Education in Rural Region
Posted : June 24, 2010 at 6:10 pm [IST]
While the wide media coverage of the battle between Nitish vs. Narendra was the cause of morose for many, I had some reason to keep my hope of developmental politics alive. I kept on hearing about Nitish Kumar visiting schools during his Viswas Yatra and his dialogue with the students and teachers. His blog on the positive effect of state gifted bicycles for students on improving enrolment and reduction in the figures of dropouts kept me and perhaps many pretty excited.
Deepak and Prakash visited me on their return journey after a ten-day off in Pipra, their village home and stayed with us for a night with their mother. Both are pursuing master course in engineering, the elder in BITS, Pilani and the younger in IIIT, Bhuwaneswar.
I wish to do something to improve the quality of education in the village school and have a plan to set up a library cum creativity centre in the school. I am ready to bear all the expenditures of books and implements. I had discussed the same with some coming out of the village who are employed. And then, I talked about the same project with my uncle. He had been library enthusiast in his early days. I was surprised when he in plain language discouraged me to do anything of the sort. As per him, it is not of any use rather it will be a waste of money.
Deepak and Prakash, his grandsons also brought his message.
The village school runs classes up to class VIII and may add up to class X by next year. I considered it as a major achievement for the village. But I find few things that must be taken care of.
School: The school consists of just few rooms. There is a boundary wall but no gate that can be locked. It has no security guard for protecting the school in the night or when it’s not running. The condition is same for all the schools that I know all around my village. Many don’t have even boundary wall. I don’t know why the Panchayat or the government can’t engage and employ a full time guard and a residence for him in one corner in the premises. He could be engaged in multiple roles for different essential work in the school such as housekeeping and cleaning too.
Without the necessary arrangement against the burglary, one can’t even dream of a modern good school with many essential equipment and teaching aids such as audio and video system, computers and internet facilities and other facilities in its laboratories. The government must think on this aspect as an essential requirement if it has intention to make the school taking the advantages of the contemporary technologies.
Teachers: Most of the teachers are very lowly paid as ‘Shiksha Mitra’ and are hardly devoted to their work of teaching. Many are not even qualified and skilled enough to do that. I don’t know why the government resorted to such a system to save the cost of education. It has just created a band of discontented teachers in a government set up that is already not ready to be accountable for the performance.
Community: I don’t know how the present system of education can impart and ensure quality learning to the students and who will do that, if the community is not ready to take any interest and leaves everything to the so called government to do. Every school requires a mentor to see that it functions effectively. A good mentor can only build a good school. I wish the community being served by the school does find one.
I don’t know if the schools in the other states are significantly different.
If I go by what I hear from my uncle who had been instrumental in bringing many developments to the village and others who have served in responsible positions such as senior teachers and headmasters of high schools, I get worried and lose hope.
The finance is not a problem in providing and spreading the education to all today. It is the atmosphere of brotherhood and fellowship that is getting scarce.
I wish Nitish Kumar and other leaders, through the mass contact such as Vishwas Yatra, discuss this subject too. Perhaps, for the first time a Chief Minister is visiting schools and that too, the rural ones on such a scale to find out firsthand the conditions and shortcomings of the schooling in the state. It’s a great gesture and it is bound to encourage the students as well as their parents for focusing on education to bring in better days in their households. Let it not be only for votes. Let it build a society with better fellowship in the communities and make it responsible and accountable for the government projects taken up to benefit them.
I wish him also to appeal the students and teachers to switch over to the modern education system with English, computer, and skill as the main focus to compete with other developed states.
I wish Nitish appeals to the villagers to nurture and build the village-school as a place of pride for the village, with a library and creativity centre, a play ground for all the village youth and a meeting place for all to further their knowledge through schemes such as adult education.
- Indra
Category: Uncategorized, Government Policy/Administration, Employment/Education |
2 Comments »
Pratul Birla’s comment on “Education in Rural Region”:
“The whole effort is ill conceived and without understanding of the ground situation and without using much insight
What do you do with those kids who go through a poorly administered conventional program when they just cannot match those kids who have done their schooling in the towns and cities ? How can they compete on the playing ground of the urban kids ?
I do not think the present thrust on education will serve any good to the country. Because it is purely a drive on literacy and not education at all. Also, why cannot we get over the idea that English should be a criteria for a useful and a creative population ?
First of all, we have to reduce dependence on teaching faculty and have extremely strong emphasis on mass communicating devices. All new teachers should be appointed with good salaries and having the ability to use those devices. We will have lesser number of discontent teachers.
Also, we must see the models adopted by other successul non - English speaking countries like China, and Japan and Russia for that matter.
Most of China hardly speaks any English.
For the large masses of our country we need only functional English and not English as a criteria for skill development. If we continue to bank on English to deliver the goods for us , I feel it is never going to happen. We loose a lot of skill because the kid cannot cope up with English. This has to be avoided anyhow.
In fact if I were given the responsibility of education , one of the first steps I would take is to stop subsidizing institutions like Regional Engineering Colleges if they do not immediately take steps to provide education in alternate Indian languages in the particular region that they belong too .We are simply loosing talent because of this encumberance of English.
Now coming to the rural psyche ,where basic survival is an everyday issue , how can we expect parents of children to encourage them to school education which does not help them resolve their immeditate crisis ? They cannot think so many years in advance and neither have the resources to sustain them for that period .They need hands to support them doing physical work. I am personally an advocate of child labour above the age of 12 . And it has to be done with proper regualtions. My grandfather got employed at the age of 10 in the shop of Raja Baldeodas Birla ( a distant cousin ). His education came along with work and is the architect of padta system. My maternall grandfather also started working at the age of 12 and rose to be the founder president of Sutlej Cotton Mills ( in Okada Pakistan now) . In those days there was a high degree of morality . Children at work were treated kindly . At least they were not abused.
In today’s immoral world of human trafficking , we can have separate factories who employ child labou rand have statutory committment to education of grown up children . These factories can be made responsible and place under such inspectors which oversee the education they impart to the children. We cannot be dictated by the whims of European society which advocates a ban on child labour but does not know what ( other than sexual abuse ) outcome will that unemployed child have !So many of their own people have been caught in paedophilic activities in Goa. I may sound totally out of date , but I stay in touch with reality.
We need a lot of technical schools where people can attain the skills of good workmanship . We need good fitters, welders,carpenters, fabricators , plumbers, nurses ,compounders, farmers , drivers, masons . The rural masses will get interested only if such education directly relates to better earnings. I think they will relate to occupational schools better than just the idea of attending school.
Once having established the credibility of technical/ occupational schools, we can gradually fix the entry requirements for those schools which provide that kind of occupational education. That will ensure that parents are interested in basic education. Vice versa, anyone who goes to a primary school should be guaranteed an admission into an occupational school of his ability.
In certain cases where primary education in the village is poor , the technical school can enroll the students at an earlier age and take care of the deficiency. I have seen glimpses of that in DonBosco Park Circus School ( Technical ) .The Christian kids unable to cope with conventional education are enrolled into the occupational school. They pass out with a diploma and some of them are doing a good job .
The ITIs are wonderful in concept but badly administered . They should be fully explored.
In certain cases , kids get totally demotivated in school because their parents cannot provide them the guidance to attend conventional school and on the other hand they see their going to school as totally a futile excerices. The theme should be Education for Jobs and Job is Fun and should be implemented that way .
My apologies for making my personal opinion longer than your blog. But I just cant resist writing on your blog. The topics which you touch are so dear to me.
Please provide me your phone number.
Alternately please call me at +919830106365 . Regards. “
Posted by: Indra at June 25, 2010 @ 4:34 pm
Sarvesh Upadhyay comments on “Education in Rural Region”:
“Government has enough funds for school building and infrastructure including mid-day meal, thanks to us who paid 2% education cess couple of years imposed by Arjun Singh. It requires some active guy who can make few rounds to government establishments at district headquarter and bring those funds to his school. I am not surprised by the reaction shown by your uncle. Now a days schools are being run by a committee which includes headmaster, Mukhiya and few people from village. People are getting discouraged to get involved as you know who wins the Mukhiya election these days. Mukhiya and Headmaster has the power to utilize the fund with each others mutual consent. No need to tell here as how both are utilizing those funds (many times you may not know but on paper it would have been already utilized).
But I will suggest you still go ahead with your plan for a library and creativity centre in your village. School was the best place as you will get space and someone to look after it. But it will be more successful if you can detach it from school and make it independent. I am sure majority of your village kids will be going to some DAV school nearby rather than the village school.
I have seen the drawback of Shikshamitras. Some of the schools does not have permanent headmaster and those Shikhamitras are acting as Headmaster. As usual Mukhiya has right to select the Shikshamitra and he will appoint his own auqintance and make sure that no permanent headmaster comes to school (This is real scene of the primary school of my village). Again here fund and Headmaster (Shikshamitra) and Mukhiya has right to sign the bill.
Posted by: Indra at June 26, 2010 @ 4:04 am
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