Tanvi Rai dropped out of school when she turned 17. The second highest scorer in her local school in Grade 10 fell in love, eloped and got married after her Class 10 examination. At 18, she has a nine-month-old baby. My guide for three days on my endless traversing in the area, I am startled at Tanvi's ability to articulate her thoughts and views in fluent English. She thinks, speaks and expresses herself almost as well as the youngsters I know in Delhi.
My guide on another day - Ukila (upright, knowledgeable, innocent, lively and alert - when I ask her she tells me her name doesn't mean anything but this is what it stands for) finished her schooling this year at the local government school in Kaluk - roughly seven kilometres from where she stays. She plans to head to Gangtok for college to specialise in travel and tourism. Ukila is smart, quick and excellent at football as I later discover while watching her play with some locals.
Both Tanvi and Ukila are from poor families in west Sikkim and have attended local government schools in their region. Yet as far as fluency with English goes, both are streets ahead of students in many states that I have come across including Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
Four visits to three local schools (one involving a walk through a leech-infested jungle for several kilometres) tell me that Sikkim is somehow managing to do a far better job of educating its rural poor than many states in India. And while its tiny population (the state has six lakh residents) is one of the factors that allows it to do so, there is a host of other reasons why it has an edge.
To start with, there is a plethora of schools. You can't miss them if you tried. The moment I expressed interest, I was informed I could go and visit six schools just within a six-kilometre radius of where I was staying. Government schools are within three-four kilometres of each other so students don't need to trudge long distances to seek an education.
The Sikkimese government has made education a focus. Regular, graduate government teachers in Sikkim are better paid than those who work for the roads, sanitation or any other government department. By keeping the entry of teachers into the profession stringent, the government ensures that some of the brightest of the state opt for teaching as a profession. Male teachers abound as the profession is well-paying enough to sustain one's family. I met over 10 teachers across the three schools and almost all were remarkably well-spoken compared to their counterparts in many other hill states in India.
School drop-outs at lower classes are rare. This certainly tends to pick up when the student reaches the age of 16-17 and finds she can do better by earning or - as many locals told me - she finds studies not "absorbing" enough and is distracted by more alluring options. When they are young, free meals, uniform and other freebies handed out by the government provide enough of an incentive for most parents to continue to send their wards to school.
Of course, some of the trends and problems observed in the rest of India are evident here too. Despite the fact that government education is free and not bad by any stretch, those who can afford it are moving their children to private schools. The local elite of Richenpong and neighbouring areas, for instance, without exception send their children to the Tashi Namgyal Academy in Gangtok, five hours away (most children stay with relatives) and pay close to Rs 5,000 a month per child in fees. Many private options, not necessarily of high quality, have sprung up and the craze to move to them has picked up with parents often unable to discern the quality of education being delivered.
Accountability of teachers is an issue here, too. More than one headmaster was of the view that regular teachers get complacent and don't give their best. Supervision - as with all things government - is not at its best so there's no way to keep the human tendency of taking it easy in check.
Political interference in the running of government schools is high. Appointment of regular teachers - even when desperately needed - is tardy. Almost all government schools are tending to hire more and more ad hoc teachers - who are both less qualified and lower paid than graduate teachers. In typical government style, things take too long to happen because government decisions take long to happen - at times to the detriment of students.
One name has been changed to protect the identity of the person
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