India may have done well in terms of GDP growth rate but has slipped down the ladder of social indices. We’re among the worst performing states in some of the social indices like malnutrition and access to sanitation. At the time of independence we were second behind Sri Lanka in social indices but are now only better than Pakistan in South Asia.
Social Indices will improve only when basic requirements like food, clothing and housing of all citizens are being taken care of and in addition good quality education and health care are available.
All developed and most developing countries have achieved 99-100% literacy rates. In India half the children drop out before reaching the High School stage. Half of these are child labourers.
Countries which have achieved 99-100% literacy rates have done so by implementing the Common School System which implies all children have access to same quality of education system.
In India Kothari Commission recommended for Common School System and the inherent concept of Neighbourhood School in 1968. However, all governments since then have ignored this recommendation. In 2009 Right to (free and compulsory) Education was implemented which offered 25% reservation for poor children in all schools. However, governments are not serious about implementing this provision.
Now there are two types of education systems in India – one for the rich who send their children to private schools and other for the poor who have no choice but to send their children to government schools where the teacher doesn’t teach. In this manner the education system further increases the gap between the rich and the poor.
If all children are to have access to good quality education then Common School System will have to be implemented. The most straigthforward method of improving the quality of government schools is to make it compulsory for everybody receiving a government salary and the people’s representatives from the Panchayat members to the PM to send their children to government schools. If the people in the government and administration will not own the government schools who will?
We also invite other political parties to take a stand on this issue.
A one week demonstration is being organised from September 30 to October 6, 2014 at Laxman Mela Ground in Lucknow from 11 am to 12 noon every day.
Sandeep Pandey, Vice-President, Socialist Party (India)
Contact: Lohia Mazdoor Bhawan, Tufail Ahmed Marg, Narhi, Lucknow
Phone: 0522 2347365, M: 9616465984 (Abhishek Patel), e-mail: ashaashram@yahoo.com
