Tired of being indifferent to the poor quality of government schooling? Not content to just shrug and walk away? India's poorest attend government schools -- no longer good enough for the burgeoning middle classes. So who should care of the government schools? Amidst such wide skepticism of the government run schooling system is a ray of hope. Perhaps it is time for parents of children attending schools to take matters into their own hands and ask for local accountability.

I had the opportunity to visit a village gram sabha meeting related to government school reform organized by the group Maya in Karnataka. Maya is an NGO participating in the 'citizens initiative for elementary education" in Karnataka. The gram sabha initiative is an interesting government school intervention program. The goal of this initiative is to get the residents of the village and the school authorities in regular dialog thereby taking ownership of their local school improvement efforts. "Don't look to the government to solve all your problems," says the Maya representative. Some of them may be fixed locally. They encourage the people to actively approach the government via their panchayat for problems that cannot be fixed locally. The essence is citizen participation. This seems to be the best possible option to revive a troubled system. After all when accountability becomes more local reform can be just a walk away.  

How does this happen?

Volunteers with Maya first survey the village and the government school to document all the problems with the school. They approach the school authorities to seek their permission and co-operation. The school authorities are requested to be open to working in conjunction with the villagers in improving the school. Once they obtain co-operation from school authorities, the next step is to work with the panchayat in getting their approval. A gram panchayat sabha is then organized with people from the village, panchayat members and the school authorities. The gram sabha starts a dialog seeking input from the villagers on what they would like to see improved in their school. Men, women, children from the village as well as the teachers of the school come up with a list of problems. Maya adds to this any additional problems they have observed. During the gram sabha a citizen's action group is formed. This citizen's action group (or Thanda as it is called in Kannada) then takes up the responsibility of meeting regularly and working to make school improvements. The thanda comes up with meeting schedules, plan of action to make school improvements.  

In conjunction with this -- Maya organizes teacher meetings to talk about the problems teachers face - teachers are often overloaded with a lot of government duties and do not spend enough time with the children. Maya has been engaging the teachers in dialog and forming teacher groups to lobby with the government for changes in the system. Apart from this, attempts are made to make the teachers more sensitive to village problems and build teacher sensitivity and enthusiasm through workshops and training. The overall program is very comprehensive and Maya says that results are already beginning to show and several villages have undertaken school improvement themselves. They expect more results over the course of next year. Maya has been working on this for over a year now. They have designed survey forms and have started actively reviewing schools and engaging the gram sabhas in 8 taluks in Karnataka. The Maya volunteers involved are village volunteers with good experience in building village groups. They know the language well and are well versed with discussions with villagers.  

The Visit

The gram sabha I witnessed along with Sindhu Naik (India Literacy Project co-ordinator in India ) was the introductory gram sabha in the village Kallahalli 3 kms from Kanakapura town (65 kms from Bangalore). The village Kallahalli has 1300 residents. The government school there is a small building with classes till 7th standard. We reached Kallahalli at 6 p.m. just in time to see the villagers gathering within the small school premises for their gram sabha.  

Who are the People?

The panchayat adhyaksha, 18 men and 28 women turned up for the gram sabha. Approximately 40 school children were present very excited about this new proceeding. This was the first time a gram sabha was being held in Kallahalli for school improvement (as the children told me). 2 volunteers from Maya (Gangadhar and Narayan), the school principal Shivanna, 7^th standard teacher, Sindhu and myself were present at the start of the gram sabha. As the sabha progressed more men joined us presumably after work. The school has 5 teachers. 4 are from Bangalore and 1 from Kanakapura. The teachers from Bangalore could not stay back for the sabha because of long commute. The village people seemed to be a mix of daily wage coolies (agriculture and construction), farmers, masons, small shop owners, auto drivers, tailor, temple workers, housewives, silk worm rearers.

I noticed that majority of the women present were either old or young. Not many middle aged women attended. Since the sabha started at 6 p.m. (this time was fixed by the Panchayat not by Maya) perhaps more women had household chores to attend to. In terms of participation, men participated more than women but there were quite a few women who voiced their thoughts. This is also because Gangadhar made sure that they did. A few of the children were very vocal too. They excitedly provided answers even when the question was not directed at them! The children were constantly being shushed by the principal though he was not very successful and they seemed to just giggle when he got serious. Gangadhar really did an excellent job making sure that every woman, man and child had an opportunity to speak. I could clearly see that he was able to bond with the villagers well and create a lot of enthusiam. Gangadhar hails from a similar background himself. The difference he made was obvious.  

The Sabha

At the beginning Gangadhar introduced the concept of citizen's initiatives in school improvement. The proceedings were in Kannada. I have translated them as best as I can.

Question: Is this the first time all of you are gathering to discuss education?
Answer: Yes.

Question: What do you expect from this?
Answer: It feels good to be able to talk about the school. We expect you to make things better.

Question: Whose school is this?
Answer: Government. One person (an elderly lady) answered our school.

Question: How many of you think it is your school?
Answer: Many agreed at this point.

He then said if the temple in your village is yours isn't the school in your village yours? Everyone in chorus said that it is their school. The children readily obliged!

Question: Why do you think it is your school?
Answer: One person mentioned that they pay taxes and the government spends their taxes on their school. Everyone else said because it is in their village and their children studied there.

Question: If someone robbed your school what would you do?
Answer: We will complain to government officers.

Question: If someone robbed your village temple what would you do?
Answer: We will catch him and then repair the temple.

He then used the above to get them to say that the school is their responsibility too. Everyone finally agreed that the school is the responsibility of the parents, teachers and children. After this things got more vocal and everyone started giving their input on how they would take care of the school. Some said that they wanted to check if the children are reading and writing properly.

Question: What improvements would you like in your school?
Answer: (Men, women and children) Playground, good anganwadi, library, play things, children should use the toilets in their school, electricity (the school has none), school premises should be clean, children should not skip classes, should study well, teachers should be regular. We want our children to be doctors, good in agriculture.

Question: To the children -- now you tell us what you want.
Answer: (Indramma a girl in 7^th standard). We want our school to be clean. A good playground, library and drinking water.

Question: To parents -- if the children ask for this, should you not provide it? Some things you can get yourself -- can't you do this?
Answer: Yes we can.

There was a discussion and one person volunteered to buy a glass and pot for the school for drinking water for the children. As the dicussion continued one person said that we and the government will work together to make this school better. The enthusiasm was building. Gangadhara then asked them to create a team (Thanda) that will follow up on all the problems they had mentioned that they would like to fix. He asked for volunteers and 11 people volunteered including atleast 4 women. Gangadhar The team decided they wanted to meet once in 2 weeks. The first deadline set for the school was getting drinking water and the people felt this could be accomplished in 2 weeks. The discussions continued with greater vigor and the newly formed thanda started taking feedback from the people gathered on what else they would like. Many felt that in 3 months their school would be better.

The session then concluded by Gangadhar asking everyone how they felt about this meeting. One elderly lady mentioned that this was much better than watching TV! Overall there was a lot of positive feedback from the group and this will hopefully continue. The school principal mentioned that if this continues he may have a reduced workload in not having to oversee parent involvement and attendance everyday. He felt that the children will be more regular and he wont have to keep checking on them all the time. Maya volunteers and the school authorities will continue to participate in the bi-monthly meetings as well.

Since this was the first meeting it will be interesting to see how this thanda functions over the course of next year - if the enthusiasm is sustained. Gangadhar is confident it will based on his experience so far. We sincerely hope that this is the type of involvement that can really cause change and make schooling better for the children who so need and deserve it.