Page 76 - March EW PDF 24

Special Report

sification and break the status quo
which is heavily despoiling land qual-
ity in the foodgrains growing states of
Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar
Pradesh.
Moreover, perhaps an even greater
injustice visited upon the country’s
majority in rural Bharat by India’s
central planners, policy formulators
and ruling establishment is the open,
continuous and uninterrupted neglect
of education.
For over three decades the An-
nual Status of Education Report
(ASER) published by the highly re-
puted Pratham Education Founda-
tion (estb.1995) which home (not
school) tests large samples of primary
children countrywide through a huge Village school in Telangana: open, continuous & uninterrupted neglect
(15,000-20,000) army of volunteers
— mainly college students — for basic teachers — 25 percent of government and cons aside, the swelling standoff
literacy and numeracy, has been re- school teachers countrywide (1.25 between agrarian Bharat and urban
porting that over 50 percent of class million), largely drawn from kith and India on the Haryana-Delhi border
VII-VIII children in rural India can’t kin of politicians and bureaucrats, — the second in the past four years —
read class II textbooks with sufficient are absent every day. The country’s should not be ignored as a confronta-
fluency and comprehension in their 1.10 million government — especially tion of minor consequence. Although
own vernacular mother tongues, let rural — schools are notorious for di- currently Bharat’s protest is led by a
alone ‘Inglish’, the national link lan- lapidated buildings, lack of furniture, numerically small number of farmers
guage and language of business, com- multi-grade teaching, inadequate toi- under SKM (non-political) banner,
merce and law. lets, drinking water and often electric- it’s pertinent to note that some 200
C ONTERMINOUSLY Edu- between higher education institutions cause with it. And recently the parent
ity. Likewise, rural India’s few and far
farmer unions have made common
cationWorld (estb.1999),
SKM which led the year-long success-
(undergrad colleges and state govern-
with the mission to “build
the BJP government at the Centre to
ally better, and nonchalantly certify
the pressure of public ment universities) are only margin- ful confrontation in 2020-21 forcing
opinion to make education the #1 millions of unemployable youth who repeal the three farm Bills which it
item on the national agenda”, has stream into industry and the services had legislated in 2020, has expressed
been persistently pressing for the an- sector. Very few college graduates re- its support. Simultaneously, other
nual budgetary expenditure (Centre turn to farms. farmers’ representative organisations
plus states) for public education to be And despite reckless government, across the country are beginning to
raised to 6 percent of GDP, a recom- establishment, and academia negli- become restive.
mendation made by the high-powered gence to develop India’s abundant In the circumstances, it’s high time
Kothari Commission in 1967. Despite and high-potential human resource, to frankly admit that India’s rural citi-
your editors annually presenting a there’s no shortage of economists zens have been substantially sidelined
schema — coinciding with presenta- on television news channels and in in the national development effort and
tion of the Union Budget — for the the print media who opine that the make amends to right the imbalance.
Centre to raise an additional Rs.7 lakh national development effort necessi- First, it’s time to cut through the
crore per year, national education ex- tates massive migration of rural youth nit-picking clutter of legally protected
penditure has remained mired in the to urban industry. The uncomfortable MSPs by establishing an agriculture
3-3.5 percent of GDP rut for 75 years. question about the employability of produce stabilisation fund (suggested
Moreover, pathetically meagre out- millions of illiterate, quasi-literate by Prof. A.S. Gulati of ICRIER quot-
lays for rural government schools are and unskilled (India hosts 5,000 vo- ed above) from which Central/state
recklessly misspent. Over 85 percent cational training institutes cf. China’s governments could draw to purchase
goes towards the high remunera- 500,000) is routinely fudged. crops whose prices fall below mutu-
tion of ill-qualified and indifferent Academic and economics pros ally agreed floor prices. Subsequent-

76 EDUCATIONWORLD MARCH 2024