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22ND July,
2013
Press Release on the tragic deaths
of 23 school children in Bihar
The tragic deaths of 23 children
after consuming the mid-day meal served in a school in Chhapra, Bihar has sent shock waves
through the entire country. Reports have come in of students and parents in
many parts of the country refusing
to let their children consume the school meal even though it comprises a
substantial part of their nutritional intake for the majority of school-going
children. Media is focusing attention on poor quality of the food served in
many schools across the country, and the fact that its nutritional composition
is lower than the specified norm.
The Bihar government’s inquiry
and newspaper reports have blamed the Chhapra school principal for ignoring
complaints by the cook, and protests by the students, about something being
wrong with the oil and the taste of the food. Indeed this is unacceptable
behavior and AIFRTE demands that accountability must be fixed. However, what is
deplorable is the revelation that this appears to be a case of poisoning due to
significant presence of insecticide in the food served. AIFRTE demands a
thorough investigation so that criminal liability is established.
The mid-day meal scheme is an
important component of the programme to ensure that children go to school. In
fact it needs to be extended to include milk, egg or an equivalent protein
source and fruit for morning and afternoon snack to ensure that no child is
hungry or deprived of the necessary food intake to actively participate in
learning and play/sports activities in the school. It is of course necessary to
monitor the programme successfully for it to be effective.
Already, in most of the schools,
School Management Committees or Women’s self-help saving Groups have been
delegated responsibility, with the Head Teacher playing a key role, for
monitoring the programme. In Bihar, the Head Teacher reports every afternoon
through email/ mobile the precise purchase details, down to the expenditure on
masalas and salt, apart from that on vegetables, flour, dal etc., to the state
HQ in Patna which documents all these details in the HQ computer. There are
well-defined rules and regulations. Clearly,
adding more agencies to monitor existing monitoring agencies is no
solution to the problem. It is necessary to understand why the system is
malfunctioning.
Why are those who are responsible
for ensuring that children get a proper nutritious meal either resorting to
corrupt practices or showing callous negligence or both? When these are not
just individual aberrations but relatively widespread attitudes we need to go
deeper to understand the cause. The fact that children attending government
schools are from poor, deprived, schedule caste/tribe families or from minority
communities is an important reason for prejudices dominating the conduct of
school and local authorities towards them, and for the callous indifference
towards their legitimate needs and rights.
The segregation of children in
schools for the poor and schools for well-off elites, a segregation which
shamefully has been turned into law by the Right to Education Act (2009) and
reproduces the inequalities prevalent in our society, is the reason for the
inability to successfully carry forward the mid-day meal scheme as part of an
empowering system of education for all. Cutting budgetary costs by failing to
provide adequate infrastructure (only a small proportion of schools have
kitchens where cleanliness and hygiene can be ensured or where cooks are
employed) or properly trained teachers who are adequately sensitized to meeting
the needs of young children is the recipe for disasters like the one that has
occurred in Bihar. This approach to the schooling of the vast majority of
India’s children has to stop.
AIFRTE resolutely asserts that
only a system of public-funded common neighbourhood schools, which are attended
by children from all classes and backgrounds, can ensure that facilities
intended for all children will be of quality and conform to the norms set down.
In such institutions, the school management committees will be actively
functional, parent-teacher interactions will be productive, and teachers and
school authorities will be motivated and accountable. It is unfortunate that
the present Bihar government which took the lead in setting up the only Common
School Commission in the country when it came to power, allowed the report of
the Commission to gather dust and no steps were taken to implement its
recommendations. Had its recommendations been taken up for implementation
twenty-three precious lives would have been saved and the right to quality
education for all children would have become a reality.
AIFRTE condoles the tragic deaths
of the children and calls upon all democratic sections to unite in the struggle
for a national system of common neighborhood schools so that the sacrifice of
their young lives does not go in vain.
Sd/---------------------
Sd/-------------------
Prof. Meher
Engineer Ms. Madhu Prasad
Chairperson, Spokesperson,
AIFRTE AIFRTE
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