The quest for quality education

India is home to the world’s largest number of young people. As per the United Nation’s report, India has 356 million youth between the age group of 10 and 24 years. A Bloomberg News analysis says India is likely to have the world’s largest workforce by 2027, with a billion people aged between 15 and 64. Unfortunately, India’s abundant youth energy is being wasted due to lack of proper environment to groom physically, morally and intellectually-strong youth.

The poor mental and physical development is reflected in different fields. So far, no Indian film has got an Oscar; only Indian scientist Sir C V Raman, who worked for an Indian university, won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1930; India’s performance in the Olympic games has been consistently dismal and our football team has not yet qualified for the FIFA World Cup for many decades.

Though the National Education Policy aims to develop a wide range of advanced skills among children, like artificial intelligence, robotics, coding, film making, electronics, graphic designing and media study etc, the NEP is taking the second step instead of putting a safe and practical first step forward.

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Teaching advanced skills and new subjects are useful if the schools are capable of teaching the basic math, science, literature, history and social studies in equal proportion to children along with patriotism, physical and moral courage, compassion, love and fellow feeling. Those things will help our youth to be their master and not part of the cheap global labour force.

The NEP also found “severe learning crisis” among young children. It points out that close to five crore children currently in elementary school do not have foundational literacy and numeracy skills. A recent survey found that only a little over 50% of children enrolled in schools in India make it to Class XII. A Pratham survey found that between 25-30% of children in most states can’t read a sentence in a Class II book and can’t do two-digit subtraction.

Though the Right to Education Act 2009 guarantees free and compulsory education to children for the age group six to 14, the Act misses the words: an inclusive, quality education to all children which has deluded the country for decades. Lack of adequate number of quality schools, aggressive commercialisation of education and lack of interest among bright students to choose teaching as a career etc make inclusive quality education a distant dream.

A large number of private schools thrive on the ignorance and agony of millions of parents who want to send their wards to English medium schools for quality education and better facilities. As per the District Information System for Education (DISE) data, only 53% of total government schools, which form the majority of schools in rural India, have electricity connection. Only 28% schools have a computer and 9% have an internet connection. The much-talked-about video conference-based teaching is not possible unless the ground reality changes.

Nutritional needs

Like quality education, the moral and physical development of children needs attention. According to an analysis of the country’s Food and Nutrition Security, almost one in three children under five years will still be stunted by 2022 due to chronic malnutrition. As per the National Family Health Survey, the proportion of underweight and stunted children was as high as 35.8% and 38.4%, respectively.

The National Nutrition Mission (NNM) aims to reduce stunting, underweight and low birth weight each by 2% per annum, and anaemia among children, adolescent girls and women by 3% per annum by 2022. The increase in cost of living compels people to prioritise their expenditure on housing, education and health; food expenditure takes a back seat.

Crop diversity loss is the root cause of nutrition shortage. Marie Haga, Executive Director, Crop Trust, an international organisation working to safeguard crop diversity, said India has lost 90% of rice varieties since 1900. Restoring diversity in each crop will meet the gap in the nutrition needs of people.

Lack of sanitation in schools, particularly for girl children, leads to harmful infections. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has found that 75% of the toilets constructed by the Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) in government schools were not maintained hygienically; 72% had no running water and 30% were not in use due to damages and other reasons.

There is an urgent need for a strong law to protect surface and ground water. The CAG has also found 40% of schools do not have playgrounds and 43% do not have boundary walls. The NEP has provision for playground and boundary walls in schools. Playgrounds should be mandatory for schools as the majority of children develop sedentary habits due to smartphones and computer games.

Physical, moral and intellectual growth among children automatically paves the way for healthy democracy, good governance and social safety. Politicians, conscious citizens and the media must work for this common goal — an inclusive, quality school education.