Page 55 - EducationWorld August 2022

policy BC doesn’t formally certify any Barefoot approach in India where it and mentoring student-volunteers
of its student/adult volunteers or fac- is most widely replicated, has been at scale. Moreover meaningful gov-
ulty because certification will prompt replacement of cost-intensive initia- ernment and middle class support
“migration to urban India”. tives by low cost and labor intensive is unlikely because a large supply of
The deep, perhaps ideologically- initiatives, providing gainful employ- informally trained barefoot engineers
inspired hostility of urban India and ment within villages.” will devalue the expensive degrees and
the establishment towards informal This analysis explaining indiffer- qualifications of middle class profes-
learning-by-doing community colleg- ence and half-hearted official and sionals whose incomes will be hit as
es such as BC, is explained by Je sse establishment support — and indeed public dependence on their expertise
g
H art i an, an American academic, sustained media blackout — is sec- and service decreases,” says Dunu
who visited Tilonia in 2007. Writing onded by A nu p rat ( D u nu ) Roy Roy.
I
in nnovations — Tec hnology , G over - (no relation), an IIT-Bombay alum Half a century after it was regis-
nanc e and lob alisation, a journal of and currently director of the Hazard tered with the limited objective of rais-
G
the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- Centre (HC, estb.1980). Supported by ing subsistence standards of the wa-
nology, he says: “Those most hostile the Delhi-based Sanchal Foundation, ter-stressed people of Tilonia village,
to the Barefoot approach are people HC provides technical assistance to Barefoot College, which has replicas in
who have invested a great deal in ac- “people in need” to solve livelihood 13 states countrywide and through its
quiring an education through the of- problems by connecting them with unique Solar Mamas project has made
ficial system and then applying their experts from a panel of 400 selected an imprint in 96 countries worldwide,
misguided ‘expertise’. The very idea professionals ready and willing to pro- has designed, tested and implement-
p
of semi-literate women being able to vide ro b ono assistance. ed its rural development model with
manage and control initiatives at the “The reason why the Barefoot Col- considerable success. As the country
village level, undermines those hard- lege rural development model has celebrates 75 years of independence,
earned credentials and credibility, not become popular countrywide is a national consensus needs to emerge
and even threatens the existence of that rolling it out nationally requires that long-neglected second class citi-
their jobs. Indeed, one result of the large committed funding for training zens of Bharat, deserve better lives.

AUGUST 2022 EDUCATIONWORLD 55