THE NEW EDUCATION POLICY AND THE TEACHERS' MOVEMENT 17 in bangle industries, in glass manufactures, in garment industries where children stitch on buttons, etc. If the Government is serious about vocationalization, it should make it compulsory for employers to extend education to all child labourers : schools in the mornings, nay be 2-3 hours paid work in the afternoons. But despite talk about vocationalization for 1-5 years or so, no such law has been made, and education is not mentioned even in the new Government bill on child labour. Abstracted from these grim realities, vocationalization in India has meant mainly a mechanical and formal repetition of the Gandhian slogan of basic education linking up learning with labour. In practice, such basic schools have quickly degenerated into slums in underprivileged areas, while elsewhere they remain no more than decorative and irrelevant additions to the formal curriculum. A 'vocationalization* which ignores the immense numbers in the 7 to 15-16 age-group who are deprived of education, are compulsorily *vocationalised* already, and who die early from its benefits, is bound to remain a farce. Returning to the overall integrated policy offensive which characterizes the post-1985 phase : the teachers* movement has to understand that a focus on salaries and promotions alone is quite inadequate for meeting this qualitatively new situation. The movement as a whole has yet to develop the clarity required to understand the contradictions and complications of this era. Some ask the crude question: can all this be defeated by a strike? Decidedly no— it is impossible to defeat or even resist effectively through teachers' strikes alone the concerted policies of an anti-people government. Such an offensive would be difficult to beat back—unless we win the confidence of students, their parents, of the people at large, unless we can integrate our struggle with those of all other democratic forces, unless we work out our tactics in the perspective of national struggles. Open debates are necessary to raise the level of understanding— without this raising of consciousness, we cannot further develop the teachers* movement on positive lines; cannot create a better atmosphere, preconditions or infra-structure for education. We must face the fact that the disarray of the teachers' movement after September 1987 represented a Government victory in dividing us. Today there are five national teachers' organizations or groups. The AIFUCTO still exists, though many associations have left it. There is, secondly, a federation of 42 affiliated university teachers' associations (Patiala, Kumaun, Garhwal, Sagar, Madras, etc). 22 agricultural universities have formed a third federation; there is a separate organization of the IITs; and finally there is a loose coordination among five Central Universities. All these groups cannot be united under the old AIFUCTO banner any longer. A further problem is posed by the 400-odd research institutions, largely unorganized as yet, but a very crucial potential component of any really national-level