Shabnam Hashmi clarification on CABE
Dear All,
Since the major thrust of my
intervention was lost in the strong reaction and I have been misquoted
in many newspapers across India I wish to circulate my intervention at
the CABE meeting:
I had made suggestions with all seriousness and concern. Following is my intervention .
1.
NATIONAL MISSION ON TEACHER'S TRAINING: The National Mission on
Teacher's Training must keep in mind the growing prejudices,
irrationality and superstitions at the level of consciousness and it
must ensure that future teachers have a scientific temper, democratic
thinking and that they believe in equal citizenship rights for all.
I endorsed here statements made earlier about Dalit
children being asked to clean the class rooms by teachers in some
places and teacher's not being sensitive to children with special needs.
Then I added that in 2002 many Muslim parents were asked to remove
their children in Ahmedabad from schools and this practice continues
till date under the garb of various excuses.
2. I spoke about the rural women and the literacy
levels especially among minority women. I asked the CABE to formulate
new schemes to reach out to the 8-16 age group of rural girls who are
out of school as Sakshar Bharat has not been very successful in touching
this segment. . I spoke about Mewat and the conditions where I
extensively work. I emphasised on the need to think out of the box. I
said I have been raising it with the planning commission through the
12th five year plan process. unless we address the issue of teaching
rural women , questions like female feticide, health ,
child marriage cannot be resolved.
3. ICT- I asked the Hon'ble Minister to keep in mind
that major areas of rural India do not have electricity despite tall
claims. I said I personally work in almost 50 villages in Bihar,
Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir I have seen in many places computers dumped
in schools with no electricity to run them. So if there is a scheme of
providing education through computers then money for generators and
deisel must be accounted for in the rural areas.
4. Vedic Pathshalas and Madrassas- I said while I do
not question the constitutional right of the minority groups to run
their institutions it is important to think of the right of the child.
When RTE was amended it did not take into the rights of the child as the
child is too small to decide whether he/she should go to a school or a
vedic pathshala/ madarsa. so while you can uphold the rights of the
community what about the rights of the child who is also the citizen of
this country?
5. Moral Education- I said some people have raised
the question of introducing moral education and we have seen in the past
moral education being used to teach jingoistic patriotism so one has to
tread carefully. I also said that morals cannot be taught one hour a
week, values are taught as part of the upbringing and it is part of
every subject and how it is taught.
6. I asked the Hon'ble minister to get the steering
committee report uploaded on the planning commission website as we are
preparing a critique .
Shabnam Hashmi
June 8, 2012, New Delhi
Member, CABE
Member, Assessment and Monitoring Authority, Planning Commission of India
Member, National Monitoring Committee for Minorities' Education
Member, Maulana Azad Education Foundation
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