Page 70 - EW-August-2024 PDF _Neat

Special Report

by way of cuts and commissions on
equipment purchases and service
contracts. Former Union railways
minister Laloo Prasad Yadav is under
trial for allegedly selling secure rail-
ways jobs in exchange for land parcels.
Why give up this enormous power of
patronage, particularly since the edu-
cated middle class which should be in
the vanguard of privatisation of PSEs,
tolerates misuse of public assets with
bovine indifference? Therefore this
at-hand option to offload PSEs which
would substantially augment GoI’s
capital receipts and enable it to retire
debt to reduce the Centre’s annual
interest payout of Rs.11.62 lakh crore
(equivalent to 9 multiples of its educa- Teenage children: poor fundamental literacy and numeracy
tion outlay) and release resources for
investment in the social sector (educa- that tests the real learning outcomes lem of unemployment the FM’s bud-
tion, health) has not been availed this of rural students year after year, re- get speech spread over 58 printed
year as well. ports that almost 60 percent of class pages gives considerable importance
I N HER 137-MINUTE BUDGET read a simple textbook paragraph in moots special Employment Linked In-
to youth employment and skilling. It
VII children aged 13-14 years can’t
any language, or do three by one digit
presentation speech to Parlia-
centives for “first-time employees, and
ment, Sitharaman identified
nine priorities of the BJP/ multiplication and division sums. support to employees and employers”,
How can these early teens — 13 per-
and a Job Creation in Manufacturing
NDA government to attain the objec- cent of whom don’t enter secondary programme “which will incentivise
tives for which Budget 2024-25 has education and start working on fam- additional employment in the manu-
been shaped, viz, (i) improve agricul- ily farms — improve productivity and facturing sector, linked to the employ-
ture productivity and resilience; (ii) resilience? And the bad news is that ment of first-time employees”. Also
boost employment and skilling; (iii) learning outcomes in rural — espe- proposed is an additional appren-
enable inclusive human resource de- cially government — schools are going ticeship scheme in which 10 million
velopment and social justice; (iv) up- from bad to worse. youth will be “voluntarily” provided
grade manufacturing and services; (v) In departure from past practice internship in the country’s Top 500
boost urban development; (vi) provide ASER 2023 field tested 34,375 teens companies.
energy security; (vii) build infrastruc- in the 14-18 age group. It reveals that Surprisingly, Sitharaman’s mara-
ture; (viii) spurt innovation, research 25 percent cannot read a class II level thon budget speech glossed over
& development and (ix) conceptualise textbook fluently in any language, foundational ECCE (early childhood
next generation reforms. These are and one-third (33 percent) do not use care and education) and primary
laudable objectives. Except that they a smartphone for any activity related education. “Our government is com-
have been articulated before and to all to their current education. With such mitted to all-round, all-pervasive and
intents and purposes are a mere wish poor fundamental literacy and numer- all-inclusive development of people,
list unless the order of priorities is re- acy, how can rural youth improve their particularly farmers, youth, women
arranged. currently rock-bottom productivity? and poor. For achieving social justice
For instance, the first priority of The average per-hectare yield of comprehensively, the saturation ap-
Budget 2024-25 is to improve agri- staples such as wheat and rice in Can- proach of covering all eligible people
culture productivity and resilience. ada, Ukraine, the US and China, Thai- through various programmes includ-
But to what extent can rural produc- land and Vietnam is 5-10 multiples of ing those for education and health
tivity be improved if the majority of India. This is because every farmer in will be adopted to empower them by
farmers can’t read a fertiliser mix or these countries has had the advantage improving their capabilities,” she in-
pesticides application pamphlet? The of good foundational literacy and nu- toned without any specific reference
Annual Status of Education Report meracy education — primary and of- to education.
(ASER) of the highly-reputed Pratham ten secondary education. That said, she has increased the
Education Foundation (estb. 1994) To address the ballooning prob- Centre’s provision for education —

70 EDUCATIONWORLD AUGUST 2024