Page 66 - EW November 2023

Cover Story

India’s citizens. For a nation with a
population of 1.5 billion, the hand-
ful of dollar billionaires we have are
too few in number and even they are
under siege from unrepentant social-
ists who have destroyed the modest
material aspirations of millions of
midnight’s children, and forced the
brightest and best into exile.
S ECONDLY, AS ADVOCATED

above, the middle class —
especially the intelligentsia
— needs to discover ways
and means to eradicate public sector
corruption and clean up the law and
order machinery and justice deliv-
ery system. Several learned studies
such as the Justice Malimath Report
and the reports of 63 Law Commis-
sions provide prescriptions, but they Barefoot College solar engineer (right): living proof of entrepreneurial tradition
haven’t received sufficient academy,
media and middle-class support. Yet who has any knowledge of it, despite crore for investment in public educa-
unless these initiatives are taken, capi- EducationWorld having written two tion. But although this schema (see
tal flight and the brain drain will not cover features detailing its out-of-the- p.64) has been personally sent to over
stop. Especially since confronted with box rural development model. a dozen business leaders and eminent
declining populations of working age If provided access to primary-sec- economists inviting critique, includ-
youth and adults, in their self-interest ondary education of minimal global ing trashing, not a single response has
OECD countries are rapidly shedding standard, India’s 260 million house- been received.
centuries-old racial and colour preju- holds have capacity to save at least The conclusion is inescapable. With
dices and are sweeping up the best Rs.10,000 per year. This massive their progeny comfortably ensconced
entrepreneurs, professionals includ- capital formation (Rs.2.6 lakh crore) in top-ranked private schools and
ing academics, doctors, nurses from could finance a plethora of infrastruc- universities, establishment leaders
developing countries. ture and social welfare projects. It’s a are not alive to the pathetic condition
Although since India’s disastrous shame that successive administra- of government schools and higher ed
Left turn plenty has gone wrong, the tions in Delhi and the state capitals institutions. For India’s unambitious
abiding sin of the neta-babu brother- — and panoply of the country’s much business leaders, the country’s 430
hood and establishment was — and vaunted economists who routinely million strong middle class market is
continues to be — conspicuous failure grace the boards of IMF and the World sufficiently large within which to do
to provide anywhere near world-class Bank — haven’t hit upon this national business. They seem unaware of the
public education from early childhood development strategy and accord late Dr. C.K. Prahlad’s seminal book
to Ph D. It is the firm conviction, in- mere lip sympathy to the issue of de- Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
deed an article of faith of this writer veloping the country’s abundant and (2004) with most content to be big
based on over 40 years experience in high-potential human resource. fish in a small domestic pond.
development journalism, that provid- It’s not that a formula to fund and During your editor’s several years
ed modest quality primary-secondary upgrade the public education system as a pioneer business journalist, I
education and our can-do entrepre- is unknown. For the past decade, often encountered businessmen who
neurial tradition, he/she is endowed coterminously with presentation of deliberately limit the growth of their
with capability to transform from pas- the Union Budget, your editors have enterprises after material needs are
sive consumer into an active producer presented a schema under which the satisfied. Many did so because they
of goods and services with savings Union government, that year after didn’t want to attract the attention of
capability. Barefoot College, Tilo- year makes paltry provision for edu- the extortionate neta-babu brother-
nia, Rajasthan (estb.1972) is living cation equivalent to 0.5 percent of hood and their obedient “caged par-
proof of this assertion. Yet rare is the GDP (Rs.227 lakh crore in 2023-24), rot” economic offences enforcement
politician, bureaucrat or media pundit can mobilise an additional Rs.7 lakh institutions (CBI, Income-Tax de-

66 EDUCATIONWORLD NOVEMBER 2023