.  The talk of poor infrastructure, teacher absenteeism, vacant teacher posts, ill paid and untrained para-teachers, unfavourable pupil-teacher ratios, multi-grade teaching, lack of teaching / learning material and mission or non-functional toilets will in the foreseeable future become passée. A democratic decentralised and participative system of governance will replace the colonial mode.  The curricular and pedagogic quality of teaching will improve, and the teachers will begin to innovate, create and even question Macaulayian texts, content and evaluation norms.  The state even its neo-liberal state, will stop spreading the falsehood of “resource crunch” and begin to increase allocations for education as a political priority since the children of the ruling class and its beneficiaries are studying there.

Second, in tandem with the transformation, the prevailing phenomenon of privatisation and commercialisation of school education will begin to beat a hasty retreat – a logical outcome of the shrinking market as children of the powerful and articulate sections of society begin to return to government schools.  Also Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibals pro-corporate policy of public-private partnership (PPP) in education (including higher eduction) and bank loans to finance children's eduction will not be required any more.  A by-product would be a significant saving of fuel, as school buses will stop plying, since all children, irrespective of their socio-economic status will be studying in neighbourhood schools, government or private.

For those who know him, Anandkumars decision was not surprising.  Having studies at a government Tamil-medium school himself, he went on to complete Bachelor of Veterinary Science from the Veterinary College and Research institute Namakkal district and obtained his masters degree from the Central Avian Research Institute near Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh.  A university gold medallist, Anandkumar started his career as an Assistant Veterinary Surgeon before joining the civil service.  He also received a silver medal for land reforms while on training as Assistant Collector in Pudukkottai.

Together if we think we can – make a a change by join hands to carry forward the trend set by Anandkumar ahead and patronise what government schools deliver to the public.  Will YOU??????

This caselet was developed by the author for GIFT (Governance Insights For Transformation) A Thought Leadership Workshop on High Performance for Council of Minsters, Government of Kerala held at IIM Kozhikode on 18-08-2011

© RISHIKESH KB