Education for transit

There are different types of Government schools in Delhi. The variety has been created to accommodate a range of contexts that children experience. It is a considerate system but which breeds class discriminations when it is implemented.

The largest numbers of schools are those run by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and cost the least and therefore the most accessible for the student. However, they are also the schools in which the government invests least. Infrastructure, personnel and teaching standards are so low, those who have no other options for education refuse to use the system.

Needless to say, the worst affected are the children who study in the local Primary MCD School. Dependent on a service to which they can walk unaccompanied or with friends from the neighborhood, they are at the mercy of the teachers who rule the school. Children lose years to roaming the streets, as they are unlikely to be granted admission on the basis of age, not having a birth certificate or affidavit confirming age, no seats being available in the class, because it is not admission time, or because they are too old for primary school, but without a primary school certificate are ineligible for secondary school. The result of this is that, masses of children lose their only chance to access any Government school, and therefore any affordable school, secondary or higher education and inevitably, to most rights as a citizen.