Page 16 - EW December 2020

Editorial

RESTART SCHOOLS RIGHT NOW ! ly administered government schools
taking ill. Invariably, over-focused on
short-term electoral prospects, post-
independence India’s political class
ith education institutions, dates and postponing them. With this has never grasped the centrality of
especially pre-primaries back and forth, over three-fourths the education for national development
Wand K-12 schools, shuttered school year has elapsed with children as evidenced by its consistent failure
for over nine months since mid-March cooped up in small, overcrowded to raise the annual outlay (Centre plus
because of fear of infection from the homes — the average home in this states) for public education to 6 per-
Coronavirus, aka Covid-19 pandemic, country beggared by persisting neta- cent of GDP, first recommended by
pitiful tragedies are being played out babu socialism is a mere 499 sq. ft. the Kothari Commission (1967) and
in millions of households across the Although there is much blather over half a dozen commissions since.
country. The majority of India’s 480 about online and distance learning, Though there is admittedly the pos-
million children are not only suffer- for the overwhelming majority of chil- sibility that a considerable number of
ing loss of learning, but also hunger, dren from low-income households en- in-school children could catch the vi-
malnutrition and escalating domestic rolled in government schools, this is a rus, if elementary safety precautions
violence and abuse while sequestered cruel joke. The plain truth is that they such as mandatory sanitisation of
in squalid homes. For the country’s are perhaps at greater risk of contract- premises, face masking, safe distanc-
140 million children in government ing the dread virus in crowded, insani- ing and alternate days attendance are
schools, especially state and local tary homes as they would be in school. prescribed and practised, schools are
government managed anganwadis Moreover, they are not only being de- likely to be markedly safer than home
(pre-primary) and primary schools, prived of learning, they are also at risk environments for the vast majority
attending conventional brick-n-mor- of forgetting what they have learned of government school students. The
tar schools is of critical importance thus far. Central and state governments need to
because in-school children are enti- Clearly dilly-dallying on the issue bite the bullet on this issue and man-
tled to a free-of-charge mid-day meal of reopening schools is not so much date the restart of schools, subject to
which in many cases is the only daily driven by anxiety about their contract- elementary precautions and parental
meal they get. ing the Covid virus as by fear of the po- consent. Every day’s delay is extract-
State governments have been re- litical consequences of large numbers ing a heavier price from India’s long-
peatedly setting school reopening of children in ill-maintained and poor- suffering children.

SETTLE CHINA-INDIA BORDER URGENTLY of resurgent China whose annual
GDP of $15 trillion is five multiples
of India’s $3 trillion, as the dominant
power of Asia, including South Asia.
iscovery of an entirely new vil- to firmly declare that force will be met In the circumstances, there’s ur-
lage sited 2 km on the Bhuta- by force and India’s Border Roads Or- gent need for an all-parties consen-
Dnese side of the Sino-Bhutan ganisation is building motorable roads sus for serious negotiations between
border, a mere 9 km from the China- and air-fields all along the disputed India and China to finally settle the
India standoff in the Doklam area in Sino-India border. long pending dispute along the entire
2017, is proof that the Sino-India bor- It is submitted this belligerent re- length of the 4,000 km Sino-India
der dispute is by no means over. sponse is ill-advised as it will play right border in a determined spirit of give-
Under a treaty signed in 1949, into the strategy designed by the lead- and-take. Way back in 1959, China’s
Bhutan is an Indian protectorate with ership of the unelected Communist then prime minister Zhou-En-Lai had
India obliged to safeguard its borders Party of China (CPC) which rules our suggested India surrendering territory
and other interests. But this new vil- neighbour nation of 1.5 billion people in the Aksai Chin region for China to
lage habitation serviced by a new mo- with ruthless brutality. The CPC lead- accept the British imposed McMahon
torable road is perilously close to the ership is well aware that even a limited Line as the Sino-India boundary in the
Doklam Plateau which overlooks the border war will completely disrupt the north-east.
narrow Siliguri pass aka Chicken’s Indian economy poised to make a dra- The national interest demands
Neck, that links mainland India to the matic recovery in the immediate after- that this offer is resurrected to serve
seven sister states of north-east India math of the Covid-19 pandemic which as the basis of a carefully demarcated,
including Arunachal Pradesh (83,743 ironically, originated in China. Curi- United Nations approved, border be-
sq. km) which China claims is South- ously, China is also the first nation to tween the two nations. Democratic
ern Tibet, i.e, Chinese territory. have recovered from the devastation India’s anti-China strategy should be
Thus far, the response of the BJP- of the Covid-19 pandemic which has to ally with democracy forces in Tai-
led NDA government to the Doklam ruined the global economy. wan, Hong Kong and within commu-
stand-off and other Chinese incur- Therefore, it’s important for the nist China itself to liberate China’s 1.5
sions along the 4,000-km Sino-India BJP/NDA government and all politi- billion people from the brutal and op-
border, which stretches from Aksai cal parties to appreciate that disrup- pressive rule of the 100 million-strong
Chin (Ladakh) in the north-west to tion of the Indian economy at this CPC by way of soft power, rather than
Arunachal in the north-east, has been juncture will clearly seal the position recourse to arms.

16 EDUCATIONWORLD DECEMBER 2020