FELLOWSHIP Saurabh Sharma Aheli Choudhury Joint Operation for Social Help (JOSH)

Background Saurabh Sharma and Aheli Choudhury work with a mandate of mobilizing youth to work on issues of Education Both have a long history of activism and participation in RTE, RTI through various forums and agencies Work primarily in Delhi MCD, GNCT schools, specifically in Trilokpuri colony of New Delhi

Overview Published a community report “RTE Status Study: A Delhi Report” Volunteers from DU, IIT-D, GGSIP, JMIU, and JNU participated in the survey and compilation of the report Report highlighted RTE violations and specifically non- implementation of section-21, which mandates formation of SMC in every school Currently focused on formation and strengthening of SMCs in Trilokpuri

Their Work Formation and Strengthening of SMC Facilitated formation of SMC in 13 out of 16 MCD schools Conducted door-to-door campaign, pamphlet distribution, and community meetings for awareness and parent participation Coordination with school principals in conducting SMC elections Attended 4 meetings of SMC in different schools on: 10/4/14 – MCD Block 7, First Shift 10/12/14 – MCD Block 27, First Shift 11//14/14 – MCD Block 7, Second Shift 12/12/14 – MCD Block 32, Second Shift

Their Work Helping the parents, school principals, and community at large demystify RTE Section 21, and related clauses Training of SMC members, education of parents, and teachers continues to be a challenge Installed SMC membership boards in 13 schools that have a functional SMC, MCD school #27 and #7 also agreed to put boards at prominent site

Their Work Coordinating Government training for SMC members and capacity building Members of SMC of 16 MCD schools have a letter from Directorate of Education requesting to hold training for them, no specific progress has been made on this matter Inspection of Records of SMC Meeting Minutes In 1 st December ‘14, Directorate of Education, Delhi issued a circular No F.23(6)/DE/RTE12011/ according to which “.. Any citizen may approach school and inspect the meeting minutes of SMC.”

Their Work Inspection team visiting the school must examine this record and write appropriate comments in its report. On 12/9/14, a meeting of 25 community leaders and parents encouraging them to visit their schools and inspect meeting minutes and review the school functioning Parents were organized into 4 teams and trained in ways to conduct inspections, on 12/10 inspections were conducted in the following schools: GBSSS, Kalyan Puri block – I GBSSS Block #27 Trilokpuri SKV Block # 27 Trilokpuri Two schools shoed the records while one withheld the records. Complaints were filed under GB mechanism

Their Work School Inspections JOSH filed a complaint with CIC on 6/8/2011 under RTI Act requesting disclosure & inspection of schools of Delhi an Delhi Municipal Corporation under Section 4 of RTI Act, On 6/29/2011, CIC decided in favor of citizens (represented by JOSH) and ordered “… any citizen be allowed to inspect records of schools of Delhi Government and Municipal Corporation of Delh on last working day of every month” JOSH has been working on conducting inspections since then to monitor the schools and financial spending in such schools JOSH has also been mobilizing community and conducting training to conduct inspections!

Their Work School inspections have reveled irregularities in distribution of books in schools. A complain was registered on 9/15 citing lack of books and books were subsequently distributed on 11/11! Outreach to community through different campaigns, rallies, marches and other actions, demanding for effective GR mechanism A circular No.F.23 (l4)/RTE/ / dated was issued by Directorate of Education on grievance redressal notifying “…a mechanism of registering complains regarding RTE implementation” Around 300 grievances and 90 RTIs have been filled!

Their Work Most GR complaints are related to pupil-teachers ratio, infrastructure, teachers’ insensitive behaviour and school system and denial of admission Toilet Campaign for Girls JOSH organized signature campaign for girls in which school student were encouraged to write to the PM an appeal letter mentioning about the poor state of toilets in their schools and urging him to look into the matter Letters were sent to Lt Governor, MHRD, Directorate of Education, and local MP A total of 2500 appeal letters, 70% written by girl students, were sent

Their Work In 3-4 days a letter was sent by Directorate of Education with list of girls to the principals of the schools seeking an explanation of the letter (not the demand of toilets!) Girl students were subsequently identified, called by principals and made to sign another letter stating their satisfaction with the current state and availability of the toilets and declare the original appeal sent being false. Toilets in the schools were subsequently cleaned and improved, although the reaction of the government was somewhat surprising More than 150 parents and 80 students participated in community meeting raising the issue of girls’ protection as the response of the Directorate of Education of disclosing the names of the girls to the schools was completely against any ethical functioning

Their Work Admission in Private Schools Under EWS Category According to the section 12 of the RTE Act 2009, at least 25% seats shall be filled with the children belonging to Economically Weaker Section (EWS) and Disadvantage Group (DG) category in the private schools Although every year government used to hold single window for parents for admission of this category, in Directorate of Education allowed schools to set the time lines for commencing the admission and submission which led to a lot of confusion amongst parents. JOSH conducted awareness program and help community meetings to help parents with admissions under EWS/DG category 87 GRs were filed against school that refused to receive forms and admit students

Their Work 90 RTI applications have also been filed on different issues relating to school system and by the parents who applied under the admission of EWS category in reply of RTIs where we sought the list of EWS students selected this year, the PIO provided department circular no. DE15/Act- I/Misc/EWS/DG/2014/ dated ,stating “… disclosure of the details of students admitted under EWS/DG category may tantamount to disclosure of personal information which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual and may also lead to discrimination against the student belonging to EWS/DG category.”

Their Work Janmanch - People’s Forum JOSH has been holding Jan Manch for the last four years on different issues related to education. Section 21 of the RTE Act, mandates the formation of SMC in all the schools Organized a “Jan Manch” on 9 th March, 2015 at ISI, Lodhi Road, Delhi where experiences of different SMC members were shared and problems raised and steps for way forward discussed. More than 200 parents & SMC members attended the meeting Specific issues raised were: Delhi RTE rules have not given signatory powers to the SMC members unlike suggested by the model rules Principals completely ignoring the SMC members when it comes to budget and expenditure related functioning of the schools

Their Work The lack of grievance redressal mechanism emerged as a major hurdle in the implementation of the RTE Act signatory powers are being restricted to the Principal and the teacher of the school and parents are excluded from overseeing any kinds of financial transaction in the school! Followup on Resolution passed at Janmanch: SMC members collected more than 2000 signatures on the Charter of Demands An appointment was sought on 25 th March, 2015, with the Education Minister and we along with around 50 SMC members visited his residence. Education minister has neither met with the SMC members till date nor has agreed to receive the charter of demands!

Their Work Training and Capacity Building of Urban Poor Youth English Speaking & Computer Literacy Classes (YRC) The session every year begins with mobilization of students. After which, interested students register in the program and an orientation session is organized a pre-test of students are taken of the enrolled students, which helps in designing the curriculum of the course bi-monthly tests are conducted along with a final examination at the end of the program