Rifts, Fissures, Cracks, Gaping Holes

Ref pmishra2 #40

[Why cannot we double the number of private schools?]

Absolutely. Take the example of engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu. Right now there are 250+ engineering colleges in just one state churning out code coolies. These code coolies -- be they Brahmins or Dalits -- once they get some job, realize that they got to perform on the job if they hope to keep the job. So they actually end up getting a work ethic. You want to see the results? Shiny new office buildings in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. Lots of scooters, motorcycles and cars on the road. People thronging the restaurants and bars. Jewellery stores having to hire security personnel to keep buyers OUT.

By all means, privatize all education. Then there will be none of this talk of strikes by teachers, strikes by school peons, etc.

[What is the constraint?]

There is no constraint. Come to any small town in Tamil Nadu and see the students throng the English-medium schools. Look at schools in Chennai that consistently send 10 of their students to IITs each year where all your money won`t buy your kid admission.

[If the teachers are absent, why cannot there be a protest?]

The only kind of protest is where you lynch a couple of these so-called ``teachers``. That would shape the rest of them up.

Ref masanamuthu #38

[I`m thinking of making money some day by claiming how a lower caste guy like me got discriminated and came out successful after overcoming a lot of hardships to a ``receptive`` audience.. :-)) ]

Nobody will come listen to you. There is more money to be gotten out of whining.

Point #2: You didn`t get discriminated AGAINST; you got discriminated FOR. People like me LOST so that you could get a professional education you wouldn`t have qualified for.

Ref HP #11

[““Why do state schools function so badly?” “Why are teachers not better trained and why do they not teach?” “Yes, yes, we are knowing that only people with the right accents can get into English medium schools.” “How will Dalit children cope with problems in the curriculum, the barriers in the social system within the schools, lack of help at home?”

I am kind of surprised that why the author is being called a sore loser when all he had brought out some issues in the education system. What makes him a sore loser? Is it being sore loser to discus problem facing India?]

You mean, you are planning to write an article on the Pakistani madrassahs?

Ref avkrishna #7

[Some of the people who criticize you here cannot understand that, the merit based admissions which they advocate is not perfect and is determined a lot by family wealth, the education of elders. We need to level the playing field for backward castes and reservations are one of the best way.]

How does the education of a previous generation contribute to the ``intelligence`` or ``determination`` of the next generation? If intelligence is genetic, then you are supporting the caste system. If it is not genetically inherited, then every generation has to stand or fall on its own merit.

Even this chinese guy gets it....

http://ia.rediff.com/money/2006/mar/22asoc.htm?q=tp&file=.htm

Q: Besides the predictable answer of infrastructure, what are India`s problem areas?

A: Ideology. Socialism is still ingrained in the minds of many in India.....

Revathy:

Yes, India has a serious problem of lack of good primary education for poor in general and low caste poor in particular. I am in favour of caste-based reservations in private schools and I also agree with the BJP that those reservations should be extended to the minority-run private institutions as well.

But this will only be tinkering with the problem. Even those low caste who make it under the reservations would most likely come from the creamy layer of the lower castes, so the incremental effect may not be very significant.

The root of the problem is the lack of attention paid to primary schooling. This is where resources have to be diverted. And it is not just a question of monetary resources; as soyasauce pointed out, there is a lot of corruption in government run schools. The lure of private tutoring has had a very serious effect on the quality of teaching in regular schools. Perhaps, a radical solution such as providing vouchers to poor parents which they can use in any school of their choice should be considered.

its very easy for indian states to increase their education spending by 4 folds..if they dismantle other nonsense state-owned beurocracies and PSUs ..e.g. dismantle the stupid tourism deparments of each state, electronic corporations, agro-products coporations and so on, and just the pension funds of employees will double spending for schools. but the commies will definately strike to protest this.

Re: # 68 nasah
[... Hindu matrimonial adds of educated kids in India Abroad or on Shadi com negates that feeling...]

True.... but I think it mostly reflects the parental mentality rather than the kids` themselves.... the kid probably wouldn`t care as long as he/she gets a good looking partner with good earning potential :)

it`s good to see that the educated Hindus are aware of the scourge of Casteism as a blot on the fabric of an otherwise tolerant Hindu society -- and I am sure Indian Hindus have advanced since Gandhi`s days in this direction -- but seeing the Hindu matrimonial adds of educated kids in India Abroad or on Shadi com negates that feeling.....

what`s needed is more and more articles like these of self-criticism and self- introspection.....without apologies for a decadent practice of yore for both the Hindus and even the Muslims.....of the subcontinent....

When I was a small kid, I used to visit a nearby Temple along with my father. The sight of too many beggars sitting outside the temple used to disgust me. One day I asked my father that when these beggars are sitting outside the temple for the whole day and God doesnt do anything for them then what is He going to do for us who come once or twice in a week to the temple?

My father replied that these beggars are made to sit outside the temple--so that in your pursuit of God, you donot forget that there many many poor people around who need your attention and care.

The above words of my father have left a profound effect on me.

Coming to the commies, yes we can throw them out of the country along with those who support them-- but let us not forget that then in our pursuit of ``God``, there will be nobody to remind us that there are poor people around in our country who need our attention and care.

Re: # 54

Abe Stuka,

Rashtravadi Narendrabhai Modi ko opoose kar ke commie ka rona mat ro? Pricks like u r any day a bigger problem than the commie. See my interact to DM. When are u and ur APNA types` taking Train to Pakistan (one way, no return ticket and surrender passport at the border).

Absolutely no Regards
Sanatani

Re: # 60

Throw Bengal out of the Union I agree, will look forward to the day when we can act so decisively.

Regards
Sanatani

If you make comparison with other countries then only you can come to some worthwhile conclusions. Variation in access to education exists in all countries. I think so we need objective index for comparison.

``Language, history, science, maths, these are the fundamentals of any curriculum. Yet getting acquainted with these skills, if not exactly mastering them, does not make a person educated.``

Indian education system does not impart basic enterprise skills. Even basic skill of ordering food in restaurants, taking a ride in bus/train, etc etc are all left to chance events in life of a person. Like sex education. Sometimes these ``real`` skills make or break future of a person. In USA a schoolgoer is taught how to drive a car. To drive a car you need a license. Earning a driver`s license is part of coming of age in USA. But you do not need a license to walk the street and find a place you wish to reach using walking as only ``technology`` that you use. Or using a bicycle or find your way about in a town. Most important skill that a schoolgoer in India will learn is to look up a number in telephone directory. Yet how many of us were formally trained to do that? How many of us made a telephone call from a PCO before graduating from school? There is a divide between those who made a telephone call in their school years and those who did not. So how about ``teaching`` how Indian PCO phone works? How about systematically making a list of ``real`` skills and make them part of curriculum?

re: private schools
I think private schools have ushered in a slow revolution in education in India. Even poor familes are sending their children to these schools where quality of education seems to be better than any govt schools.
This NY Times article talks about such a revolution.
( In this democracy of more than one billion people, an educational revolution is under way, its telltale signs the small children everywhere in uniforms and ties. From slums to villages, the march to private education, once reserved for the elite, is on.

On the four-mile stretch of road between this village in Bihar State, in the north, and the district capital, Hajipur, there are 17 private schools)
(``If anything should be free, it is primary education,`` said Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize-winning economist. No developed country, whether France or Japan, had educated itself using private schools, he noted.

A recent census in the slums of Hyderabad, in Andhra Pradesh, found that of 1,000 schools identified, two-thirds were private, according to James Tooley, a professor at the University of Newcastle in England who oversaw the research.

``In big cities, it`s more or less over,`` an economist, Jean Drèze, who helped write a national assessment of education in 1999, said of government primary education, although rural students depend heavily on government schooling. ``Within 10 to 15 years, government schools will be almost wiped out.``)

(But it has neglected elementary education. India spends only about 1.7 percent of gross domestic product on primary education, and 3.4 percent for education overall (compared with about 5 percent for Brazil). Up to 40 million children are out of school, something the government hopes will be remedied by a law passed in 2002 that made free and compulsory education a fundamental right for children up to 14.)
Sridhar

re: this article
A nice article
There is no doubt caste system is a big curse in India. It is a legacy of a mental sickness that pervaded the Hindu society in the past.
My hope is that with globalisation, caste system will become irrelevant.
Already, the strict hierarchial rule of the caste (where a carpenter`s son can only become a carpenter etc) has broken down completely at least in big cities, towns. In villges, old system prevails but will break down once globalisation spreads there.
Sridhar

Calling china a communist country is insult to communism. Its a dictatorship headed by a small group of people.