New Delhi: Following the recent cases of crime against children in schools, the Delhi government has ordered every school to install CCTV cameras on its premises. Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, who holds several portfolios, including education and health, has said: “All schools, whether government, municipal run or private, will have to mandatorily install CCTV cameras in classrooms, washrooms, corridors, stairways and playgrounds.”
The order was issued after the 45-year-old Aam Aadmi Party (Aap) leader held a meeting of school principals, police officers and heads of government departments, in wake of the killing of a seven-year-old student in Gurgaon school and alleged rape of a five-year-old girl at her school in East Delhi.
Sisodia acknowledged his party is yet to make progress on a poll promise to provide CCTV cameras across the city. “It may take time, but we will make things happen,” he said.
Speaking to Gulf News in an exclusive interview, he stressed on the need for safety and quality education for students.
What steps is your government taking for the safety of students in schools?
The government has set up a high-level committee chaired by the Directorate of Education (DoE) that will frame guidelines for the safety of students. The schools are required to install CCTV cameras [on] its premises and submit monthly reports on the upkeep of these devices. Schools have also been asked to conduct police verification of their non-teaching staff — be it sanitation workers, security staff or drivers — and upload these on portal of the DoE within three weeks.
You hold several portfolios, but education seems the most significant.
For any society to evolve, education is the key. India has had a confused mindset for the past two centuries. Imagine we gave the world eminent people like Gautam Buddha, Maharishi Ramana and Aryabhata, but then lost focus. We kept discussing the drawbacks of [Thomas] Macaulay’s education system, yet never took steps to change that system. On coming to power, Aap government allocated a historic 25 per cent of the total budget outlay to education, whereas previous governments never went beyond 10 per cent.
So how has funding helped?
Education is not about increasing funds. It’s about infrastructural facilities that were in shambles in government schools. On becoming minister, I visited schools and was shocked to find over 150 students in a class, which according to the Right To Education Act should have been limited to 40 students. Therefore, my focus in the very first year was to provide better facilities to students. To the earlier figure of 31,000 classrooms, we added 8,000 and are working towards adding 10,000 more classrooms. That apart, 18 new schools have been opened.
How about having high quality teachers?
That’s precisely what I targeted in the second year. My philosophy is that if we want world-class education in India, we need to first facilitate that our teachers become familiar with education systems around the world. For that, we have been constantly sending batches of teachers to Cambridge, Harvard and educational institutions in Germany, Singapore, Moscow and Finland. When the mindset of the teachers evolves, they will know what’s best for the students and instill those qualities in them. We [the government] are mere facilitators; teachers are the real pilots.
Are government school results in the Central Board of Secondary Education this year an indication of things to come?
Yes, Delhi government schools pass percentage was highest in the country and we were much ahead compared to private schools. This year, I am focusing on the outcome of our efforts made during the second year. Our schools are preparing for the first half-yearly tests, wherein we have changed the learning process. The paper setters and examiners have been advised not to examine students by their rote learning capacity. Instead, children will be evaluated on the basis of their subjective answers. We are shifting goalposts. And on the basis of the new framework, the teachers will educate students about the ills plaguing our society.
Your other major focus has been health care. But we see India’s health-care system in relapse.
It’s like [this], when you don’t have the vision, [a] lot of people sell their own vision and you impose that upon your country. India has suffered due to this, both in the fields of education and health care. I tried to find out why private practitioners were doing brisk business and government health centres were a total failure. We studied the successful model and translated that in[to] the government set-up. The result is the mohalla [neighbourhood] clinic — [is the] poor man’s one-stop solution to health woes. These clinics comprise efficient MBBS doctors, medicines and medical test facilities — all for free. For the 272 municipal wards in Delhi, we will have 1000 mohalla clinics. Gradually, the number will increase to ensure each ward has at least four such clinics.
Even though primary health-care plan is the in doldrums, successive governments have been talking of opening swanky hospitals for the poor. What’s your take?
I see no point in creating hospitals that are unable to meet the requirements of the poor. That only means we let people fall sick and then try treating them. The need is to prevent diseases and not just cure them. By providing free health care, we expect people to approach clinics at the onset of any small ailment. Generally, to avoid a doctor’s fee, people try self-medication for days and weeks until the ailment aggravates. At that stage, the patient is rushed to a hospital. I am very hopeful that primary health care will be taken care of with mohalla clinics.
But we hear clinics are hard to locate in certain areas and Aap’s flagship project may die due to lack of land?
The issue is, the land is with the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), which behaves like a property dealer. For DDA, every land has a cost. Our contention is the land belongs to people and they should be provided basic facilities first. Once their needs are fulfilled, the DDA can go ahead and build shopping malls and recreation centres. So yes, we are struggling with it. But then, the common man has voted us to power to fight for their rights and we will not let them down.
Quick profile
• Manish Sisodia was born on January 5, 1972, in Pilkhuwa, Uttar Pradesh.
• Obtained diploma in journalism from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, New Delhi.
• Worked as documentary filmmaker and TV newsreader — 1997-2005.
• He came in contact with Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal in 2005 and helped draft the Right to Information Act.
• He held the ministries of education and urban development on being elected to the Legislative Assembly of Delhi — 2013.
• In the Delhi Assembly elections in 2015, he was elected from Patparganj constituency in east Delhi.
