Hindustan Times
15th Aug? It’s Gandhi’s Birthday
Call them pappus or munnas. But you must have encountered them near major crossings or busy market place in whichever city you live in.
I met this boy on the Independence eve near a busy roadside-eating joint.
He was too confident for his age. At 12 in the night there was no trace of fatigue as he sold the Tricolour flags with a disarming smile. While buying a few from him, I asked him “ Do you know the importance of 15
th August?” Pat came the reply, ‘ It’s Gandhi’s birthday.” He was unnerved by the question that followed.
“Is it Gandhiji’s birthday or that of the country?” He looked straight into my eyes, “How does it matter. After all Gandhiji was also from India”—-and he went on and on.
August 14 was quite an interesting day. A morning meeting with a senior bureaucrat in the Chief Ministers Office followed by midnight encounter with this little vendor once again exposed the gnawing disconnect between the policy makers and the people for whom policies are made.
The officer was talking about the governments plan to organise mammoth sessions on agriculture education and engineering in the rural areas soon.
I thought and told him so- the sessions have to be restructured to meet the academic aspirations of the children in the countryside- an untapped human resource that needed to be channelized into a potential force. Or else the country would continue to produce an army of idle men wasting their day gossiping at tea stalls while their spouses worked in the fields, the first-time killers, shooters, the bhaiya’s and the bhai’s (criminals), robbers and so on.
Many may dismiss it as inconsequential. But my interaction with school going children in several states has emboldened my conviction that a directionless force is attending schools and colleges in their quest to get jobs, unaware of the avenues that education can actually open for them in the countryside itself.
Sample the common answers that I heard during my interaction with youngsters in villages. I want to study– want to do BA– may be MA or B.Ed. Why? Boys want sarkari naukari’ (a government job) for stable income or become masterji. In bigger villages or towns the craze is to learn computers. No one knows why? They think computer knowledge can get them their dream job.
Girls can’t think beyond ANM (nurse), gram sevikas ( in bigger villages and towns). Why blame them? The fact is their exposure is limited and they have not seen services other than those of ‘babuji’ and masterji. And the sudden spurt in the growth of technical and engineering colleges in the countryside (obviously started by the politicians for two reasons- gain respectability and money) has made their reach to higher education, of whatever quality, possible.
My friend, a career counsellor, feels the government does little. So its high time the private career counsellors, school teachers and college professors organise small counselling sessions for this huge but a potential force. The Government is required only to check the mushrooming private colleges from teaching these gullible students. It’s the public that can contribute. Are bloggers willing to do their bit? My counsellor and I are planning one albeit at a small scale. But don’t revolutions start like this only? Am I right?
(6 votes, average: 4.83 out of 5)
Loading ...Posted by Sunita Aron on Tuesday, August 18, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Filed under India · Tagged August 15th, Chief Ministers Office, Gandhi's birthday, government, Independence day, Independence eve, tricolour flag
I discovered your homepage by coincidence.
Very interesting posts and well written.
I will put your site on my blogroll.
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sunita Reply:
August 19th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Thanks Randy
tell me your site too
cheers
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I’ve been reading along for a while now. I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work.
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Anil Reply:
August 29th, 2009 at 12:57 am
So true she seems to be the lone columnist on this blog that really cares .. Rest are just court-jesters of Nehru family..
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Exactly! I feel VERY strongly about this. People think a degree is a passport to the good life - but they haven’t the faintest idea WHAT they’re doing a degree in. Or why.
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sunita Reply:
August 19th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
thanks Kushal
great to hear from you
yes once they have the degree they think they have the moon
their dreams shatter, some commit suicide, some turn criminals
that’s life
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Bollywood actress Amrita Arora when asked if she knows the significance of 26th jan, said” I just dont care, just another day for me.” Its not only villagers who are ignorant.
Indian Constitution should be made compulsory as a subject in schools and colleges.
Yes, Indian education system is bit shaky. For people career means, doctor, engineer, evergreen sarkari naukari and now days computer and MBA. Focus should be there on over all development not only on collecting degrees. May be degrees can provide growth but not that development which is actually important for individual’s betterment and also country’s .
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sunita Reply:
August 19th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Manjari,
I agree with u hundred percent
perhap not many of our stars would know the order of tricolor
I really wish government starts some vocational courses instead of producing white elephants
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“a directionless force is attending schools and colleges in their quest to get jobs, unaware of the avenues that education can actually open for them in the countryside itself.”
This is biggest challenge country will be facing ……We need to develop rural India in rural India rather than developing urban India and flowing money into rural. Education must be specific to the region it is imparted. Practical Education is need of the hour, enlightenment of rural minds with more rural environment specific education is needed.
But I dont think this can happen with the current political structure. No one cares!
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sunita Reply:
August 19th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Saurabh,
How can it be done without government’s support?
That’s the challenge before us
besides counselling them the education path, this is a need to develop rural India. something I saw in North Korea- jobs, education and health- why would then migrate to urban areas like Mumbai
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Lack of confidence is killing their aspirations..the most important skill..English..is beyond their reach, and they know that without it they can get nowhere.
For girls its lack of mobility..boys from small towns and villages frequently travel to big cities to do extra - courses which are unavailable in their town…but girls never do that, so they settle for whats available..
I dont understand this craze for technical and engineering institutes..If you go to the UP knowledge parks they are full of tech instt……….our govt. is closing the minds of the youth to hundreds of other career opportunities, what about opening hundreds of vocational colleges rather than tech institutes?
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sunita Reply:
August 19th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Varsha,
fact is the so called english schools have reached villages, but not english. But the desire to learn the language is there.
as for the craze for technical and engineering institutes, people invest for money. and when parents in cities are not open to new avenues , why blame the ignorant villagers.
there is a need for right minded people to come together and serve the society- we won’t be bad counsellors
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Sunita,
Thank you for again a thought-provoking post.
Education, after you cross the hurdle of affordability and accessibility in our country still needs to grapple with 2 things: the content and the delivery. You have highlighted another issue: goal orientation on the part of the students/ learner community.
The bureaucrats and the politicians are focusing on the affordability and accessibility: budgeting and legislating (right to education bill). I feel, the broader debate on “what for” needs to begin; you are absolutely right.
As a father of school going children, I feel cheated when I see no significant work is being done to revamp the syllabus (content) to foster independent thinking and broaden horizons. Worse, we are doing nothing to attract bright people to the teaching profession and challenging them with a goal that can motivate them.
Lack of quality teachers is endemic in our public schools and even our institutes or higher learning (who do not produce original research in sufficient volumes compared with say, China). I shudder to think what goes on in government funded schools where the vast majority of our population go to.
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sunita Reply:
August 19th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
thanks Anindya,
the roadmap has to be there, so the goal or you grope in dark. This is precisely what is happening in cities also, but more in the rural areas.
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I was very put off when I saw news about Shahrukh Khan eclipsing “Independence day celebrations” news. I always look forward to pictures of small kids carrying tricolor, statues of great leaders garlanded, patriotic songs playing on TV and radio.
Why is media so obsessed with insignificant things?
As far as educating our kids about India and its constituition is concerned, it is duty of parents to give them this knowledge right from childhood (including good manners, respect for law, respect for fellow human beings). The educational instituitions can not give your kids morality (They can try) but we have to start this revolution from our living rooms.
As an Indian, we have duty to not pass our biases, hypocrisy, ignorance to our kids. It is then only we will be able to see India that we all dream of.
A belated Jai Hind to all.
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sunita Reply:
August 24th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
any day is good for jai hind
but here we did special report on the day —rather educating people about flags , their sanctity
i somehow don’t understand why should we use ganpati on every wedding card and flag on every car etc
people don’t know how to dispose them– and their loitering on the streets is the worst thing that can happen to ones we all worship
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Rajeev Reply:
August 25th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
I totally agree with you. The people should stop using ganapati, images of gods (especially on fire crackers), chand tara flags etc. because they are not disposed off in a proper ways.
I also think congress should stop using tricolor as party flag.
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sunita Reply:
August 25th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
thanks for agreeing
but
which statement are you talking about
noone can be allowed to hack people because he/she are mourning
I totally agree with you Sunita. But I would like to go one step further. To fully function as a democracy, we need to be educated not only about things like our constitution and the freedom movement but also but major events such as the partition, the Babri Masjid demolition, the Bhopal gas tragedy etc. We cannot expect the government to be involved in such education in a meaningful and impartial way. It is up to citizen groups to take up initiative and if you come up with anything small or big, do let us all know. I am sure there are many among us who would be happy to contribute.
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sunita Reply:
August 24th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
agreed Nithi
nothing now is possible without public participation
you know people in their own way are contributing - only we don’t get to know about them
infact we might start writing about them in our cols
if u know of some, do let us know
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the people in the villages have not even an iota of exposure to the the plethora of options that lie before them . they only go after traditional career options like sarkari naukri and all the likewise. the career counselors are required more in the heartland of our nation than in the urban areas. if they go there then they would have done a world of good for the development of India as people would go for slightly better career options.
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sunita Reply:
August 24th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
yes prats and thanks
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Thanks a lot for wrecking our conscience to focus on issues ,that should be the first objective.
The point is that in the rural hinterlands,despite a percolating awareness,people continue to study for 20 years!!By the time they finish off their graduation,,they are bolted to blues when they trealise that the world around has nothing much to oiffer them……Some of them fall prey to the mushrooming specialised course teaching institutes who teach them some obsolete stuffs again of no use!!
The worse continues,some of them start to have this belief that good spoken english & decent communication skills coupled with a basic computer knowledge will put them to some good position in towns…but then they fall prey to those ‘dalals’[middlemen] who extract money to their blood, alluring them in hopes of getting a job!!
Pinning on the false promises,they lose their primes and with all the worldly allegations….they land up in big cities& metros totally unaware of the complex cobwebs of life!The saga still continues when they come to realise that all the learnt stuffs is of dismal use and they end up being sales-man earning on some contractual basis!!
Although,wiser ones manage to clear civil services or other government sector jobs but for the larger masses in general ,they head to some nefarious activities making them a marginalised section who has been thrown open to the vagaries of life not by their will but the cruel intentions of life!
What an irony!!
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sunita Reply:
August 24th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Amitabh
We know the problem, where is the solution
that’s what we all should discuss and decide
how about starting a debate on it
people must be having brilliant ideas
we will use our cols to spread
revolutions take place inch by inch
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Sunita,
What would you say if somebody made the statement “Rajiv gandhi allowed 4000 sikhs to be hacked in delhi BECAUSE he was MOURNING”?
I am dumbfounded by this statement.
I am not going to name the person who said it because it might influence your opinion.
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Once Pramod Mahajan said on TV that majority of MPs touch constitution or any book on constitution for the first time when they take oath..
These illiterate flim stars or these poor kids after all have no direct reason to study those books our legislators whose job is to form legislation don’t bother to even touch the book let alone read it.
Even the usual regurgitation of what we have in name of history book is hardly an education one needs to gop byond that textbook which at best is an exercise in social engineering .> As they same historians are great than god since they can change the past through their writing
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I think the concerns expressed by you are very true. There is big dream of small town boys/girls to get ‘comfortable’ govt. jobs which are rare to come after doing their BA, MA of even BE these days. The colleges are mashrooming thanks to politician-turned-educationist of current years (whose sole interest is to mint money). There is no standardisation of the students coming out of these institutes.
It is nightmare for the students who pass from these institutes and realise the bad scenario in job market. Leave aside those who are not previleged to get any formal education.
It is frightening scenario. So much of youth energy going down the drain. It needs to be channelised through employment at local level. It would be interesting to study how Chinese are solving this problem?
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