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• Addressing discrimination requires changes in legislation, administration, resource allocation, but also attitudes, teaching methods and learning content. In your experience, what are the key obstacles to achieving these changes?

Discrimination in the educational system is a reflection of the existing social inequality. These, in turn, are a result of a historical, social and political process that needs to be understood and counteracted if a piece of legislation or policy that seeks to curtail discrimination has to succeed. The implementers of the policies ultimately come from the same society that holds the discriminative views. Speaking of the context of my country, India, the society is inequitable and stratified and the education system ensures “reproduction of social inequality” (to quote Bourdieu) being an ideological state apparatus (to quote Althusser). This is even more likely when the education system lacks an ideological vision that backs education programming with a vision that sees education as a means of social transformation. As a result, the practices of discrimination that are manifest in the schools form a smooth extension of the discriminatory practices in society. These are also (by and large) not challenged in the due course of events since they are seen as ‘normal’ by most people (both the discriminator and the discriminated against) despite what the law may say.

Consequently, any work on discrimination MUST also involve and go parallel with efforts to change community norms and perceptions (on both sides of the fence). The transformative scope of education needs to be emphasized as part of overall development work. This large ideological stand needs to be accompanied by specific actions at the grassroots level to change the attitudes of people. This is essential for prevention of discrimination and for ensuring that existing redressal mechanisms (that often DO exist) work. This would entail consistent and long term work with parents, with communities, with local governance bodies and school management committees over and above actions to ensure mass mobilization and awareness on the issues. To me, discrimination eventually exists because everyone permits it to. Therefore, ending it involves changing peoples’ mindsets to convince them that every child (of every class, race, caste, gender, religion etc) is entitled to receive a quality education in a fear free environment. Achieving this isn’t as much a matter of identification of specific forms of discrimination experienced by specific groups and outlawing them, but developing a set of common principles and ensuring that they are universally understood and accepted. Unless this commonality of norm is established, there is a risk of these glossaries of discriminative behaviours not being taken in the spirit in which they were intended.

It is also important to note that many efforts to ensure non-discrimination at the grassroots level tend to target the teacher who is at the lowest rung of a large, amorphous and often inflexible education system. It is easy to see discrimination at the end point and ignore the systemic reasons which lead to the practice. Targeting the teacher would be counter-productive in such circumstances. Creating a relationship between the school and community that is supportive and the teacher motivated to teach and undertake the other tasks necessary for the functioning of the school is essential. This, furthermore, involves the State providing the necessary provisions to ensure that ALL children have access to infrastructure and facilities that are adequate for learning. When resources are limited and infrastructure poor, children from marginalized groups (with parents who are illiterate and in many cases leading an existence that is on the brink) are less likely to receive these resources which instead go to those children whose parents can negotiate for them. Education research shows that there are differences in social capital between the rich and poor. This results in the child of the single mother or a child that is Roma, black or immigrant being left out due to the family’s inability to negotiate the middle class institution that is the school. The entire corpus of research on effect of social economic status on the experience of schooling (and performance in school) speaks of the differential experiences of children. Consequently, additional support may be needed for such families to empower them to negotiate with the school and enable their children to reach a level playing field so as to overcome these social, political, economic and cultural barriers while also ensuring sensitivity of the service providers through an ongoing process of dialogue. It goes without saying that the sensitization of teachers needs to happen as part of their own training. However, with a huge section of the teaching force in India being un-/semi-trained, this would take me onto another tangent altogether.

Having written what I have, I would also point out that such a process is hard to achieve without adequate democratic space and without a legal machinery that is active. National and international legal frameworks and the resources and policies they bring support (or hinder) the above process. However, it may also be essential to remember that a nation’s laws (and the international too!) are ultimately a result of a particular period in history. Thus, with regard to the response of a previous poster on the forum, the failure of India’s new right to education Act to prohibit the existence of multiple strands of education is ultimately a reflection of the failure of society to come together fully around the idea of a common school system (irrespective of how much we educationists may feel it is imperative for social equity in the long run) which was reflected in the fact that the legislative body elected it unopposed. Lack of political will is ultimately a reflective of a lack of social will. What I am saying is, in effect- we get the laws and the implementation of these laws that we deserve.

• The international human rights framework is very strong on discrimination (Art 2 of the CRC and other treatise). How can it be used better to translate principles into reality for the rights-holder?
The link between international legal framework and national legislation and the implementation of the said legislation has often been rather weak. One reason is that there are no real consequences for the failure to adhere to many of them (like the CRC) which translates into Countries signing them as a pious wish on their part, knowing that they need not urgently move towards implementation. A process of mobilization on the legislation is needed. The rest is an obvious set of practices like evidence collection, participation in processes like Shadow Reporting on international treaties, dissemination of the provisions- both in CSOs and beyond it with the media. Needless to say, legal action in cases of violation needs to be undertaken. The fact that something is in violation of international provisions and may even have come up in discussion all the way in the UN may lead to a discriminative practice being removed faster. A process whereby the International UN convention that is “out there” is grounded in the life worlds of the children, school and community is needed, supplemented by participation in existing international spaces so that the voices from the ground may be heard.