India's future dies on road.
Unicef report exposes Sarva Shiksha, Right to education and the knowledge economy with single stroke of a whitened brush on the darkest canvass.
Excalibur Stevens Biswas
It's been said that a country's future depends on the youth and children, but what will happen to the future if its root is corrupted?
A country's future depends on its literated citizens but maximum
of its citizen are illiterate.
According to Unicef report says:
Despite a major improvement in literacy rates during the 1990s, the number of children who are not in school remains high. Gender disparities in education persist: far more girls than boys fail to complete primary school.
This is an eye opening fact which we forgot just because of so much so hyped Sarva Shiksha and right to education.
Knowledge economy is all about the expansion of open market and it has to do nothing with knowledge.
It is just like the Box experience of couples in cinema hall in full darkness to do anything.
Technology may enhance conectivity.Technology might be live stream of information infinite.Objective mode questions is not the test of knowledge.
Moreover knowledge economy does not help the people to get job.Neither it is helpful to sustain the basic livelihood for survival in the world on fire where purchasing capacity decides anything.
Cash liquidity may expand the consumer base and sarva shiksha might educate the young consumers all about technology and brand,but it is not a way to empower the economy of the deprived and depressed.
Quality education and equal education standard countrywide may destroy the purchasing dominance of market dominating class.It is not going to happen just because of hegemonial rule all over the geopolitics across political borders.The classes remain.The caste remains.The creeds are intact.The racial aparthied is the linguistic civilisation which may not be enveloped with corporate responsiblity and cash liquidity.
In open market economy,money is omnipresent,omnipotent and so on.Purchasing power is the ultimate border of individual sovereignity.It is all about money making.
Now, the reality is human society is no more in quest of knoldege.No one is interested in adding or deductiong.Everyone wants the cloud to use an throw.No academic pursuit is the carrer interest of the geneartion next indulged in 3x 4x 5x bull run culture.The society needs not genuine research and development.Research and development is all about marketing and guided by marketing interest.
Underclasses are deprived of education.They just need the burnt bread.They are not concerned with butter, kallogs or boosters.But the affluent classes are no less disgusted with higher education.
Hire fire career opportunity and handsome placement is the ultimate destination and everyone is running to achieve it.
Open knowledge economy throws hundred cards on the table.Hundred avenues seem to be open like floodgates and the youth,even the children still in the schools chose career as video game option.No one thinks to complete graduation.Everyone is running with tabs, lptops and IT diploma overlooking the basic reality of relative sustenance of any technology including IT in turmoil and better technology replacing the older one.
Knowledge may help you to adjust with fresh technology. knowledge might update anyone at any juncture.Without knowledge you are damned to live in the hell with a default mode where from no escape route opens out.
Tragedy of the youth and the children remains in the consumer culture of day to day shopping rush that the parents are no more interested in the quest of knowledge.
Indian education system is no different from developed and underdeveloped countries where it is delinked with knowledge.It is technology and technology only.It is relative ,subjective information only whisch enables someone to be eligible for a placement.
It is hard cash,easy money and plastic money which is all about knowledge economy.
The under classes, the deprived and those without purchasing capacity,those living just under or over the poverty line, they have been included in the market thanks to cash liquidity and EMI mode payment and fractured defunct junked consumer goods dumped in the market.
Thus, the society as a whole the haves as well as the have nots,equally need more and more cash.In such a degenreted market oriented society education,quality education and ultimtely the quest of knowldege remains vaccined with viral money rush.
The Have NOTs have no option but to engage the children to earn the cash to sustain themselves,not only to meet the basic needs but all those branded,fractured and junked,dumped advertized consumer goods
Thus,drop out has been set as general trend which is linked with growth rate and so called wellness.
Unicef report exposes Sarva Shiksha,Right to education and the knowledge economy with single stroke of a whitened brush on the darkest canvass.
The literacy rate jumped from 52 per cent in 1991 to 65 per cent in 2001. The absolute number of non-literates dropped for the first time and gross enrolment in Government-run primary schools increased from over 19 million in the 1950s to 114 million by 2001.
90 million females in India are non-literate But 20 per cent of children aged 6 to14 are still not in school and millions of women remain non-literate despite the spurt in female literacy in the 1990s.
Several problems persist: issues of 'social' distance – arising out of caste, class and gender differences – deny children equal opportunities. Child labour in some parts of the country and resistance to sending girls to school remain real concerns.
School attendance is improving: more children than ever between the ages of 6 and 14 are attending school across the country. The education system faces a shortage of resources, schools, classrooms and teachers.
There are also concerns relating to teacher training, the quality of the curriculum, assessment of learning achievements and the efficacy of school management. Given the scarcity of quality schools, many children drop out before completing five years of primary education; many of those who stay on learn little.
Girls belonging to marginalised social and economic groups are more likely to drop out of school at an early age.
With one upper primary school for every three primary schools, there are simply not enough upper primary centres even for those children who complete primary school. For girls, especially, access to upper primary centres becomes doubly hard.
i: The world will miss its goal of universal education by 2015, with millions of children and adults still to be schooled, said a United Nations (UN) body. India has the highest population of illiterate adults, 287 million, 37% of the total population of such people across the world, according to Unesco's Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring report. "In 2008, the EFA Global Monitoring Report asked—'will we make it?' With less than two years left before 2015, this Report makes it clear that we will not," Irina Bokova, director general of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), said in the report. Of those going to school, a sizable portion are not learning the basics and the "global learning crisis is costing governments $129 billion a year", the report added. The report said that insufficient financing is one of the main obstacles to achieving education for all, and blamed the global economic slowdown for this. The finance gap has reached $26 billion, said Unesco. The agency, which has education aid data till 2011, said the overall global education aid to less developed countries remained static between 2009 and 2010 at $14.4 billion and fell the year after. "Aid to education fell by $1 billion between 2010 and 2011," EFA 2013-14 said. The UN body advised countries including India to improve their tax regimes so as to provide more funds to the education sector. "A well-functioning taxation system enables governments to support their education system with domestic finance. Some middle-income countries, such as Egypt, India and the Philippines, have far greater potential to mobilize domestic resources for education through improved taxes, the report added. In India, rich young women have already achieved universal literacy but the poorest will only do so around 2080, said the report. Post-2015 goals need to include a commitment to make sure the most disadvantaged groups achieve the benchmarks set. The report underlined the fact that allocation for education in India varies widely across states. In Kerala, for instance, education spending per pupil was about $685 per year. In Himachal Pradesh, it was $542. In contrast, in West Bengal it was $127 and in Bihar, $100. "In India, education accounts for 10.5% of the total government expenditure, 3.3% of the GNP (gross national product)—below the 6% target called for by the Report. This is a decrease in spending from 13% of the budget and 4.4% of GNP in 1999," the report said. "This decrease will be jeopardizing the huge progress it has made in getting more children into school, and its prospects for improving its poor quality of education." The agency said that at least 28% of the cost of primary and secondary education is met by households in India. This is a higher proportion than the costs met by households in developed countries. The report said that "a third of primary school aged children reached grade-IV and learned the basics. A further third reached that grade but did not learn the basics. One third did not reach grade-IV and will not have learnt the basics either". This means fewer than half the children in India are learning the basics, it said. A similar finding was highlighted by Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) published by education non-profit Pratham earlier this month. The ASER report said that a higher budgetary allocation does not always mean better learning outcome. "Our analysis of budgetary allocations and expenditure suggests that there is no correlation between overall expenditure and learning outcomes," Yamini Aiyar, director, Accountability Initiative of Centre for Policy Research, said in the ASER report. A senior human resource development ministry official said the government is aware of the problems that ail education in India. "In India we have two issues —access and quality. While the Right to Education (Act) has almost taken care of the access part, the government is now focused on improving quality," added this person, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
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