dropping of students from schools

As per the reports ”16.1%of the Indian children in the age group 6-14  have dropped out of schools. The reasons are, poverty resulting in  child labour , dissatisfactory implementation  of the RTE Act due to non availability of nearby schools etc.,  The number is higher due to the mind set of the rural poor who have strong son preference attitude . They are not willing to spend on private schools education, coaching or hostel  stay or on transportation of the girls, since they are needed at home to manage households  work  during absence of their working mothers and they are considered as “neighbors’ plants” and they  believe that, their empowerment through education is not going to help their families . Whereas  the sons are future security and spending on their education will benefit the whole family . Hence there is an urgent need to ban child labour on war footing and extend financial support to very poor families to educate both boys and girls and resort to hectic awareness programmes to  make the poor parents understand that, education is a very powerful tool  for  the  social and economic empowerment of the marginalized sections of the Indian community . At this stage India can not afford to waste human resource by keeping 16.1% of the children population out of schools .

“Misadventures in education”

“Misadventures in education” is a a very apt title given by the authors M.V.Rajeev Gowda  and Shahana munazir to their article in the Hindu ( 2.8. 18) All the problems they have high lighted in this write up reveals  the lack of seriousness of the various governments which have been ruling   us so far, while framing   from time to time the Education Policies . All the vital recommendations of  various committees have been thrown away  or tried with half hearted and adhoc  approach .Education sector  is subjected  to  maximum of cruelty without realising the fact that, it plays a very vital role in the lives of millions of our youth and human capital formation . After starving this sector with inadequate fund allotment and layers of regulatory system dominated by corruption  and lack of academic freedom,  what quality enhancement can be expected ? We can dream about global ranking  for  our elitist institutions, but , what percentage of our youth are going to be benefited by it? It is  like raising a super  structures with state of the art facilities when all our primary schools, secondary schools and government colleges cry for good quality teachers,  practical oriented and  need based  syllabi, adequate funds for infrastructure facilities and research ,  more academic freedom and  corruption free appointments for the regulatory bodies .The pathetic quality of engineering  education is reflected when, the corporate sector declares that only 25% of their graduates are employable directly. What a about  the remain  75% ? They will remain unemployed and under employed for decades resulting in wasting of precious  human resource ?  let the government   first fix the basic problems in the a school level   and remove corruption in the higher education system  and give up trial and error experimentalism in the education sector.

controls on free talk and writings and thoughts

On the one hand the government of India wants  to create centers of excellence in higher education sector and I assume that, the purpose of the government is that, as in western universities we want to train our educated youth in  analytical skill, logical reasoning power, free thinking capacity and sharpening of their intellectual capacity  through questioning minds  . What are they supposed to do with all these skills if they can not question any action of the government  or rules which  go against fundamental rights or  human rights or   against the interests of marginalised sections of the population or even against  students interests through non violent, legally permitted and peaceful protests ? If they are intimidated through attack by police ,  arresting  and framing  criminal charges and projecting  them as anti nationals with links with terrorists resulting in disruption of their academic life and future carrier life, a scare is created in their minds which will  turn them into mute spectators of all types   injustice happening around  them . If we convert our youth into such a civil society , it will be a back boneless society . Do we want such an India in future filled with docile population or a dynamic  society acting  as watch dogs of democracy ?

rituals and gimmicks

  We are seeing in reality multiple examples of gimmicks  and bombastic slogans and new schemes with grand names  introduced by the present government of India on a daily basis . These are all  looking like rituals to ordinary people it means nothing to them . Have we achieved , removal of poverty at least to a decent level, hundred percent literacy, higher employment opportunities to the educated youth , roads without path holes, bettering  inhuman living  conditions  to the slum dwellers  , women’s safety , improving  children’s mal nutrition related problems  and safety  from rapists, good  water  management methods , pollution control, connectivity to tribal areas through decent roads , good school facilities and hospital facilities to therural and tribal    tribal sections, removed agriculturalists owes and small  scale sector’ innumerable problems, flood havocs in all the metropolitan cities etc., It is  indeed highly ritualistic to talk about Tube Train , Wall Mart, smart cities ,  digital transactions , costly statues  and burial places as memorials and other high technology  matters when basic needs of the considerable percentage of the people are not satisfied and when defecation in public places  still continue and where natural disasters management is highly deplorable. Let us give up the rituals in secular life and pay attention to bettering   social indicators  which is not satisfactory currentlly

New India

We have been thinking all   along that, India is a democratic nation where people are given the  right for free thinking, writing and talking without exceeding the limits  set by the laws of this nation. But now , some body with even slight political power seems to decide what we have to think, talk or write or eat  . What dresses to wear and what culture to follow   , what language to learn  , what religion we have to follow, whom should we  marry and what functions to attend and what opinion we have to give on various matters happening in this country during public speeches or in television   discussions are all decided by strangers not connected with our lives at all. There seems to be no control over their abusive language or threats used against those who differ from them . Any body is condemned as anti Indian and anti national . This  is new India and my experiences in this new India  is strange and scary

my letter published in the Hindu

Educationists  in general are not objecting to The Institute of Eminence Policy . But as the author of the article,”  Helping hand for Indian universities”, C. Rajkumar (The Hindu  has pointed out , the objections are related to the “ the procedure and   process of selecting the  IOCs . “ How does the Indian government aims to create institutes of excellence with global ranking in the higher education sector without addressing two very important requirements , viz., fund crunch and academic autonomy? So many commissions have pointed out about the low budgetary allocation to higher education in India and about too many regulatory bodies stifling academic freedom . Yet , no lesson  are  learnt . Even the low contribution of the corporate sector through CSR expenditure towards higher education has not been given due attention. Finance is the life blood for the execution of  any reform. Without paying urgent attention to the assessment of exact  financial needs of the universities to upgrade their quality and raise resources from various sources ,the IOE policy will remain only a  rhetoric . The pity is that,  even  the  New Education Policy Proposals do not seem to address these critical requirements.

local body elections in Tamil Nadu

We describe India as a vibrant and functioning democracy . In such a democracy   the local body  elections have not been conducted for more than one year in a state called Tamil Nadu. Who is managing all the programmes and problems  at panchayat, municipality, district and corporation levels? Who should the people approach for the local problems in the absence of elected representatives ? Is there any other state functioning like this in the whole of India? why do the social activists and media not highlighting this serious problem and demanding the state government to conduct local body  elections as soon as possible. Soon rainy season will start , flooding the streets and drainage problems will complicate it . People will suffer in different ways .