Shri Husain Dalwai, Ex-Member of Parliament and Ex-Minister, Government of Maharashtra was the Chief Guest,  Who urged the participants to adopt constitutional values in their daily life.

 

Adv. Anuradha Narkar & Mr. Syed Khalid judged the event.

 

Education is one of the most powerful tools for breaking the poverty cycle.  It is the only vehicle, which can bring equality to society.   But the poor quality of education has caused poor learning outcomes in our country and the poor learning outcome is pushing our children out of the education system. Ultimately, the drop-outs are forced to join child labour and the unorganised sector.

Movement for Peace and Justice for Welfare (MPJ) a public movement working for the betterment of the people of Maharashtra, organized a consultation meeting on the “Poor learning outcomes in school education on Saturday, 24^th September 2022 at Anjuman-I-Islam College in Mumbai. This event got an overwhelming response from all the stakeholders. People from the teaching community, civil society, academics, government and parents were present in large numbers.

Mr. Muhammad Anees gave a brief overview of the current situation of poor learning outcomes in school education. Prof. Sharad Jawadekar, a retired teacher from Pune University and a well-known education activist, Dr. Sandhya Mhatre, a researcher and education activist, Mr. Ashfaq Ahmad, Education Officer, Mr. Faheem Abdul Bari from All India Ideal Teachers Association, Mr. Syed Habib representing the Education department of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind and members of All India Samajwadi Shikshan Haq Sabha were part of the panel of experts.

The panelists stressed the importance of increasing public spending on education and raising awareness among the community to take ownership and accountability to run and manage the schools.

Dr Kazim Malik announced MPJ’s plan to hold local-level consultation meetings on the issue at different locations in Maharashtra to engage all the stakeholders and aware them of the problems and challenges associated with school education.  

 

Movement for Peace and Justice for Welfare organised a programme entitled “Yuva Caravan” to commemorate the National Youth Day on 12^th January 2017. In fact, the youth day is celebrated every year in the memory of Swami Vivekananda, whose birthday falls on 12^th January.  In the year of 1984, the government of India declared this day as National youth day and since then, people of India is celebrating the day with great enthusiasm and fervour. This is the day people preach the philosophy of Swami Vivekanand, who considered the youth as the real power of the country.

MPJ has proposed a state-wide tour of the youth caravan to educate youths of the country about the dangers of drug addiction and several other social ills damaging the society. This caravan will organise debates and activity based programmes to achieve its objects of informing and educating youths.

Urdu Times

Lokmat, Marathi

Loksatta, Marathi

Mumbai - Movement for Peace and Justice for Welfare (MPJ), a public movement working for the betterment of the society today conducted here a Consultation meet on the affirmative action taken by the government on the recommendations of Sachar Committee report and its impact on the community.  In fact, Sachar committee formed to study socio-economic conditions of Indian Muslims had presented its report to the government on 17th November a decade ago. This Consultation meet was well attended by the social, political, legal and community (Milli) luminaries. Many valuable suggestions came in from the attendees.

The discussion focused on the compulsion of the government to promote the idea of inclusive development and current situation of the Muslim community in the post-Sachar era.  

“Constitutionally, the state is bound to build an inclusive, plural, secular and a just society and it is a duty of the state to equitably integrate its religious minorities and other vulnerable groups.  Muslim Social exclusion is present in the society in various forms. The Muslims are socially, politically, economically, culturally, educationally segregated. Hence, Muslims of the state need immediate attention of the government and greater access to education, healthcare and other basic amenities to avoid poverty and social exclusion. Muslims need affirmative action just as much as other underprivileged groups, including Dalits and OBCs. They deserve social justice and equity as much as other deprived groups”, says Muhammad Siraj President of MPJ.

Afsar Usmani, General Secretary said that the amount of budgetary allocation by the state government for the development of minorities is also not sufficient. It needs to be enhanced substantially. The other distressing fact is that even this meager amount allocated by the government doesn’t seem to be utilized properly. It is also a fact that the communal violence has been a major concern for the people of minority communities in the state, he added. So far as the affirmative actions for the upliftment of the community is concerned, various panels had strongly recommended making special arrangements including providing reservations in education and employment, to bailout the community from the darkness of backwardness. Even Justice Rangnath Mishra and Dr. Mahmudur Rahman have strongly recommended the reservation. The reservations in jobs and education have been a very old demand of the poverty stricken community.  

Everybody knows that the previous government had made a provision of reservations for Muslims in education and employment in the state of Maharashtra. Even though Hon’ble Bombay high court had scrapped the reservation, it had maintained that the community lags behind the education and recommended reservation in the education sector. But the present BJP government has done nothing to grant the reservation in the education sector, as a result despite of Hon’ble high court’s recommendations; the Muslim community is not getting the benefits of reservation in education. 

The panel unanimously urged state government to take immediate steps to safeguard the interests of people belonging to the Muslim community and implement the BJP’s election promises, like “Sab Ka Saath Sab Ka Vikaas” by:

1.    implementing the recommendations of  Sachar and Mahmudur Rahman Committees, 

2.    ensuring the timely and proper implementation of Prime Minister’s 15 point programme and MsDP, 

3.    introducing a mechanism of accountability and public monitoring on the implementation of various minorities’ welfare schemes, 

4.    allotting educational grants and public contracts on the basis of the diversity index, 

5.    enhancing state’s welfare budget for minorities, 

6.    taking necessary steps to grant the Muslim community reservation in the education sector, as recommended by the Hon’ble Bombay High Court,

7.    bringing the 'Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill in the state assembly to combat the targeted violence against the minorities.

8.    constituting an Equal Opportunity Commission and the Autonomous Assessment and Monitoring Authority, as recommended by the Rajinder Sachar Committee.

The MPJ has submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister, Government of Maharashtra to implement the Hon’ble Supreme Court’s order for providing the wide-ranging relief for the drought affected people. These include Mid-Day Meals during the summer vacation, an addition of egg or milk to the mid-day meal menu, the universalization of food grain ration, an adequate and timely release of funds for the MNREGA and implementation of crop loss compensation, agricultural loan restructuring and provision for cattle fodder.

 As everybody knows, these orders were passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, in a PIL filed by an NGO Swaraj Abhiyan. Apart from these orders, the court has also issued new guidelines for the assessment and declaration of the drought.

As per the directives issued by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, every household in drought affected area is entitled for the benefits available under the National Food Security Act and the current distinction between “eligible” and “non-eligible” households will also not apply. NO citizen is to be denied food-grain merely because she or he does not possess a ration card. Any alternative identification document will be accepted for the purpose.

Similar memorandums are also being submitted by the District units of the MPJ to the concerned District authorities.

MPJ opposes the demand of Dry Day on 24th and 25th Dec on the eve of Islamic Prophet's birthday from few MLA's. In a democracy, one cannot impose one's beliefs and practices on others.

It means there is no difference between these MLAs and those demanding ban on beef! Finally, it’s against the teachings of the great Prophet to impose one's beliefs.

The Movement for Peace & Justice for Welfare, Maharashtra celebrated December 18 as Minority Rights Day across the state and organized different activities to aware people regarding various legal and constitutional rights provisioned by the Government of India for the welfare of minority communities of the country. In fact, December 18 has been declared to be the Minority day by the National Commission for Minorities. It is to be mentioned here that, that the United nations organization adopted the declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic National or and Linguistic Minorities on this day in 1992.  The UN declaration on minority states that: “States shall protect the existence of the national or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity of minorities within their respective territories and encourage conditions for the promotions of that identity”.

So far as the Minority rights are concerned, there is nothing special about it. These are simply normal individual

 MPJ Activists submitting memorandum to the Collector,Nanded

rights, which are applied to the members of different racial, ethnic, religious, linguistic or sexual minorities etc;

and at the same time, these are also the collective rights accorded to minority groups.  The MPJ organized signature campaign to aware people of their individual and collective rights and submitted memorandum to the government authorities for the proper implementation of various welfare schemes launched by the government targeting minority communities of the country. The media was also engaged to highlight the plight of minority communities. Several newspapers carried the news reports on the sorry state of minorities and non-implementation or poor implementation of the minority welfare schemes in the state of Maharashtra. MPJ collected vital information on the issue through RTI and shared this information with the media to sensitize stakeholders. Muhammad Siraj, State President of the MPJ was also interviewed by the ETV Urdu yesterday on the minority issues.
  

The Movement for Peace & Justice, Maharashtra exhibits its achievements at Hyderabad

MPJ's one month long "Health for all" drive may have ended, but the zeal of MPJ activists to secure better health care services from the government can't be described in words. The MPJ activists are still busy with making their efforts to strengthen the public health delivery system across the state. The campaign was just a beginning and it seems that, this campaign will continue to work for a long time. In Nanded district, the MPJ activists are campaigning for the Haider Bagh Maternity centre. The local spokesperson of the MPJ said that, the health of this maternity home is deteriorating day by day. People are not getting the benefits from this maternity home, as government claims.

Afsar Usmani addressing the gathering

Latur: The Movement for Peace and Justice, Maharashtra has launched its one month long “Health for all” campaign with a view to strengthen the public health infrastructure in the state. While addressing a programme at Latur, MPJ State President, Muhammad Siraj told the gatherings that, our constitution mandates health as our basic right. But, people are not getting this right due to various reasons. There is a lack of awareness among us regarding such health facilities provisioned under various national and international health policies and programmes. Many of us are not aware of the Primary health services available to the people just stepping out of the home, he added.   

He informed people attending the programme that, the State government has formulated three tier

health infrastructures in the state. At lowest level, government has established Primary Health Centres and Sub-Centres in Rural areas, while in urban areas there are community health centres, municipal dispensaries, maternity homes and health posts. These health institution falls under primary health services. In Secondary Health Services, there are District, Sub-District, and Rural Hospitals, where the specialty services are provided at various hospitals.

The third level of health services is called tertiary Care Services. In tertiary care services, government makes available the Super Specialty Services to the people and these hospitals are located in big cities, where services like, Cardiology, Cardiovascular and cardiothoracic surgeries, Nephrology & Urology, Oncology and Chemotherapy etc; are provided to the people.

The Secretary General of the MPJ Afsar Usmani requested people to come forward to strengthen the existing health infrastructure, especially the primary health services in the state.

Sri Shabbir Deshmukh addressing media

MPJ and Anna Haq Parishad jointly organised a press conference here on 24th Sep 2015. This Press conference was hosted to highlight the insensitivity and failure of the Municipal Corporations to support the SECC process of 'displaying of draft list and inviting claims and objections' as per the State Gazette notification.

The State Government has filed an affidavit in the MPJ’s NFSA PIL that provides dates of ‘publishing of SECC draft list' for all the districts of Maharashtra. The door to door enumeration under Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) was completed by October 2013 but the draft list was not published. The Hon High Court demanded to know from the Government the progress in the SECC. The process of displaying the draft list of SECC in Maharashtra began on 10^th December 2014.

This data after Claims and Objection phase will be later analysed using the Saxena Committee methodology to identify beneficiaries Below the Poverty Line as well as under several key programmes of the Government such as Food Security, Shahari Rozgar, Livelihood missions, Pensions, Gharkool, etc. The survey form for Rural was developed by the Saxena Committee while the survey form for Urban was developed by Hashim Committee.

For transparency and to improve the data quality, it is essential that the published list undergoes close scrutiny from the public to overcome flaws of the failed BPL surveys of 1997 and 2002. Hence upon publishing, it is the duty of the administration to inform the people to scrutinise and invite 'claims and objections'.

All District Collectors and Zilla Parishad CEOs have been directed by the various Departments and Directorates to publish draft lists and call for Claims and Objections. The process of raising objections will end in 30 days from the date of publishing the draft list in respective District / Municipal Corporation.

SECC norms require certain steps during the ‘Displaying of draft list and inviting Claims and Objections’ phase to be followed once draft list is published:

1. The draft list is to be displayed at Gram Pachayats, Block Development office, Zilla Parishad and District Collector's office.

2. Within a week of list being published, Gramsabhas are too be held and the list is to be read out.

Similarly, in urban areas the list will have to be displayed at Municipal wards for a month and general body to be held for public scrutiny on the 10^th day.

Several critical issues witnessed are as follows:

·         Apart from few advertise advertisements in newspapers, no effort made to inform the people about the Claims phase

·         Draft list not displayed for public scrutiny but kept in files inside cupboards

·         Inadequate staff to facilitate the process

·         Staff not trained for the phase

·         how is everyone to know about such an important exercise being undertaken, especially the vulnerable sections who need to be included in the welfare measures

Under these circumstances we call up for the following:

·         We demand that the State Government to comply with its own affidavit, States Gazette notification and GRs by complying to the norms in letter and spirit

·         Restart the ‘Display and Claims’ process of SECC in BMC and Municipal Corporations of Thane

·         Allocate sufficient staff and adequately train them to run the process

·         Use all avenues to inform and involve people in the process

·         Hold general meeting of people at Ward level for public scrutiny as per the process defined in the Gazette notification

MPJ organized a health workshop for educating its cadre of the Nagpur region. This workshop is a part of its forthcoming one month state wide health campaign to strengthen the primary health care services in the state and creating an awareness among people regarding programme, policies and infrastructure of the government on health sector. While delivering the inaugural speech, Muhammad Siraj State president MPJ, informed the audience that, government is providing 80% services to the 40% urban population and the rest of 60 %rural population is getting only 20%. He also said that, the government failed in creating health infrastructure in proportion of population, as mandated by the norms of the Indian Public Health Standard (IPHS).

Dr. Gogulwar from Amhi Amchya Arogya Sathi, an NGO working in the field of health also addressed the gathering and presented various facts and figures of health infrastructural norms and its availability in the state. 

The food security is an important issue for the people of India. The central government came up with a legal enactment to provide food security for the citizens. This was a long awaited constitutional measure to check the problems of malnutrition and deaths due to hunger in the country. Everybody is aware that, a larger chunk of our population is poverty stricken and living under extremely distressed condition. Hence, the National food security Act, 2013 was a welcome move of the government. However, this provision does not fully address the food needs of the people, as there are several discrepancies in it, which needs to be rectified. But, the implementation of this act was a biggest problem before the civil society, as the public was not aware about the benefits available under this act. The people did not know their rights and responsibilities of government officials.

The Movement for Peace and Justice launched a statewide public awareness campaign and successfully delivered the information in every nook and corner of the state.

“All persons should be educated, so we could have peace in the world”.

This is a very famous quote of John Amos Comenius, who is considered as a father of education. It is a fact that, peace can’t be established unless certain rights are not guaranteed to all of its citizen and definitely education is one of the most powerful tools, as this is the foundation of good citizenship and most vital ingredient for the development of human resources.

 Undoubtedly, a child of today is a leader of tomorrow and the real wealth of a nation is not so much in it’s of natural resources like metals, minerals and oils etc; but it lies more absolutely in the kind and quality of its children. It is they who are the shapers of a nation’s tomorrow. But, it is our responsibility today, to shape the future of our children, who are most precious, valuable, and fragile resource for the future.  We believe that, as a future leader every child has the right to be encouraged and nurtured emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. Their physical needs must be adequately met, including nutrition, housing, and medical care.   There are several basic rights that a child deserves to get, but here we are going to discuss the right of education only.  As we know that proper education is the basic ingredient to produce a good citizen and it is also a fact that, receiving a good education is every child’s basic right. It is education that provides competence and empowers children to be self-sufficient. Needless to say that education plays vital role in the human capital formation.

Who is responsible for providing the education: In India, the Central and state governments are responsible for providing the school education to all school-age children. By the Constitutional Amendment of 1976 education was included in the Concurrent List, which means that both the Centre and the State have jurisdiction over making legislative provisions on the subject and in 2002 the Constitution was Amended to include the Article 21A in the Indian constitution, which declares  Education a fundamental Right. Now education is a fundamental right and its enforcement would provide us a unique opportunity to build up a mission encompassing all the discourses to fulfill our goal of universal elementary education. The right to education goes further than free and compulsory education to incorporate quality education for all.

This 86^th amendment of the constitution of India, however, necessitated for a legislation to explain the mode of implementation of the fundamental right of education. Hence, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 came into existence, which was implemented on 1^st April, 2010 and it is popularly known as right to education or RTE and it is legally enforceable duty of the government to provide free and compulsory education in a neighborhood school.

The RTE Act 2009 envisages that the education is a fundamental right of every child who is between 6 and 14 years of age. This legal enactment echoes a right-based approach to the education of our children. The sole purpose behind this right-based approach is to maximize the development of children, so that they become citizens who are aware of their other rights, and come to know how to demand these rights. This Act serves as a building block to ensure that every child has his or her right (as an entitlement) to get a quality elementary education. The RTE Act focuses on the right of access to education.  The most noteworthy provision in the RTE Act is the one that addresses this crucial right of access to free compulsory and quality education up to class eight for all children. This right extends to all children irrespective of gender, religion, class, caste and includes those with physical and other disabilities. Since, it is a fundamental right; it is State’s duty to ensure that no child remains out of school.

The RTE Act has the following major provisions:

• Every child between the ages of six to fourteen years shall have the right to free and compulsory education in a neighbourhood school, till completion of elementary education.
• The Act clarifies that ‘compulsory education’ means obligation of the appropriate government to provide free elementary education and ensure compulsory admission, attendance and completion of elementary education to every child in the six to fourteen age group.
• The Act also clarifies that ‘free education’ means, no child shall be liable to pay any kind of fee or charges or expenses which may prevent him or her from pursuing and completing elementary education. In other words, there is no direct (school fees) or indirect cost (uniforms, textbooks, mid-day meals, transportation) to be borne by the child or the parents to obtain elementary education. The government will provide schooling free-of-cost until a child's elementary education is completed.
• Where a child above six years of age has not been admitted to any school or though admitted, could not complete his or her elementary education, then, he or she shall be admitted in a class appropriate to his or her age.
• This act mandates that, the children are entitled to get quality education.
• For carrying out the provisions of this Act, the appropriate government and local authority shall establish a school, if it is not established, within the given area, within a period of three years, from the commencement of this Act.
• The Central and the State Governments shall have concurrent responsibility for providing funds for carrying out the provisions of this Act.
•  This act also calls for a fixed student-teacher ratio.
•  School teachers will need adequate professional degree within five years or else will lose job. 
•  School infrastructure (where there is problem) to be improved in three years, else recognition cancelled.
•  Provides for 25 percent reservation for economically weaker section and disadvantaged communities in admission to Class one in all private schools.
•  It provides for appointment of appropriately trained teachers, i.e. teachers with the requisite entry and academic qualifications.
•  It prohibits (a) physical punishment and mental harassment; (b) screening procedures for admission of children; (c) capitation fee; (d) private tuition by teachers and (e) running of schools without recognition.
• It provides for development of curriculum in consonance with the values enshrined in the Constitution, and which would ensure the all-round development of the child, building on the child’s knowledge, potentiality and talent and making the child free of fear, trauma and anxiety through a system of child friendly and child centred learning.  

A very large number of our children never get admitted to a school, and they do not complete even elementary education due to various socio-economic reasons like, migration, extreme poverty, homelessness of the family, children living or working in urban slums, in streets, on railway platforms or construction sites, working as domestic workers, child labourers, tending cattle, working in dhabas, mechanic shops, and rag pickers and as shoe shine boys etc.

The RTE rules of the state of Maharashtra defines “Out-of-school child” as a child of the age of 6 to 14 years who has either never been admitted to a school or who, having been admitted, has not completed elementary education, and it shall include a student of elementary school being absent for more than a month continuously. Such children are termed as “Children with special needs”.

The historical “Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009” (RTE) promises to  fulfill the aspirations and dreams of all such children, who remained out of school or could not complete elementary education due to various reasons. The RTE Act specifically provides opportunity for engage all such out-of-school children in the age appropriate classes and continues support to them till the completion of elementary stage for the achievement of basic goals.

With a view to bringing all never enrolled and drop-out children within the ambit of elementary education, a special provision has been introduced in Chapter II Para 4 of RTE Act. It reads, “Where a child above six years of age has not been admitted in any school or though admitted, could not complete his or her elementary education, then, he or she shall be admitted in a class appropriate to his or her age.”

This Act provides to enroll all the children and has held the local authority responsible to identify, every year, by means of a survey, to be conducted by an officer notified by the State Government in this behalf, such children who are out of school, and shall admit them to age appropriate class.

It shall, according to the need, organize the special training of “out of school” in the following manner, namely:

 (a) the special training shall be based on specially designed, age appropriate learning tools and materials, approved by the academic authority specified under section 29 of the Act;

(b) such a training shall be provided in the classes held on the premises of the school, or through the classes organized as authorized bridge courses in safe residential facility, at time other than normal school hours;

 (c) such training shall be imparted preferably by teachers working in the school, or by teachers appointed specially for that purpose

(d) the State Council of Educational Research & Training shall lay down the time duration for such training programme;

(e) After admitting such a child to the age-appropriate class and during the special training and after he/she completes the special training, the teachers shall give him/her, the special attention required to help him/her integrate with the class, both academically and emotionally. 

As we know that the RTE Act has made it very clear that, every child of the nation is entitled to get free, compulsory and quality education. The aim of the Act is not to simply increase the rate of literacy, but to produce well educated children ready to take the mantle of nation building. So, the quality education being the most challenging component of this legal enactment demands to create a favourable and congenial learning space, where the overall development of children may took place.  The basic idea behind this provision is unless a suitable environment is not provided to a learner; he/she won’t be able to produce the desired result. Hence, the proper seating arrangement to sanitation, adequate number of teachers and other basic facilities are necessary.  

The right to education Act has set a standard of minimum infrastructure for primary schools in the country for the first time ever. It is now the law that every school must have a class teacher for every class, drinking water, toilets and sports facilities etc. These are known as minimum infrastructure norms and it is also known as ten norms. These norms are regulations that define the infrastructural conditions required to make a school a school. These minimum standards lay down the basic level of infrastructure that every school must meet in order to function properly and provide student friendly environment.

Every School whether it is government run or a private, has to meet these ten basic requirements.

The ten (10) basic parameters to ensure the quality of education are here as under:

1.      Building,

2.      Drinking water,

3.      Separate toilets for girls and boys,

4.      1 teacher for 30 pupils (1 for 35 in Upper primary)/ 1 class per teacher /200 working days per year,

5.      Boundary wall,

6.      Playground,

7.      Shed for kitchen,

8.      Ramp (for the disabled)

9.      Office-cum-store and

10.  Teacher headroom.

The aforementioned norms are required to ensure the availability of good learning environment, but it is a matter of great concern that a large number of schools fail to comply with RTE norms.  The UNICEF report said that many schools in the state did not have even five of the 10 provisions. It is also a fact that, large number of schools is with the government and local bodies in the state.

Interestingly, about 1.62 crore children have been enrolled in the elementary schools across Maharashtra of which 63.3 lakh are studying in the government managed schools, 97 lakh in private institutes and 77,700 in the schools still unrecognized.

According to a report on the infrastructure in schools released in August 2013 only 7,355 of the 67,718 government schools in the state had fulfilled all 10 infrastructure indicators laid down by the act. As many as 3,711 schools did not meet even half the norms.

The latest District Information System of Education (DISE: 2013-14) survey conducted by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Maharashtra) reveals that only 23,099 out of 1.05 lakh elementary schools (22%) are able to qualify on 10 indicators mandated under the Act.

In this regard, the President of BMC Teachers Association said that, "The RTE Act came into effect in 2010. Even after four years, neither Maharashtra nor other states have implemented it effectively. The state lacks the will power to crack down on private managements. We have approached the Bombay high court in this regard so that the court can compel the government to act seriously towards the overall development of the children."