Shiksha Read online

  I have always maintained that we aren’t the first government to work on education. Many governments before us have contributed to it immensely. From Jawaharlal Nehru to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, many leaders have taken significant steps in the arena of education. However, the one place where they all lagged behind was that the fruit of these attempts was reaped only by 5–10 per cent of the children. Even if there were attempts to make education available to the remaining 90–95 per cent, they were perfunctory and casual. The sky is the limit when it comes to the level education can be taken to. No country can set the upper limit for the quality of education, but wherever remarkable work in the area has been undertaken or from where lessons can be gleaned, we noted that work had been done at the minimum benchmark level. Not only did they decide to give the students the best-ever education, they also determined the level and facilities that every child could access. We also ensured that the level did not fall. This was our attempt in Delhi too. We wanted to be able to say that we would give our children the best possible education but we would not let the level of education and facilities dip beyond a certain point. No room in our schools would be damaged, there would be no cobwebs in them, they would be whitewashed regularly, the boards inside would be of such a quality that every child would be able to read what was written on them, that all the lights would be functional and every class would have a teacher, etc.

  Another major challenge in strengthening school infrastructure was making desks available. To avoid the possibility of any corrupt practices, the system was that desks were sourced from the production unit in Tihar Jail, where convicts made them. There were two problems here. Only a limited number of desks were produced in a day and their design and functionality were very ordinary, even low-quality at times. One wonders why nobody had tried to change the system and why children in Delhi schools were dependent only on the Tihar Jail production unit. I initially met the officers at Tihar to get them to improve the output and designs, but nothing came out of this. It was then that Satyendra Jain and I, with help from the PWD and the education department, broke this system and sourced desks of better quality and design from the market. It wasn’t easy to do this. Every officer agreed that getting high-quality desks was possible whenever needed, but they were apprehensive that if they disrupted the existing system of sourcing furniture from Tihar, they might end up there too. It was a strange situation where the government had money, had good education to offer but lakhs of students had to sit on the floor or use broken desks. This situation changed after rigorous efforts and now all Delhi schools have high-quality desks and in requisite number.

  While making new classrooms and mending old ones, we stressed on giving them a modern look because this was tied to the self-respect of the students. When a child who goes to a government school compares the building and facilities of his or her school with that of a private school, he or she doesn’t just feel bad but also inferior. Giving the schools a modern look wasn’t just about functionality but also to root out this inferiority complex from society.

  Principals: Empowering Leadership

  A teacher is to a school what a pilot is to an aeroplane. Children are like its passengers where everybody else, from parents to the education department, plays the role of the ground staff who ensures that the flight lands safely. If the teacher is the pilot, then the principal is the captain. All of this sounds great but was far from the ground reality of our schools. The role of the principal had been reduced to a low-ranking official in the hierarchy of education, whose job was to only send reports about the schemes introduced, just for the sake of it.

  In Delhi, we have taken crucial steps to strengthen the position of the principals and establish them as responsible leaders. Today, the principals of Delhi government schools are equipped to take decisions. They are given rights and ample resources to prepare a vision and come up with schemes that can be implemented for the future of their students.

  A few shortcomings usually found in government schools are damaged desks and worn-out blackboards, lights, fans, windows and toilets, among others. To take care of these, now a principal of a Delhi government school does not need to seek permission from the government. Instead, he or she can just access the budget provided to them. Every school building now has an annual budget of Rs 5 lakh to Rs 14 lakh. This can be used without any official intervention. The decision on the use of this budget can be taken at the school level by the school’s management committee. Also, to address the issue of insufficient teachers, principals have been given the authority to hire guest teachers and funds have been allocated for their salaries. Not just that, a principal now has the authority and funding to use the services of an expert for any subject or activity. For example, they can call specialists to train students in sports, art and dance, or for entrance tests in different fields such as engineering, medical, CA, etc.

  We decided to strengthen the position of the principals at the very inception of our government in 2015. During my surprise inspections, I came across many young, enthusiastic and talented principals who wanted to do something for their schools but the government system probably did not have faith in them. They didn’t have the freedom to execute their vision. They only had dilapidated school buildings and the support of a beleaguered team of teachers through whose help they had to shape the future of 2000 to 3000 students. The situation was such that the students considered it their fate to bunk schools and roam in markets or sit in parks rather than being in class. I felt that these principals, though few, were like the captains of a sinking ship, desperately trying to keep it afloat; knowing fully well that they would not be able to make it to the shore. I saw a ray of hope when I met them, so I discussed the matter with the chief minister. His immediate response was that the number of visionary principals must be higher than my estimate. He advised that we immediately convene a meeting of the 1000 and above principals. This meeting was organized in April 2015 at Thyagraj Stadium. Here, the chief minister asked the principals to prepare a vision document for their schools. He set a challenge for them, saying that the government would give them all the requisite resources but the ultimate aim was to make government schools so strong that the parents would choose them over private ones. In 2015, this vision would have probably sounded utopian. The proof of this was that out of the 1000 principals, only around 200 submitted the vision document; of these, almost 150 just demanded minor repair work and procurement of green boards, desks, etc. However, fifty-four of them prepared documents detailing their vision for their schools, expectations from the government and a road map for the future. We immediately undertook the work of turning these fifty-four schools into model schools. We employed good and active engineers to make a plan on how to go about the execution of the ideas shared. We also gave the principals a budget to avail the facilities. We studied the other proposals too and made a list of the shortcomings listed. We examined the reasons behind these shortcomings and started to address them in all the 1000 schools. On seeing work being done on the basis of the proposals, the enthusiasm of the principals went up.

  However, it surprised me that only 200 principals had sent proposals to the chief minister. Why didn’t the others do so? To understand the reason, I began meeting these principals in small groups. We had long chats at my house till late in the night. Over dinners, I understood their point of view, so that we could identify the roadblocks when it came to establishing principals as the leaders of their schools.

  Two points emerged from these discussions. Firstly, the principals had no faith in political leaders. They had seen many politicians who called children the future of the country and then taken commissions even on their mid-day meals. They asked teachers to be more involved in shaping the careers of their students in their speeches and then taken bribes for transferring and posting them. This was one of the reasons why a majority of them had not submitted their ideas as they found it difficult to trust a new party and its government. They also had no faith in the capabilities
and commitments of their senior officers. They felt that even if they came up with ideas that the new chief minister and education minister approved of initially, only the will of these officers would be implemented. Another reason was that they thought that their vision would be lost in the dusty files of bureaucracy.

  Only time could take away the first doubt from their minds as there was nothing I could do to instil faith in them. I started working on addressing the second point. The principals told me the following:

  They had the freedom to use only Rs 5000 if they needed to get anything done in the school. In such a situation, if a magazine had to be printed or new equipment was needed in the labs, or any repair work had to be done or an annual function or sports day had to be organized and the expenses were more than Rs 5000, they had to get approval from the deputy director of education (DDE). There are about 125 schools in a district. Files of every school with the smallest of requests lie at the DDE’s office for months. It is not possible for the DDE to review and accept all of them on a regular basis. This is why a lot of important things get delayed. I asked the officers concerned the reason for limiting the financial independence of principals to Rs 5000. How will they run a school with that amount? Their answer was quite bureaucratic. ‘Sir, this has been done to ensure that they don’t misappropriate the money.’ My answer was that if we were entrusting the principal with a team of fifty to 100 teachers to shape the future of 3000 students, could we not trust him or her with more than Rs 5000? They had no answer to this argument. It was decided that the financial power of the principals would be increased from Rs 5000 to Rs 50,000. This enabled the principals to take decisions according to their needs, using their wisdom.

  In a similar discussion, one principal asked me, ‘Sir, on the one hand, you always talk about giving children quality education and on the other, you want school buildings to be neat and clean, and windows in classrooms and taps in toilets to be fully functional. Please tell us whether a principal should oversee the education of 3000 to 6000 students or check taps and tube lights in fifty to sixty rooms?’ The principal had a point. I asked for a solution. After further discussions, an idea came up that if an estate manager was hired for every school to supervise cleanliness and repairs in consultation with the principal, then the principal would be able to focus better on the education of the children. This is how, for the first time in the country, the decision to hire estate managers in government schools was taken. At present, every school in Delhi has an estate manager. Schools that run in two shifts have two estate managers.

  The important thing to note in the appointment of estate managers is that they were not hired by the government. A thousand people were not hired in one go. Rather, we drew up a framework for their eligibility and selection, and the responsibility of appointing them was given to the principals. They were told to form a five-member committee under their chairmanship, comprising two teachers and two parents. Also, if the estate manager was inefficient, then firing them and selecting a new one was also the principal’s responsibility. I think that the decision to hand over this responsibility to principals is a big reason for the cleanliness in Delhi schools over the last three years.

  Another interesting aspect of the appointment of estate managers was that when I had put forth the suggestion of giving the responsibility of hiring them to principals, many officers, speaking from experience, said that it would give rise to nepotism. They suggested that we have an independent appointment process. My answer to this was that the principals were free to hire their children as managers since my priority was clean schools. We could debate better processes later. I know it was a lopsided argument but the officers didn’t argue further. The logic was also that if the right to hire and fire rested with the principals, then it was their responsibility to make sure that the estate managers worked efficiently. Of course, the argument about hiring their children was made in jest. I am very proud of the fact that of 1024 schools, the appointment process in 1023 schools was fantastic. In one school, the principal took advantage of the situation and appointed her husband. This was an abuse of power and independence. When I found out about it, I went to this far-off school in a village for a surprise inspection. I was angry with the principal. However, when I reached the school, I found that it was spic and span. There were no cobwebs anywhere. In spite of the school being in an open, rustic area, there was no dust on the desks or in the rooms. The principal may have abused her power by hiring her husband as the estate manager but she surely had appointed a competent man. All I said to the principal while leaving was, ‘Madam, I took the power from the education department and vested it in you. If you misuse it, then the school staff will mock me. They will cite your example and that will give the other principals a bad name. What you have done is wrong.’ I received an apology letter from her that evening, informing me that she had fired her husband. Let me also talk about the advertisement we put out for hiring the estate managers. It said that if you wanted to do something for the children, then the Delhi government needed your services as estate managers in its schools. It was probably the effect of this appeal that most Delhi schools have very enthusiastic estate managers who work diligently from morning to evening. I think the appointment of estate managers was an important landmark in the history of Delhi schools. There are government schools in many states with thousands of students, where principals should be given the authority to keep estate managers so that the condition of these schools can be bettered.

  Another aspect emerged from my discussion with the principals. In many schools, the principals wanted to create a scholastic environment along with the teachers. Most teachers were also keen to teach with all seriousness but a few, out of sheer laziness or incompetence, ruined the environment. They also incited other teachers. In such situations, instead of scholastic, a political atmosphere was created. To address this, we gave principals the special authority to transfer any two teachers annually whom they thought were disturbing the academic environment of the school. This move was opposed by the teachers, and I believe some principals misused this power to settle scores. However, I see very few principals actually using this authority. It works as a deterrent. I believe that leaders should have a few rights to encourage their team or to discipline them whenever needed.

  Delhi schools principals have either cleared the UPSC exam for the post or have been promoted from the position of vice principals. Some vice principals have been given the charge of head of school. In spite of so many facilities and rights, it was difficult to bolster the morale of most principals to become good leaders. They were not given any training to inculcate leadership skills nor did they have experience of it. In spite of being heads of schools, they were cogs in the hierarchy of the education system. Hence, they didn’t feel like leaders. I realized that if the principals didn’t become responsible for their schools or have a vision for them, my dream of improving the environment of the schools would remain a dream. So, I decided that to create a hunger to become better, I had to show them schools across the world and familiarize them with international education systems. They had to feel that they were leaders and understand what leadership was about.

  We first sought help from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Lucknow and Ahmedabad to organize school leadership workshops. We prepared a special programme for government school principals in consultation with IIM Ahmedabad. Their team designed this programme on the basis of their interaction with many principals and proposed to conduct the training in Delhi itself. However, I wanted to take the principals out of their schools and the Delhi government system. I wanted them to see the college that was the dream of most children. What exactly is IIM? Who are the people teaching there? How is the environment? How do they teach? The IIM team was a little reluctant to conduct such a huge programme on their campus on such short notice. It was challenging for them to house 1000 principals. However, on my request, they started the programme on their campus. I am happy that after becoming fami
liar with the IIMs and their way of working, many of our principals were inspired to do something better and to look at their work with a new perspective.