Education in India

Education in India ?
Dalip Singh Wasan, Advocate.

I am speaking the truth and truth alone. I had migrated from Pakistan side and it is on record that I had lost my father during this partition of 1947. We had been accommodated in a destitute home and then we were admitted in schools as per our standard. I had been out from the school since 1947 and I was seeking admission in he year 1951. When a teacher enquired from me in which class I shall seek admission, I requested that I may be given admission in the seventh class. Those were the days when the people on this side were having all sympathy with the people who had been uprooted from Pakistan side and therefore, I was given admission in seventh class. One master Khushi Ram ji took my responsibility and he started teaching me at his home too. It is on record that I stood first in seventh class and while pronouncing the result master Khushi Ram ji announced that had I been in the tenth class, I would have passed that class to. I took these words very seriously and in the evening I met master Khushi Ram at his house. He advised me to leave the school and to appear in matriculation examination next year as a private candidate. He too me to one master Gulati who was conducting tuitions in the town. I was given all the books and stationery items by that teacher and in the next year I appeared in matriculation examination and it is on record I got first division.
Master Khushi Ram ji took me in the town and some important persons were happy on my performance and some of them gave me cash awards too.
When my matriculation examination certificate was received, I took the certificate and started for a village where sister of my late father was living. In the way I was looking at a gentleman who was being served by some people in the train. I was surprised to note such service and therefore, I stood up and went to the man being served and put a question to him, " Who are you Sir, people are serving you and you are taking all the things offered to you like a kind". The man was surprised to note such a question, but somehow he allowed me to sit by his side and during the meeting he could have an eye on my certificate too. Then he allowed me to sit there and when the final station came, he caught my hand and was leading me out of the railway station. The people who had come to receive him were surprised to note that the man had been having my hand in his hand. They might have thought that I was a pickpocket.
A car was waiting for the man and he took me in the car. When we reached the complex he took me to the Director of Public Instructions and directed him to appoint me against a leave vacancy of teacher which had been lying vacant in the high school of his village. Later on I was told that the gentleman was the Deputy Education Minister of PEPSU state.
When I joined the school in his village, I was given eighth class. I objected that I had never been in the eighth class, but the head master told me that there are fourteen posts sanctioned in that school, but only eight teachers were in post. So in spite of all objections from my side, I was given eighth class. Somehow I completed the course and I was asked to prepare papers and conduct the final examination too. There were thirty five students in my class and I declared all of them pass.
On the whole the school result was good but three students from different classes had been declared fail. The parents took some people with them and made a complaint to the Divisional Inspector of Schools who came to have an enquiry. When he was my result, he put a question to me, " What had been the method of your method of marking the answer-sheets"? I stood up and said that all who could get twenty marks in a paper were given some grace marks and they were declared pass. The teachers sitting there had a laugh, but the Divisional Inspector of schools shut them up and desired the reasons of granting these grace marks. I stood up and said," Sir this is a village. The students have got no place in their house where they could sit and have study. Even they are not having time to finish home work. I had been helping them in completing homework in the school. When the students have got no educated people in the house, when they have got no place to sit and study, such students are having rights for grace marks".
One teacher stood up and said, " Have you given them rural allowance"?
I kept silence, but the Divisional Inspector of Schools passed an order that all the teachers should take up the answer-sheets with them and come back with the revised result and follow the method which I had adopted while marking answer-sheets. Within an hour they came back with the new result and the result was pronounced in presence of the Divisional Inspector of schools and somehow the public could know about my performance and therefore, when they were praising and raising slogans in favour of the Divisional Inspector of Schools, they were raising slogans in favour of me too.
I am telling this story to the readers. The staff position in government schools is still the same and therefore, we should understand in what circumstances our students have to study in government schools. We are being told even today that thousands of posts of teachers are still lying in schools and the schools are still functioning. What would we expect from the students coming out of such schools? This is the question which is still lying unanswered.
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