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? 

When Inclusion is Prejudice

“I love school.”  For educators, such declaration from a student is the best testament of ‘success’. However, Priya, 8 years is not among our ‘usual’ pre-schoolers. She lives under the flyover in the slums of Kandivali near our school.

While it’s been a while that we had opened our doors and hearts to the children of Teresa Ocean of Humanity Foundation, around 30 feisty street children aged 4 to 16 years, this most impromptu confession, with twinkling eyes and one that prompted other more reluctant children to also coyly break into a jiggle and express their happiness is perhaps one of the most surreal moments I have experienced. 

It is during such moments we realise the impact we can have on improving lives through some basic additional efforts. In this case, from just helping Priya and other children like her experience the joy of a well-kept school premises and other resources.  Or even in dedicatedly training a group of tribal children in self-defence, education and hygiene.

It made me think how much we could really achieve if each of our children could attend quality school programmes (which is the basic right of each and every child as per the Indian constitution) right from the preschool level and not just from primary. What does the term inclusion really mean?

We have always prided ourselves in being an ‘inclusive’ school.  Through our initiatives we have tried to extend it to ‘social inclusion’ too. While our children at Kangaroo Kids Preschool and the children of Teresa Foundation have already set the wheels in motion in terms of learning to respect and share each other’s spaces, I constantly wonder why must there be a need for schools to be ‘inclusive’ in the first place. Should that be a goal?  

The RTE Act has set in pace the mission to achieve universal elementary education but can inclusion be suddenly forced upon when there are so many learning, cultural, linguistic impediments to grapple with? Have reservations at colleges, institutions helped us get the desired effect of ensuring that the opportunities presented be translated to effective outcomes?

That is the keyword we must analyse - the outcome, in terms of empowerment. A dipstick survey report by Parikrama Humanity Foundation, a non-profit company in the field of primary education, found that only 8 per cent of the jobs in well-known IT companies in Bangalore are held by people who have emerged from government schools. Yet, of the million-plus schools in this country, 94 per cent are government or government-aided institutions. Alarmingly, in India’s emerging knowledge industry, more than 90 per cent of jobs are held by people from 6 per cent of its schools.

Higher education fares better than primary education but has only about 10% of the population having access to it. Also, 3 million graduates a year, being dispensed out of faulty education systems into various enterprises – locally and globally. Out of these a whopping 90% are deemed unfit for the job-market. What do these numbers tell us?

1.     We need a well thought out and tailored approach for real ‘inclusion’ to take place factoring in the social, economic and bureaucratic elements. It must clearly run deeper than sweeping Acts and Reservations that sound ideal but must be pragmatic and in sync with ground realities.  

2.     In a country where 74% population still depends on agriculture as primary means of livelihood and earnings of less than 100 rupees a day, where do we stand at vocational education and training (VET) in this skill-based economy? A dismal 10% of workers receive formal education in vocational education, compared with 65% in US and 70% in UK. China is training 90 million youths against our 3.5 million youths in VET! We need more and more social enterprises that also focuses on truly empowering people across communities.  

3.     We have the lowest spends on Education and Health – the two most critical components that build a nation! India beats sub-saharan Africa, known over the world in term of hunger parameters. How do we expect our children to study when they aren’t healthy? How does anyone grow financially if he is bogged by debts due to escalating healthcare costs – since our public healthcare is also such a failure?  Our public expenditure on healthcare is just over 1% of GDP. In education it is about 3%, lesser than sub-Saharan Africa.

For true empowerment through inclusion, one that transcends the social, economic, cultural factors, it must have 100% involvement from the entire ecosystem. We need to start early, young and work together. And not just through reservations or categorisations, which further divides us.   We need to connect at the ground level and encourage the communities to explore, engage and enrich each other’s perspectives while also advocating their equal rights to be included in the societal framework with the freedom of also retaining their respective identities. 

While inclusion is a way of abolishing various degrees of inequalities, it shouldn’t be an end. The goal must be empowerment.

After all, doesn’t the term ‘inclusion’ imply Prejudice?