Basic Education - Has anybody ever cared about?

Every Indian feels proud and very happy when we see the Indian youth doing amazingly well on the world stage. Indians have done a great service to Science, Technology, Finance, Medicine and in recent past in the field of Information Technology all over the world. In most of the premier institutions and organizations of the world, The Indians have been leading from the front. Whole wide world has recognized and acknowledged the Indian intelligence and capability. It is very interesting to see that most of the Indian business or academic leaders have started from a very humble background and the have faced all sorts of hurdles. As other common Indians they too had the aspiration but the fire within them and their undaunted spirit shaped them into a great success and today they stand as icons and ambassadors of India in various fields. There are so many more who are contributing to the societies in the country and outside the country in  multiple ways through various fields.

Such people are the shining examples of Indian intelligence and dedication of average Indians to their occupation. No doubt the institutes like IITs, IIMs or AIIM or IISC etc do have a world class set up with them. A young student when gets into such institutes or the other ones with lesser facilities even, his talent and brilliance is polished and shaped in such a way that he stands apart when goes into the professional arena.

If entire scenario of Indian education system is analysed then any one can get perplexed to see a marked difference in the two levels of education in India. Of course, the higher education has been nicely funded by the governments and many private organizations are also offering good education with substantial facilities.

When we turn to our most important segment of basic education then we find the things really horrifying. Each and every corner of the country is mushroomed with innumerable private schools , each of them promising a great future for the kid.Many private schools in the country are very good offering a quality education with all the amenities to those who get the admissions in such schools. However the principle objective of all the private schools is to do business and earn money. Social responsibility does not make a place in their list of priorities. 

Standard of practically every government run  primary and secondary school in India is abysmal. Teachers do everything but teaching in the school, students attend to school for the sake of going out. Still in so many states the results are good, as the students are simply promoted to next standard since nobody wants to hold the accountability and responsibility of educating them in true sense of it. Millions of poor are still deprived of good and basic education even after almost 70 years of independence. Imagine how much of potential of India is being wasted due to this shear negligence of people in power?

All the governments till date have done practically nothing to improve the scenario and nobody in power has ever tried to shape a strong policy through which this basic right can be given to millions of Indians. As per government data 96 percent of boys and girls are enrolled in schools. In the absence of strong monitoring and a proper direction,  all the funds and grants either are lapsed or misused by people involved in the administration. Every  government has done so many good things in other core sectors to exploit the available resources. Private - Public partnership (PPP) model has been  a great success in many areas which is evident and a visible change is there. But why our policy makers and the governments have neglected the field of basic education  so badly? Shaping up a national policy for basic education in India should have been the first priority after independence. Even after almost 70 years of independence we have not been able to exploit and convert a  great available resource i.e. human resource into a potential asset by imbibing good education in our rural areas for poor?

Every politician talks loudly for reservations for backwards. Why nobody speaks for good education, better facilities and a better environment for poor and backwards? Providing them with good education, better environment for study would definitely be a better solution for their progress than to make them dependent on crutches of reservation for moving ahead in life.

 A PPP model can be a highly effective tool through which government can engage big business houses to provide quality education to poor and backwards and the middle class living in rural and urban India. A carefully drafted  policy may prove to be a key for mobilization of huge funds and human resource to take up this challenge.

I wish to highlight the fact that in spite of very less facilities, exposure and many impediments, our youth from across the country has been able script the success stories. Imagine, if the poor state of affairs in the sector of basic education is overhauled and rejuvenated then how many wonders can our coming generations would do? This is a mammoth task and can not be accomplished in a year or two. Sincere efforts, dedicated and precise approach of government, private sectors, NGOs and the common people is required to achieve the goal, which definitely can be achieved in a decade at least.

Tiring "INTOLERANCE"

I am sure the people of the country are now feeling tired of the word "Intolerance". Extensive television debates, news articles and stories practically in all the news papers and flood of messages from both the sides on social media has really now started ridiculing a common man.

For all these days it has been amazing to see the tolerance of some and intolerance of others. Sometimes it becomes hard to understand that what yardstick and which hue of philosophy is appropriate for describing this term. People who have been lecturing one another even can not do justice to this term if it is to be seen from two different lenses.

If we start to analyse this whole issue then first we have to address the concerns of the people who started this whole movement about one and a half month back. It was interesting to see that the moment Mr. Modi returned from US and Bihar election campaign took a full swing, our age old liberals suddenly started feeling suffocated. Dadri lynching was made the fulcrum around which every statement of liberals was revolving and the awards were being returned as icing on the cake. During whole process there were so many mediocres  who returned their awards just to get some name in the media because they had received those awards for the work, which perhaps were given to them for the reasons other than their merit. They did not hesitate to jump on the bandwagon and this was no doubt an opportune moment for them. All such people were living a happy and comfortable time during the rule of earlier political dispensations and cozy influence of the leftists. These are a typical kind of elites or I would prefer to call them cultural and intellectual czars of the country which did not see any threat to their intellectual hegemony during previous governments. This feeling of concern for India and its people shown by these intellectual czars was a manifestation of deep rooted hate and negativity they had been nurturing all these years for Modi and BJP as it is quite evident that most of the educated middle class and youth of India has drifted towards Modi and BJP during last 3 or 4 odd years. In fact it was next to impossible for this particular class to tolerate Modi as PM and BJP as a ruling party. Practically every education or cultural institution of India had become a fiefdom of these cultural czars and they did never want anybody to challenge their views on Indian history, culture and sociology.In this process of protests and resentment against government these people got overboard and forgot to realize that the country and its people have changed dramatically during last decade. In the age of social media and aggressive electronic media, the other side of the issue was largely appreciated and a strong backlash from most of the Indians against these czars had to be acknowledged by the media.

While debating the non existent intolerance issue the intellectual czars came up with so many theories in exquisite english and media hyped that as freedom of speech and expression of liberals. But a common man comes with criticism against these liberals and obviously that  would be a raw expression of thoughts and feelings which a common man vents through so many social sites. This was branded as intolerance again. Why? If a common man does not endorse the views of self esteemed liberals then one can not deny him of his right of free speech and expression. I would like to ask our liberals how can you brand a common Indian as intolerant if he is in disagreement with your views and perceptions?

I view the present time as a great time of transition in terms of perceptions of a common man. It has become mandatory to redefine the liberalism. It had become very important for our cultural and educational institutes to receive the light of wisdom from other windows as well. For almost last 60 years we have been teaching our generation with a certain view point. Wisdom and intellect is not anybody's personal property. If someone insulates his intelligence and capability from the new and fresh and divergent ideas then that intelligence takes the form of dogmas. Obviously dogmatism proves to be regressive always and becomes highly detrimental to societies and generations to come. Exactly this has happened with our left leaning and Nehruvian intelligentsia.These intellectuals can not tolerate any other view point to be discussed. Whenever this happens, they come up against majoritarian view and place themselves as messiah of oppressed. They forget to divulge further and close their eye and window of brain towards the other side of the coin.

Need of the hour is to follow an unbiased and non partisan approach and walking along the changing face of societies. All these left leaning and Nehruvian liberals who have enjoyed political patronage and favours for all these years should stand up and reset their goals by setting and formatting their frozen intelligence. These gentlemen can prove to be an asset to the country if they sincerely shed their egos, inhibitions and assimilate the divergent ideas to gel with the modern and resurgent India.