The South Asian: Conundrums of Education

August 21, 2006

Conundrums of Education

The government dropped the Right to Education bill. Where was the vehemence?

All of us protested vehemently when reservations were being presented to help provide education to sections marginalized over centuries through social processes.

Caste based reservations are tearing our country apart. The government should support economically marginalized, we said. Merit is what should be upheld. We formed an organization called Youth for Equality. Now, when we have an opportunity to ensure that all children have quality education, where are all of our groups? Where are the doctors from AIIMS?

When the courts said that all schools need to include 25% children from lower economic groups, why did we oppose that? After all, every school gets government subsidies. And hence, it is necessary that every school provide some opportunities for children of low economic groups – how else can they get quality education? How else can they compete on merit?

But what do we – the youth demanding equality – care?

On one hand, the government wants to introduce caste based reservations to help educated the disadvantaged. On the other hand, it has dropped the Right to Education Bill and sent a watered down ‘model’ for education to the States for their consideration. The government says it does not have money even as it has spent less than 50% of the revenue it collected through the education cess and refuses to spend the rest.

The government – politicians – really does not care about the empowerment of people. Politicians are more interested in their vote banks. So reservations become a vote bank issue rather than a method of empowerment.

But what about us – citizens who have much? We have argued that reservations do not achieve results, that they make the standards lower and empower a creamy layer in the lower castes. We have argued that the only way the lower castes can be empowered is through quality education for children.

Well, then, we have our chance. The Right to Education was one step in that direction – quality education for children in India. Why have we let our government get away with it? Why have we not gone out on the streets demanding that the government implement the Right to Education? Or were we only interested in our own interests – just like the politicians?

Education is one of the most profitable businesses in India today. Schools are opening up in large numbers, in every city. These schools get various subsidies in land, utilities and most importantly taxes. Why should these schools not have to put back some of these profits in providing the same quality education to children from lower economic classes?

Or should we have two standards of education. And shall one set of children be deemed to substandard education and a continued life of exploitation, and hopelessness. Not because of their capabilities but because where they were born?

- Sanat Mohanty

Related Articles:
Government Drops Right to Education Bill
Will We Support Economic Based Reservations, Then?
Education Is the Main Challenge of Indian Muslims
Setalvad Critiques National Curriculum Framework
Posted by collective at August 21, 2006 10:20 AM

Comments

That every child has the unconditional right to an education is part of the very long list of Indian "parchment rights": the phrase is from the 1992 Unnikrishnan decision. It is that way because powerful groups in Indian society keep it that way. Why do they do that?

One, they do not believe that all Indian children need and deserve an education appropriate to their abilities, or disabilities, whether social and personal, but that only some i. e., their children do (all US children may do, but that's "different").

Two, they certainly do not believe that the best way to get all our children into school is to have a common school system, entirely paid for out of tax monies. Both things are true in many societies; South Korea offers a very recent example.

Three, the prejudices that inherently divisive ideas - of class, religion, caste, untouchability and color - inevitably generate in all unthinking human minds runs deep in theirs - at least as deep as strictly economic self interest does, if not deeper.

For who will clean the floors of the majority of middle class homes if all children are at school? Who will labor at stitching footballs for the World Cup if child labor is treated as a criminal offence worth ten years in jail and/or fines running into crores? Who will produce the exquisite carvings that well off Indian can buy cheap - in Agra's streets - and expensive at the Dilli Haat or at some upmarket store in the US, if the nimble fingers of "their children" are busy learning the charms of doing mathematics via origami?

It is, at bottom, and us and them thing: they are dirty, poor, belong to the wrong religion or caste, don't know how to manage their affairs, drink and beat their women, sell their children. They are in one word, bad. It foloows, doen't it, that their children deserve their fate.

So, things will remain grim till the prejudices of the powerful are defeated. It is our task to do that as best we can. India today is not feudal in the way that Japan was at the start of the 20th century. It is some sort of democracy. Yet, education for all happened in Japan (you may read a short account of it in the book "Identity and violence: the illusion of destiny" by Amartya Sen) from top down. So did education for all in the communist world. We do not have that opportunity. But, if we succeed, we will have proved, and not for the frist time, that it is possible to change an entire way of life through democratic means. Didn't the Buddha, born a prince in the Republic of Kapilavastu, who is said to have loved Vaishali more than any other place because it was a Republic, do it?

Best wishes,

meher engineer.

Posted by: meher engineer on August 22, 2006 03:29 AM

I could not agree more. If this is the same Meher Engineer I used to know in Kolkata then I am not surprised at all with these thoughts. I have returned after two years, to make some of the rest of my life in India, and the plight of children - is clearly evident in the eyes, demeanor and stance of the young poor adult recently emerged from childhood...the sheer neglect of their childhood right to be education is visible and painfully clear in a single glance. They brush the dust and leaves, they carry loads, 'drive' the cycle-rickshaws, generally underfed and undernourished and yet, having day to day meet the tedious and heavy demands of each day of their life, with no hope for change or growth. The feeling perhaps that no one who could do something about their lot, cares.

India's children are her riches...serving the interest of those simply in flight after the ruppee seems to be the only goal, right now, and the pain in the poor and children seems not visible. Our 'rise' will be transitory if this - the daily education and nourishment of children, is not paid attention to without delay.

Namaska

Posted by: lolita on November 6, 2006 09:38 AM

Hello to Meher & to Lolita,

What action are you both willing to take? I guess we are seeking similar voices and thoughts, and hopefully friends to take joint action.

Otherwise all that you both have written is useless. Hence I am not adding to what has already been written.

My email address is here. Let us see if we can do something. I am looking for a dialogue and not a discussion or a debate.

Namaskar

Jayesh

Posted by: Jayesh Shah on February 18, 2007 10:47 AM

ARCHIVED ARTICLES