Demonetisation and Education

Inarguably, there has hardly been any issue as widely debated and conjectured than the government’s recent demonetisation drive of 500 and 1000 rupee notes.  And the one that has impacted the daily life of the common man as well as the trade and industry to such an extent. Personally, apart from being bedazzled by the move, it was the intent behind the move that held me captive like most Indians. The idea of wiping out black money and corruption, which plagues our system, needn’t any selling, especially to the common man who grapples with its demons every day. Needless to say, this move has impacted all sectors and education is no exception. The move will impact institutes taking donations or capitation fees. Some key monumental changes that we should witness due to demonetisation are -

1. Transparency - The biggest bane in the education sector and every parent’s nightmare. It is no secret that from kindergarten, schools, high schools and professional institutes, the practice of giving exorbitant amount of money in donations is rampant across the country. Many private education institutes take donations nearly 50% of the course fee and in cash.  This will stop and parents of students should get some relief even if the course fee may be upped marginally.  

2. Meritocracy - Meritocracy should get an impetus since seats in colleges and  

institutes won’t be found in bargain basements for sale. Medicine and engineering  

colleges will be most impacted. Some seats in these professional institutes fetch as

high as 50 lakhs to a few crores. Management seats should increasingly land in the  

lap of meritorious students.

3. Quality of Education - While there is some debate that some negative impact on  

quality of education will be felt due to a restriction of funds, it may be temporary. Fee   

structures could get realigned and may only lead to greater accountability.

Needless to say though that the government should focus on complementary and strategically planned initiatives/measures at the policy and grassroot level in the education sector to accentuate the benefits.

While the overall sentiment pertaining to demonetisation has been positive, it is pertinent to note how the media, influencers and opinionators which applauded the move almost unanimously have begun showing a marked shift in the narrative relaying pictures of how it may not look as good as it sounded then in terms of impacting the economy from the grassroot level due to the gaps in implementation.

Of course, the long term impact is what remains crucial in terms of sustained holistic  measures to curb corruption and that remains to be seen. The role of education in curbing corruption can’t be overlooked since there is no equaliser like education- a panacea to remove disparities and pockets of imbalance, reduce the gap between the have and the have-nots: the primary reason for corruption to thrive. Like all educationists, I eagerly look forward to the day when education will be given its due and along with health care be taken seriously enough.

India’s Budget for its Children

We just witnessed one of the country’s most interesting fortnights. One, it entailed the much-anticipated, first full-fledged, NaMo budget. Not soon after, the nation witnessed skeletons tumble out of its closet in the form of a BBC documentary – India’s daughter. Why mention both in the same breath, one might wonder?

The documentary, India’s daughter, as any educated, liberal mind would opine, is a clear reflection of the gross inequalities that persist in our system. From gender discrimination, abuse, poverty, closed and crude mindsets, it has reflected all and how it’s interlinked. It isn’t surprising then that the government (though of course one expected more from the current government) clamped down on viewing the documentary.

Why truth must not be faced as it is and when will we stop pretending to believe that all is well with our society? The country has one of the largest number of unemployed youth, one of the largest number of people living below poverty lines and in despicable living conditions, one of the largest out-of-school children in the world, and an alarming decline in the sex ratio especially during a period of unprecedented economic growth.  In the same breadth it also has the lowest spending on education in the world!

Educationists and activists were hence eagerly anticipating the budget wondering if the government ‘for change’ would finally allot the requisite funds towards educating the country’s children? Our future.  So, do we have reasons to rejoice? Unfortunately, not many.

Though some nominal measures have been undertaken that must be rather appreciated, such as  - Skill India Programme, the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gramin Kaushal Yojana (for increasing employment among rural from 18-35 years), the Sukanya Samriddhi Scheme (part of the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' campaign), proposal of setting up a fully IT-based Student Financial Aid Authority to administer education loans and scholarships to poor and middle class students for pursuing higher education.

There wasn’t much of a mention of a planned roadmap to tackle critical issues in school and higher education. The quality of education from school to higher education, dearth of qualified and trained teachers, Lack of crucial policies, lack of clarity on existing ones such as the Right to Education Act and the political will to implement them. We require increased and mapped outlays for sure to get the vast population of youth and children under one roof and a review of work done to ensure if we are on track or dreaming things up. Merely allotting an IIM or AIIMS is far from over when the current IIMs and IIT s are struggling to get qualified teachers and some, even students! Hence, the budget seems to have looked at the macro issues while being impatient to dig in deeper, which is required on an urgent basis.

A 16% cut in the outlay to education (compared to last fiscal) is a tad disappointing since now is the time to increase outlay to education and ensure to strengthen groundwork at schools, tighten and make the transition between schools to college and higher education thereafter more smooth and dynamic. Vocational education and skill building courses undoubtedly should be encouraged.

While we may choose to close our eyes and pretend all’s well, the truth is that depravity will only continue to thrive among inequalities or the varied ‘degrees of unfreedom’, as Amartya Sen would put it. We need to truly empower both India’s daughters and India’s sons to reach the best of their potential by working alongside and respecting each other and work toward a FREE and EMPOWERED Nation, free of biases, rituals, intolerance, poverty and self-fulfilling prophesies.   

Terrorism – 0 Education – ∞

As 2014 draws to a close, it will be marked by one of the most tragic and spine-chilling incidents that history has witnessed so far. The massacre of 132 school children in Peshawar, Pakistan. The world gasped in horror as terrorists wreaked a savage blood bath in the institution. Innocent lives, whose only fault was of belonging to a particular background and for attending school, eager to learn. While it wasn’t the first time that children were victims of terrorist attacks, what made it more gruesome was the planned and systematic way the terrorists went about the murders. How a human could do such an act, we wonder.

As the government in Pakistan vowed to clean its backyard of these weeds they grew for regulating their external power struggle with India, and it yet remains to be seen how much they will walk the talk, will just retaliating and killing more terrorists suffice? Clearly, killing more people can hardly contain violence which is more often than not, an outcome of a society reeling under marginalisation, division and exclusion. The have and the have-nots; the masses who continue to wait along the side-lines, as the majority progress towards ‘development’. And what serves as a greater leveller than education to remove such socio-economic disparities while also broadening the outlook of people?

HG Wells in Outline of History mentioned – “human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." Closer home, around 80 million adivasis, who live mostly in poorer states like Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, have barely been participants in the ‘shining India’ era; they earn as low as Rs. 20,000 annually. Is it any coincidence that Naxalite activity has thrived on such alienated and marginalised tribal belts in eastern and central India, stripped of basic amenities that should constitute their rights rather than be considered a privilege, defining development?

Unfortunately, we have yet to understand the importance of education in removing such disparities. Like its Indian counterpart which spends a miniscule 3.5 % of GDP on education, even Pakistan spends a dismal 2.3% GDP on education (compared with 8-10% in OECD countries). In fact, in June 2014 the Pakistan media reported that the education budget had been reduced by 11% over last year. This while the country has the second largest number of out-of-school children after India as per a UNESCO 2012 report – ‘Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2012. There is marked discrimination in terms of girl child education in lower economic households with less than 5% young women having completed lower secondary school while a paltry 16% of poorest men had completed so, compared with 70% richest young men and women. The country ranks 113 out of 120 countries in the Education Development Index.  One in three young people in Pakistan have not completed primary school and the country has the third largest number of illiterates.

How can any country progress when several live in various degrees of unfreedom? Significantly, Dowrick and Kruege Lindahl had observed that an increase by one year in a country’s average level of schooling could increase economic growth by 6-15%.  Since lack of education is both the cause and effect of underdevelopment,   it becomes a vicious cycle to break. And violence is often born out of such disparities. Education enables people from all streams to actively participate in nation building rather than be silent and at times harmful participants.

We need to not only spend more on education and health and make it inclusive across aspects, but also invest time and energies in thinking about how we want to shape our youth’s minds. What is it that they are learning and what lessons are we imparting? For instance, is it just a mere coincidence that Pakistan spends SEVEN times more on military education than on primary education! We will reap as we sow and education is a powerful tool.

We need to focus on shared cultural, intellectual and physical history as a people rather than let a few in power create dissent and divide us. In what will remain as of the most brazen and dastardly acts on an education institution, ironically, isn’t it time we sat up and take notice of what is it that we are teaching our children or rather what is it that we aren’t?  Tolerance, mutual respect and understanding, cooperation and unity should not merely be restricted to moral science/value education lessons but rewarded and incorporated within the curriculum. Since it is in our schools that our minds are being shaped continuously.

Undoubtedly, in every war between terrorism and Education, the former has always lost. For there can’t be a more befitting reply than that given by the young school children who survived the dastardly act to those who cowardly plot such terror attacks to imbibe fear and hostility, by turning up the very next day at school. While you might inhumanly push bullets into our heads, how will you destroy awakened minds?