Pleasures of reading are numerous. Reading of books magazines and news papers has a great impact on our minds .Reading makes us cultured and refined. Most people wish they read more. It is an activity that is both fun and enlightening. It can help us to be more knowledgeable and successful. However, it is an activity that many people don’t engage in very much. According to the 1999 National Household Education Survey, 50% of the U.S. population aged 25 and over read a newspaper at least once a week, read one or more magazines regularly, and had read a book in the past 6 months. What does this mean? It means that 50% of the population hasn’t read a book in the last six months!
Looking at the other end of the spectrum, research shows that if you read ten books a year, you are in the top few percent of all people as readers. Simply stated, it doesn’t take much to be well read, but we do need to know how to get started. The following are ten suggestions to help you strengthen your reading habit – ways to find and make more time for reading.
1. Always have a book around. Don’t go anywhere without reading material. Keep magazines or short stories in your bathroom. Always have something in your briefcase to read. Having things available makes it easier for you to steal otherwise lost moments.
2. Set a reading goal. Determine how much time you want to spend reading, or how many books you want to read over time. Your goal might be a book a month, one per week, or it might be to read 30 minutes a day. As your habit builds, you might set higher goals. Setting a goal is the first step towards reading more.
3. Keep a log. Keep a list of the books you have read, or keep track of how much time you read each day. You might keep these lists in your journal or your day planner.
4. Keep a list. Make a list of things you want to read in the future. Ask your friends and colleagues what they are reading. Watch for recommendations in the newspaper and magazines. Once you start looking for good books, you’ll find them everywhere. This is a great way to keep your enthusiasm up. By knowing what great stuff you want to read, you will reinforce your reading habit.
5. Turn off the television. Many people say they just don’t have enough time. Television is one of our major time consumers. Make your television watching more conscious and less habitual
6. Listen when you can’t read. Use your commute and other time spent in the car to listen! There are great audio versions of all sorts of books. Whether you want to “read” fiction, the latest self-help or diet book, it is probably available on tape. Experience ideas and imagination that reading a book can.
7. Join a reading group or book club. Reading groups typically meet once a month to discuss a book they have all decided to read. Committing to the group provides a bit more impetus to finish the book, and gives you a great forum for discussion and socialization around the book’s themes.
8. Visit the library or bookstore often. You have your list, right? So you’ll have some ideas of what you are looking for when you walk in. But there is more to be gained by walking through places where books reside than just to make a transaction. Take time to browse! Let your eyes find things of interest. Let serendipity happen. Browsing will feed your mental need to read, and give you plenty of new things to read.
9. Build your own strategy. Decide when reading fits your schedule. And there is more to your strategy than just timing. Make your own decisions about reading It is ok to be reading more than one book at once. It is ok to stop reading something before you finish if it isn’t holding your interest. It is ok to skim the book, getting what you want or need, without reading every page. Determine what works best for you, develop your own beliefs and ideas - then make them work for you.
10.Drop everything and read. Many schools have introduced this concept and have succeeded a lot .When the teacher calls for ,that’s just what they do. They read now. That is my last piece of advice for you. Do it. Just get started .Make it DEAR time .Now to READ.
Let us cherish and nourish the good old reading habit.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Interview with Mr. Fabian, Landmark
From 1987 starting the first Landmark in Nungambakkam Chennai, they went on to open in Bangalore , Bombay, Hyderabad, Kokatta and two more in Chennai alone. Here are the titbits of the interview.
Q : Have the number of readers increased or decreased compared to the past?
A : It has increased. People are reading more
Q : How do you rate the readers of the present time with the readers of yester years? any change you find with the readers?
A: Most of the readers who come are youngsters. They are not only going for fiction or literature but also for other bestsellers like philosophy, self development, business more than literature which used to be the most common topic for readers.
Q : What age group of people generally frequent your bookstall? Children, youth, Adult, research scholars.
A:Youngsters and adults. Above forty are the good customers.
Q : What kind of books they prefer?
A :Youth prefer self development books. Most of them go for particular authors. Harry potter was not a favourite of children but they prefer to watch the movie. Research oriented books…are sold better
Q : Has the sale of books increased ? You have opened two more branches in Chennai itself.
A: Yes
Q : Which is read more? Magazines, Books or Newspapers?
A : Books are read more than magazines and newspapers.
Q : Do you strongly feel that television or internet have the reduced the reading habit?
A: No they have supplemented. People instead of wasting time in the bookstore, they spend time to browse through the internet to see the basic details and the availability of the book and they come to buy. Internet is used only for reference. Reading and books were not at all replaced by the internet.
Q : Any boom in sale in the recent years, like the Harry Potter?
A: Harry Potter had a good sale. But in the recent times there was a remarkable sale with the book, “How Opel Mehta got kissed got wild and got a life” by Kavya Viswanathan, 18 years old about the campus life. She copied 40 pages from another author. But the book was banned. This had big sale even in our store. Similarly the book Da vinci Code by Dan Brown is getting sold very well even now. Anything related to Da Vinci Code also sold. For quite a long time this is being sold like hot cakes.
Q : Youngsters are going through lot of books. But are they really buying?
A : Yes. Many come and sit here and read full day and then buy books. I am positive about the reading habit of youth. They come not only to Landmark but also to Higginbotham, Odyssey, IIT books are the best sellers.
Anything for you is from IIM . Such books are sold well. Such books ate picked up by youth. Particularly the graduates.
Q : Have the number of readers increased or decreased compared to the past?
A : It has increased. People are reading more
Q : How do you rate the readers of the present time with the readers of yester years? any change you find with the readers?
A: Most of the readers who come are youngsters. They are not only going for fiction or literature but also for other bestsellers like philosophy, self development, business more than literature which used to be the most common topic for readers.
Q : What age group of people generally frequent your bookstall? Children, youth, Adult, research scholars.
A:Youngsters and adults. Above forty are the good customers.
Q : What kind of books they prefer?
A :Youth prefer self development books. Most of them go for particular authors. Harry potter was not a favourite of children but they prefer to watch the movie. Research oriented books…are sold better
Q : Has the sale of books increased ? You have opened two more branches in Chennai itself.
A: Yes
Q : Which is read more? Magazines, Books or Newspapers?
A : Books are read more than magazines and newspapers.
Q : Do you strongly feel that television or internet have the reduced the reading habit?
A: No they have supplemented. People instead of wasting time in the bookstore, they spend time to browse through the internet to see the basic details and the availability of the book and they come to buy. Internet is used only for reference. Reading and books were not at all replaced by the internet.
Q : Any boom in sale in the recent years, like the Harry Potter?
A: Harry Potter had a good sale. But in the recent times there was a remarkable sale with the book, “How Opel Mehta got kissed got wild and got a life” by Kavya Viswanathan, 18 years old about the campus life. She copied 40 pages from another author. But the book was banned. This had big sale even in our store. Similarly the book Da vinci Code by Dan Brown is getting sold very well even now. Anything related to Da Vinci Code also sold. For quite a long time this is being sold like hot cakes.
Q : Youngsters are going through lot of books. But are they really buying?
A : Yes. Many come and sit here and read full day and then buy books. I am positive about the reading habit of youth. They come not only to Landmark but also to Higginbotham, Odyssey, IIT books are the best sellers.
Anything for you is from IIM . Such books are sold well. Such books ate picked up by youth. Particularly the graduates.
Good Old Reading
To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. -W. Somerset Maugham
In an age when browsing the net, playing with funky handsets and passing non-stop SMSs seem to be the order of the day, reading a book in a peaceful corner of a library has become an archaic idea for most people. While technology is slowly taking a steady control over individual lives, the reading habit is fast vanishing into thin air. The city libraries are a mute witness to this. They present a gloomy picture of the gradual depletion of voracious readers who used to flock the libraries every evening. Apart from a few elderly people and a handful of students, the libraries wear a deserted look most of the time.
These libraries are neither stacked nor maintained well. Hundreds of books lie on the shelves gathering dust, and most of them remain ungrouped. Librarians blame it on the lack of staff and proper funds for renovation.
Much after the Internet boom, reading was almost wiped across you lives as the interactive medium of images was so engrossing that it left little room for the dotted line. With the dish antenna entering our reverie-like homes, there was literally such a hue and cry for imagery all around that somehow simple pleasures like an intelligent game of scrabble or even a small get-together of families was a lost feature!
A decade ago if someone said that he or she hadn’t read a Tagore or a Tolstoy, that person was looked down upon by others. There was a strong sense of accountability and responsibility among the youth. They were much more conscious and well read because at that time ‘simple living and high thinking’ was the dictum. But with the gradual advent of globalisation and nuclear family structures, life has become mechanical and money-oriented. Students are constantly being whipped for performance and the concept of intrinsic value addition is now a long lost idea. Despite being educated and brought up in a rational society, there are times when we fail to understand the difference between intelligence and wisdom! Perhaps it’s only when you observe and understand the world around you, do you realize that difference can be altered for increasing your pace of the learning curve.
Sadly, the reading habit is on the decline among children as well. Ordinarily kids dislike reading material that is dedicatedly made for them as their appreciation for listening skills are so honed that school sub consciously makes them listen to tales and instructions. Popeye and his gang, aided by multimedia games have drowned the shuffle of the pages. Though the Harry Potter mania gripped children these days, it could just be another ephemeral phase withering away sooner or later.
“But why blame it on the kids for all this wean-off-from-reading culture? It is the parents who are responsible for this,” says an English professor. Parents blame it on the mounting pressure on the children in schools and tuition classes.
“My son hardly gets time to read story books. In the little time he gets after finishing the home work, all he wants to do is watch the cartoon channel or play video games,” says Vijaylakshmi whose nine-year-old son ”is glued to the idiot” box whenever he gets the time. The other problem is that there is a tremendous pressure upon students to perform and excel.
The situation is no better among college students. Library for them becomes popular only before the final examination. It is then that the students, in a panic state, just browse through their course related books.
There are also regular visitors to the libraries among them, though they constitute a small minority who frequently borrow books. ‘’But more often than not, students visit the libraries for their research work rather than reading a book for their own pleasure. In fact, nowadays libraries have become common hangouts for the college students,’’ remarks another professor.
But what is the reason behind this wean-off-from-reading attitude? ‘’Parents are so psyched about the future of their children that most of the times it is they who discourage their wards from reading any other book than their textbooks,’’ the professors say.
Tough and intense competition has further deepened the insecurity among the middle class families. ‘’But they fail to understand that for an all-round development of an individual, reading habit is essential.’’ If at the primary level, the habit of reading books is not cultivated among children, then at the college level it becomes very difficult to develop the habit. ‘’That is why we feel that extra reading should be made compulsory at the school level,’’ they say.
Some assert that reading is not a diversion from serious tasks; rather it contributes to the fulfilment of those tasks. ‘’At a time when it is not rare to find students using dubious means and short-uts to pass examinations, the reading skill, if instilled in them, will make them savour learning and also increase their faith in themselves and their abilities.’’
In spite of such refrains, books continue to find their way to the right readers. Libraries in the city may not boast of good attendance, but they do attract ardent readers, who still exist somewhere in the midst of this discouraging scenario. That many contemporary writers are coming out with masterpieces on different subjects is an indicator to this fact. At a time when recreation, enjoyment and mechanical learning have become operative words, it is reassuring to find that bibliophiles are there. It does not matter whether these such booklovers access books on-line or browse them physically, before buying them.
However, reading has probably survived a plethora of distractions and has yet maintained to be some of choicest hobbies one would choose to possess! Avid readers tend to have a better grasp on realities and are known to be better judges of people. Of course the type of books you read quite generally depends on your attitude and personality! But reading as a habit has always allowed to nurture a wholesome sense of well being. Being a total book worm it wasn’t difficult to let my brother also accept this so-far genetic habit, but it did take quite a while for me to sell this idea to him! Most of us read books to lull ourselves to sleep.
Walking Tall with a Book
Perhaps we as human beings, distinct as we are from the rest of the living species need to build up this habit of reading as especially for kids it’s really difficult for parents to make the switch from a totally pictured short comic to a immensely boring book of at least a hundred pages, specifically one that has no images or diagrams. I faced that problem myself so I don’t blame any kid who’d frown at the idea.
And as we age the books also tend to age with us. With our professional lifestyles, it’s difficult to manage a non-fiction, with deadlines set for the next day’s presentation! After all who’d want a taste of the boss’s ire! Many of us miss out on reading in this very manner and sadly it is only in times of sorrow or grief that we seek refuge in reading some sensible stuff that is either in the form of a ’Live it up!’, book or some of us might be inclined towards religion!Of course all of this reading comes only next to our listening to others talk about optimism when we are down an out! From all of this I can only conclude that if you choose to make reading your constant companion, you’ll never walk alone! Besides you’ll have more to discover in life than you’d ever thought about! Think about it, somewhere, in some bright corner of the world, there’s some book waiting for you!
In an age when browsing the net, playing with funky handsets and passing non-stop SMSs seem to be the order of the day, reading a book in a peaceful corner of a library has become an archaic idea for most people. While technology is slowly taking a steady control over individual lives, the reading habit is fast vanishing into thin air. The city libraries are a mute witness to this. They present a gloomy picture of the gradual depletion of voracious readers who used to flock the libraries every evening. Apart from a few elderly people and a handful of students, the libraries wear a deserted look most of the time.
These libraries are neither stacked nor maintained well. Hundreds of books lie on the shelves gathering dust, and most of them remain ungrouped. Librarians blame it on the lack of staff and proper funds for renovation.
Much after the Internet boom, reading was almost wiped across you lives as the interactive medium of images was so engrossing that it left little room for the dotted line. With the dish antenna entering our reverie-like homes, there was literally such a hue and cry for imagery all around that somehow simple pleasures like an intelligent game of scrabble or even a small get-together of families was a lost feature!
A decade ago if someone said that he or she hadn’t read a Tagore or a Tolstoy, that person was looked down upon by others. There was a strong sense of accountability and responsibility among the youth. They were much more conscious and well read because at that time ‘simple living and high thinking’ was the dictum. But with the gradual advent of globalisation and nuclear family structures, life has become mechanical and money-oriented. Students are constantly being whipped for performance and the concept of intrinsic value addition is now a long lost idea. Despite being educated and brought up in a rational society, there are times when we fail to understand the difference between intelligence and wisdom! Perhaps it’s only when you observe and understand the world around you, do you realize that difference can be altered for increasing your pace of the learning curve.
Sadly, the reading habit is on the decline among children as well. Ordinarily kids dislike reading material that is dedicatedly made for them as their appreciation for listening skills are so honed that school sub consciously makes them listen to tales and instructions. Popeye and his gang, aided by multimedia games have drowned the shuffle of the pages. Though the Harry Potter mania gripped children these days, it could just be another ephemeral phase withering away sooner or later.
“But why blame it on the kids for all this wean-off-from-reading culture? It is the parents who are responsible for this,” says an English professor. Parents blame it on the mounting pressure on the children in schools and tuition classes.
“My son hardly gets time to read story books. In the little time he gets after finishing the home work, all he wants to do is watch the cartoon channel or play video games,” says Vijaylakshmi whose nine-year-old son ”is glued to the idiot” box whenever he gets the time. The other problem is that there is a tremendous pressure upon students to perform and excel.
The situation is no better among college students. Library for them becomes popular only before the final examination. It is then that the students, in a panic state, just browse through their course related books.
There are also regular visitors to the libraries among them, though they constitute a small minority who frequently borrow books. ‘’But more often than not, students visit the libraries for their research work rather than reading a book for their own pleasure. In fact, nowadays libraries have become common hangouts for the college students,’’ remarks another professor.
But what is the reason behind this wean-off-from-reading attitude? ‘’Parents are so psyched about the future of their children that most of the times it is they who discourage their wards from reading any other book than their textbooks,’’ the professors say.
Tough and intense competition has further deepened the insecurity among the middle class families. ‘’But they fail to understand that for an all-round development of an individual, reading habit is essential.’’ If at the primary level, the habit of reading books is not cultivated among children, then at the college level it becomes very difficult to develop the habit. ‘’That is why we feel that extra reading should be made compulsory at the school level,’’ they say.
Some assert that reading is not a diversion from serious tasks; rather it contributes to the fulfilment of those tasks. ‘’At a time when it is not rare to find students using dubious means and short-uts to pass examinations, the reading skill, if instilled in them, will make them savour learning and also increase their faith in themselves and their abilities.’’
In spite of such refrains, books continue to find their way to the right readers. Libraries in the city may not boast of good attendance, but they do attract ardent readers, who still exist somewhere in the midst of this discouraging scenario. That many contemporary writers are coming out with masterpieces on different subjects is an indicator to this fact. At a time when recreation, enjoyment and mechanical learning have become operative words, it is reassuring to find that bibliophiles are there. It does not matter whether these such booklovers access books on-line or browse them physically, before buying them.
However, reading has probably survived a plethora of distractions and has yet maintained to be some of choicest hobbies one would choose to possess! Avid readers tend to have a better grasp on realities and are known to be better judges of people. Of course the type of books you read quite generally depends on your attitude and personality! But reading as a habit has always allowed to nurture a wholesome sense of well being. Being a total book worm it wasn’t difficult to let my brother also accept this so-far genetic habit, but it did take quite a while for me to sell this idea to him! Most of us read books to lull ourselves to sleep.
Walking Tall with a Book
Perhaps we as human beings, distinct as we are from the rest of the living species need to build up this habit of reading as especially for kids it’s really difficult for parents to make the switch from a totally pictured short comic to a immensely boring book of at least a hundred pages, specifically one that has no images or diagrams. I faced that problem myself so I don’t blame any kid who’d frown at the idea.
And as we age the books also tend to age with us. With our professional lifestyles, it’s difficult to manage a non-fiction, with deadlines set for the next day’s presentation! After all who’d want a taste of the boss’s ire! Many of us miss out on reading in this very manner and sadly it is only in times of sorrow or grief that we seek refuge in reading some sensible stuff that is either in the form of a ’Live it up!’, book or some of us might be inclined towards religion!Of course all of this reading comes only next to our listening to others talk about optimism when we are down an out! From all of this I can only conclude that if you choose to make reading your constant companion, you’ll never walk alone! Besides you’ll have more to discover in life than you’d ever thought about! Think about it, somewhere, in some bright corner of the world, there’s some book waiting for you!
Globalise Justice - Globalise Peace
A reflection on international day of peace
Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, who supervised the creation of the first atomic bomb, appeared before a congressional Committee. They inquired of him if there was any defence against the weapon.
"Certainly," the great physicist replied.
"And that is," Dr. Oppenheimer looked over the hushed, expectant audience and softly said: "peace."
The warring world is torn into factions and keep fighting. The unrest and bloodletting go on and on. While such wars and unrests become more common, people long for the days of peace and serenity. Seldom do they realize in this world of advertisement and attractions that all these unrests are symptoms of injustice. Behind every war, behind every tussle there is a problem of unequal sharing of wealth. There will always be wars and unrest as long as there is inequality and injustice.
Any war between nations begins from a man’s heart. Nations have no existence apart from their people. If every person in the world loved peace, every nation would love peace. If all men refused to fight one another and refuse to be unjust to one another, nations could not be unjust and as a result will not fight one another.
September 17, is the International Day of peace.
‘Justice and Peace’ is a phrase that in church circles rolls off the tongue almost as easily as ‘eggs and bacon,’ but what does it actually mean? Peace! We think we understand the meaning well enough: no fighting, no abuse, good manners. The sign of peace is the gesture of a community at peace with itself.
But real peace means much more than not fighting. Pope Paul VI once said that ‘Peace is the fruit of anxious daily care to see that everyone lives in the justice that God intends.’ "Right at the heart of the Gospel," said the bishops of the world in 1971, "lie the work we must do for justice."
We are very good at charity as an immediate response to suffering. Catholic congregations are generous indeed when it comes to appeal collections. But working for justice means trying to do something about the causes of suffering and poverty as well a relieving its immediate symptoms. It is not enough to put band – aids on the wounds of society. We need to strike it at the root and remove its causes. That applies well to spiritual realm too.
Weapons of mass destruction keep flowing to the developing nations. While the people are distracted with war the weapon supplying nations are busy having an eye on the natural resources and oil deposits of the nation. Restraining the MNCs from their exploitation of the poorer countries is today a major act of justice that will bring peace.
It is a scandal, for example, that 15 million children under the age of six die every year from starvation and disease while the world still spends about eight hundred thousand million dollars ($800,000,000,000) a year on weapons. The world is taking a path of violence to attain peace and order. A great irony indeed !
St. Peter himself came to know that, "God has no favourites." Many extreme nationalists, even committed ones, need to be reminded of these words of St. Peter. We see young men getting trained for heroism in the military, and I became determined to show that the courage of the non-violent Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, is just as powerful as that of the violent heroes. " Do not fear the words of violent people but the silence of honest ones" said Martin Luther King. Gandhi was feared not for his violence but for this refusal to budge to the British; for his non-violent satyagraha. "The only sure guarantee of peace is morality and justice," says Goldwin Smith.
History hides more than it can reveal, particularly in matters of portraying martyrs for peace and justice. These martyrs broke their image to set the image of the society right. The society basks in their glory and thrives on their justice works. So peace is yet to be built on a strong foundation. It has to be a daily affair. We need to pray God to keep sending prophets who will destroy injustice and lay foundation for peace.
No doubt peace has its victories, but what the world needs is a victory that has its peace. So, to be enduring, a peace must be endurable. A deceitful peace is more hurtful than open war. The more just we are in our dealings, the more sincere we are in our dealings, the more peaceful we will be. Amidst slogans of globalization there has to be the most prominent one; and that is: Globalise not war but justice.
There can be no PEACE without JUSTICE.
Glorious Steve
Editor
Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, who supervised the creation of the first atomic bomb, appeared before a congressional Committee. They inquired of him if there was any defence against the weapon.
"Certainly," the great physicist replied.
"And that is," Dr. Oppenheimer looked over the hushed, expectant audience and softly said: "peace."
The warring world is torn into factions and keep fighting. The unrest and bloodletting go on and on. While such wars and unrests become more common, people long for the days of peace and serenity. Seldom do they realize in this world of advertisement and attractions that all these unrests are symptoms of injustice. Behind every war, behind every tussle there is a problem of unequal sharing of wealth. There will always be wars and unrest as long as there is inequality and injustice.
Any war between nations begins from a man’s heart. Nations have no existence apart from their people. If every person in the world loved peace, every nation would love peace. If all men refused to fight one another and refuse to be unjust to one another, nations could not be unjust and as a result will not fight one another.
September 17, is the International Day of peace.
‘Justice and Peace’ is a phrase that in church circles rolls off the tongue almost as easily as ‘eggs and bacon,’ but what does it actually mean? Peace! We think we understand the meaning well enough: no fighting, no abuse, good manners. The sign of peace is the gesture of a community at peace with itself.
But real peace means much more than not fighting. Pope Paul VI once said that ‘Peace is the fruit of anxious daily care to see that everyone lives in the justice that God intends.’ "Right at the heart of the Gospel," said the bishops of the world in 1971, "lie the work we must do for justice."
We are very good at charity as an immediate response to suffering. Catholic congregations are generous indeed when it comes to appeal collections. But working for justice means trying to do something about the causes of suffering and poverty as well a relieving its immediate symptoms. It is not enough to put band – aids on the wounds of society. We need to strike it at the root and remove its causes. That applies well to spiritual realm too.
Weapons of mass destruction keep flowing to the developing nations. While the people are distracted with war the weapon supplying nations are busy having an eye on the natural resources and oil deposits of the nation. Restraining the MNCs from their exploitation of the poorer countries is today a major act of justice that will bring peace.
It is a scandal, for example, that 15 million children under the age of six die every year from starvation and disease while the world still spends about eight hundred thousand million dollars ($800,000,000,000) a year on weapons. The world is taking a path of violence to attain peace and order. A great irony indeed !
St. Peter himself came to know that, "God has no favourites." Many extreme nationalists, even committed ones, need to be reminded of these words of St. Peter. We see young men getting trained for heroism in the military, and I became determined to show that the courage of the non-violent Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, is just as powerful as that of the violent heroes. " Do not fear the words of violent people but the silence of honest ones" said Martin Luther King. Gandhi was feared not for his violence but for this refusal to budge to the British; for his non-violent satyagraha. "The only sure guarantee of peace is morality and justice," says Goldwin Smith.
History hides more than it can reveal, particularly in matters of portraying martyrs for peace and justice. These martyrs broke their image to set the image of the society right. The society basks in their glory and thrives on their justice works. So peace is yet to be built on a strong foundation. It has to be a daily affair. We need to pray God to keep sending prophets who will destroy injustice and lay foundation for peace.
No doubt peace has its victories, but what the world needs is a victory that has its peace. So, to be enduring, a peace must be endurable. A deceitful peace is more hurtful than open war. The more just we are in our dealings, the more sincere we are in our dealings, the more peaceful we will be. Amidst slogans of globalization there has to be the most prominent one; and that is: Globalise not war but justice.
There can be no PEACE without JUSTICE.
Glorious Steve
Editor
Religious Divide
Men of sense are all of one religion. But men of sense never tell what it is.
India is a land not only blessed with cultural and linguistic conglomeration but also with multiple religion adding to the unfathomable riches of this nation’s heritage. Religions like Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Hinduism, Isalm, Judaism, Shintoism and various others decorate the Indian heritage.
Think of two Indian Muslims with two very different experiences of their homeland. While one chooses to serve the nation by joining the police force while the other feeling sorry about the state of affairs leading to poverty and inequality joins a terrorist organization. Both are Indian Muslims. They began their careers simultaneously. But they could hardly have chosen more different paths. While the policeman was taking his civil service exams, the other was being admitted as a full time activist in a fundamentalist group.
This may be true with every religion. But the truth is that the two share a fundamental burden: in the eyes of many Hindus, uly belong in India. The origins of this antagonism are centuries old. In essence, hard line Hindus regard as a national humiliation the Islamic influence and the Christian influence and for that matter any other religious influence other than Hinduism. This distrust of other religions particularly Islam has only increased since independence in 1947: modern India was founded in the Muslim-Hindu bloodletting of partition of the subcontinent, in which a million people died, and since then tensions have boiled over into three wars against Islamic neighbour Pakistan. Today, much of the religious tension in the region stems from India’s rule over Muslim dominated Kashmir in the face of strident Pakistani opposition. The war on terror and the 1998 election of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on a Hindu nationalist agenda, which focused debate on physically undoing the Mughal invasion by razing mosques built over Hindu temples, have lent a veil of legitimacy to India’s lurking anti-Muslim prejudice. “Muslims are a despised minority, disliked by a large section of the majority,” wrote Muslim commentator Firoz Bakht Ahmed in the Hindu news paper.
Indian Muslims do have their high achievers: President Abdul Kalam; Wipro chairman and India’s richest man, Azim Premji, and a host of Bollywood stars. But for every President or Muslim tech entrepreneur or movie star or policeman, there are 1,000 others with tales of discrimination in the workplace or the education system, harassment by wayward police officers or segregation into ghettos by Hindu landlords. Whatever the causes, there is no disputing the fact that Indian Muslims today are less educated, poorer and live shorter, less secure and less healthy lives than their Hindu counterparts. Census figures paint a bleak picture of their plight. In rural India, 29% of Muslims earn less than $6 a month, compared with 26% of Hindus; in the cities (where a third of all Muslims live) the gap rises to 40% vs. 22%. Some 13% of India’s population is Muslim, yet Muslims account for just 3% of government employees, and an even smaller percentage are employed by private Hindu businesses. Meanwhile, in the cities, 30% of Muslims are illiterate, vs. 19% of Hindus. Nor are any of these indices improving.
India’s Muslims are also far more likely than Hindus to be victims of violent attacks. In all the communal riots since independence, official police records reveal that three-quarters of the lives lost and properties destroyed were Muslim, a figure that climbed to 85% during last year’s riots in Gujarat. The Gujarat authorities even went so far as to price Muslim lives below those of Hindus, offering $2,050 in state compensation for Muslims killed but double that for the riots’ 58 Hindu victims. “There is often a tendency in India to treat Muslims as them rather than us,” says K.C. Tyagi, former leader of the moderate Hindu Samajwadi Party. “And this tendency does have terrible manifestations. Even today, by and large, Muslims have not been admitted to what we call the Indian mainstream.” The portion of the population affected by this systemic discrimination is staggering: India’s Muslim “minority” numbers 150 million people (vs. 850 million Hindus)—after Indonesia, the second-largest Islamic community in the world. Religious divide stems from the unequal distribution of wealth. It has its roots in violation of fundamental rights. Every demand for human rights is termed as a terrorism. W
India is a land not only blessed with cultural and linguistic conglomeration but also with multiple religion adding to the unfathomable riches of this nation’s heritage. Religions like Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Hinduism, Isalm, Judaism, Shintoism and various others decorate the Indian heritage.
Think of two Indian Muslims with two very different experiences of their homeland. While one chooses to serve the nation by joining the police force while the other feeling sorry about the state of affairs leading to poverty and inequality joins a terrorist organization. Both are Indian Muslims. They began their careers simultaneously. But they could hardly have chosen more different paths. While the policeman was taking his civil service exams, the other was being admitted as a full time activist in a fundamentalist group.
This may be true with every religion. But the truth is that the two share a fundamental burden: in the eyes of many Hindus, uly belong in India. The origins of this antagonism are centuries old. In essence, hard line Hindus regard as a national humiliation the Islamic influence and the Christian influence and for that matter any other religious influence other than Hinduism. This distrust of other religions particularly Islam has only increased since independence in 1947: modern India was founded in the Muslim-Hindu bloodletting of partition of the subcontinent, in which a million people died, and since then tensions have boiled over into three wars against Islamic neighbour Pakistan. Today, much of the religious tension in the region stems from India’s rule over Muslim dominated Kashmir in the face of strident Pakistani opposition. The war on terror and the 1998 election of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on a Hindu nationalist agenda, which focused debate on physically undoing the Mughal invasion by razing mosques built over Hindu temples, have lent a veil of legitimacy to India’s lurking anti-Muslim prejudice. “Muslims are a despised minority, disliked by a large section of the majority,” wrote Muslim commentator Firoz Bakht Ahmed in the Hindu news paper.
Indian Muslims do have their high achievers: President Abdul Kalam; Wipro chairman and India’s richest man, Azim Premji, and a host of Bollywood stars. But for every President or Muslim tech entrepreneur or movie star or policeman, there are 1,000 others with tales of discrimination in the workplace or the education system, harassment by wayward police officers or segregation into ghettos by Hindu landlords. Whatever the causes, there is no disputing the fact that Indian Muslims today are less educated, poorer and live shorter, less secure and less healthy lives than their Hindu counterparts. Census figures paint a bleak picture of their plight. In rural India, 29% of Muslims earn less than $6 a month, compared with 26% of Hindus; in the cities (where a third of all Muslims live) the gap rises to 40% vs. 22%. Some 13% of India’s population is Muslim, yet Muslims account for just 3% of government employees, and an even smaller percentage are employed by private Hindu businesses. Meanwhile, in the cities, 30% of Muslims are illiterate, vs. 19% of Hindus. Nor are any of these indices improving.
India’s Muslims are also far more likely than Hindus to be victims of violent attacks. In all the communal riots since independence, official police records reveal that three-quarters of the lives lost and properties destroyed were Muslim, a figure that climbed to 85% during last year’s riots in Gujarat. The Gujarat authorities even went so far as to price Muslim lives below those of Hindus, offering $2,050 in state compensation for Muslims killed but double that for the riots’ 58 Hindu victims. “There is often a tendency in India to treat Muslims as them rather than us,” says K.C. Tyagi, former leader of the moderate Hindu Samajwadi Party. “And this tendency does have terrible manifestations. Even today, by and large, Muslims have not been admitted to what we call the Indian mainstream.” The portion of the population affected by this systemic discrimination is staggering: India’s Muslim “minority” numbers 150 million people (vs. 850 million Hindus)—after Indonesia, the second-largest Islamic community in the world. Religious divide stems from the unequal distribution of wealth. It has its roots in violation of fundamental rights. Every demand for human rights is termed as a terrorism. W
Civic Sense, Cleanliness and Unskilled Human Resource
One of the first things that strikes a person entering India, is the squalor and filth. What aggravates the whole situation is the apparent lack of concern among citizens. It becomes second nature to people walking on the street, to nimbly sidestep the dirt and germ filled puddles and wrinkle their noses at the stench of decaying rubbish strewn on the streets, while they carelessly flick away their own food wrappers or send streams of spit flying across the road.
The passer-by politely averts his eyes from the man at this corner who is watering a tree with his personalized brand of fluid fertiliser, while he himself finds another tree at another corner for his own purpose.
Pan chewing is a common habit among most people. What is unforgivable is the contemptible habit of sending out red liquid missiles of spit and betel juice. Not a building, wall or corner escapes this onslaught. The tell-tale signs can be seen splattered on the walls even through the grills of an elevator in motion.
Consider the scene in a private hospital toilet. Mud and dirt lie thick on the floors. There is running water (surprised?) but the toilet flush does not work. The all-pervading stench of stale urine is nauseating. Outside, the cleaner meticulously dusts the floors making sure that the broom is held a measured 6 cm away from the floor and that the dust is undisturbed.
The saddest and most ironic aspect of this state of affairs is the stock response that it elicits from the citizens, even educated ones. A general shrug, a helpless shake of the head and the comment, “You really can’t do anything about a country like India. It is too vast and the population is too massive to be controlled.” Our streets display more eloquently the state of affairs of our so called human resource about which our ministers keep boasting too often. Whether educated or uneducated, literate or illiterate all our human resource is unskilled when it comes to practice.
Perhaps I am just plain stupid, but for the life of me, I cannot figure out what the rising population has to do with betel spit and public defecation! Aren’t we making the population the scapegoat for everything? I honestly wonder how many people spit on the walls inside their own homes, urinate in their own corridors or throw wrappers about in their living rooms. In a bid to keep their houses clean, they dirty the streets. If we respect, understand and practice cleanliness within the confines of our own homes, why do we forsake it like a discarded jacket the moment we step out on the streets? Why does the Indian psyche find it so difficult to accept that they are the citizens of the whole country and not just the four walls of their home?
Indians, who have had the chance to visit other countries, come back time and again with tales of lands, where the streets are clean and where the “system” works. Expatriate Indians also try to maintain certain dignified standards in their behaviour in keeping with the norms of their place of residence. What impressions do foreign tourists take back about India?
The enormity of the problem makes escapism an easy response. “What difference would my effort make against the fact that millions of others are doing the opposite? say even educated people. But should that deter me from continuing to do my bit? I mean, is it necessary to join the multitude and become a litterbug just because everyone else is. It may not seem like doing much but every action does produce a reaction perhaps not immediately; perhaps only much later and after repeated attempts.
Where are all those unemployed young men who get sucked into various street gangs? They use the power of the group to propagate fear and terror among the citizens. Why don’t they use the same terror-inspiring tactics to create a clean environment in their own neighbourhood? If each gang worked for the betterment of its own area, think of the cleanliness that ‘would result in the whole city.
Perhaps I sound idealistic and my solutions simplistic but the fact remains that I feel concerned about the nature of the problem. I also know that wherever I live, I will never be able to carelessly litter a place or spit in public places or perform such other anti-social actions. I am quite sure that the same holds true for many people in India. But the civic sense of the people has perhaps been dulled by years of apathy and inaction.
Taking out processions, yelling slogans, fighting for one’s rights, initiating strikes and in general harnessing public opinion against an unjust act, especially by someone in authority , are part of the democratic process in India. We expect much from our country and the Government in power. Has anyone stopped to wonder what we return to our motherland? Mounds of dirt, rubbish and an all-pervading stink?
The passer-by politely averts his eyes from the man at this corner who is watering a tree with his personalized brand of fluid fertiliser, while he himself finds another tree at another corner for his own purpose.
Pan chewing is a common habit among most people. What is unforgivable is the contemptible habit of sending out red liquid missiles of spit and betel juice. Not a building, wall or corner escapes this onslaught. The tell-tale signs can be seen splattered on the walls even through the grills of an elevator in motion.
Consider the scene in a private hospital toilet. Mud and dirt lie thick on the floors. There is running water (surprised?) but the toilet flush does not work. The all-pervading stench of stale urine is nauseating. Outside, the cleaner meticulously dusts the floors making sure that the broom is held a measured 6 cm away from the floor and that the dust is undisturbed.
The saddest and most ironic aspect of this state of affairs is the stock response that it elicits from the citizens, even educated ones. A general shrug, a helpless shake of the head and the comment, “You really can’t do anything about a country like India. It is too vast and the population is too massive to be controlled.” Our streets display more eloquently the state of affairs of our so called human resource about which our ministers keep boasting too often. Whether educated or uneducated, literate or illiterate all our human resource is unskilled when it comes to practice.
Perhaps I am just plain stupid, but for the life of me, I cannot figure out what the rising population has to do with betel spit and public defecation! Aren’t we making the population the scapegoat for everything? I honestly wonder how many people spit on the walls inside their own homes, urinate in their own corridors or throw wrappers about in their living rooms. In a bid to keep their houses clean, they dirty the streets. If we respect, understand and practice cleanliness within the confines of our own homes, why do we forsake it like a discarded jacket the moment we step out on the streets? Why does the Indian psyche find it so difficult to accept that they are the citizens of the whole country and not just the four walls of their home?
Indians, who have had the chance to visit other countries, come back time and again with tales of lands, where the streets are clean and where the “system” works. Expatriate Indians also try to maintain certain dignified standards in their behaviour in keeping with the norms of their place of residence. What impressions do foreign tourists take back about India?
The enormity of the problem makes escapism an easy response. “What difference would my effort make against the fact that millions of others are doing the opposite? say even educated people. But should that deter me from continuing to do my bit? I mean, is it necessary to join the multitude and become a litterbug just because everyone else is. It may not seem like doing much but every action does produce a reaction perhaps not immediately; perhaps only much later and after repeated attempts.
Where are all those unemployed young men who get sucked into various street gangs? They use the power of the group to propagate fear and terror among the citizens. Why don’t they use the same terror-inspiring tactics to create a clean environment in their own neighbourhood? If each gang worked for the betterment of its own area, think of the cleanliness that ‘would result in the whole city.
Perhaps I sound idealistic and my solutions simplistic but the fact remains that I feel concerned about the nature of the problem. I also know that wherever I live, I will never be able to carelessly litter a place or spit in public places or perform such other anti-social actions. I am quite sure that the same holds true for many people in India. But the civic sense of the people has perhaps been dulled by years of apathy and inaction.
Taking out processions, yelling slogans, fighting for one’s rights, initiating strikes and in general harnessing public opinion against an unjust act, especially by someone in authority , are part of the democratic process in India. We expect much from our country and the Government in power. Has anyone stopped to wonder what we return to our motherland? Mounds of dirt, rubbish and an all-pervading stink?
Illetracy, who cares?
Launched by successive governments and other agencies, and you’d think India runs one of the most efficient literacy programmes in the world. Witness Operation Blackboard, Total Literacy Commission, Adult Literacy Mission, Non-Formal Education, District Institutes of Education and Learning, Mahila Samakhya, Shiksha Karmis, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan ( SSA)District Elementary Education Programmes....
Many policies, many committees, many buzzwords and yetlater, we also have many more illiterates. Having superpower dreams is not enough, every third illiterate in the world is an Indian. Unicef already predicted in ‘State of the World’s Children 1999 report’, that by 2000 India will be “the most illiterate country in the world”.A disgraceful distinction. Compounded by yet another conclusion reached by a parliamentary committee report tabled India’s education network—the world’s largest—is also the “most diseased”.
Statistics, and schools that are mere statistics: Year after year, statistics, reports, studies, committees and demographers have devoted themselves (and often the taxpayers’ money and the nation’s time) to calculating how unlettered we are. Worked themselves into a tizzy researching how a country with so many illiterates, in the Information Age, needs to invest more than a mere four per cent of its GDP on education. On how the number of illiterates in today’s India is larger than the population of the country three decades ago. How less than half of India’s children between age six and 14 go to school. How 110 million of them never do. How, more than half the children who enrol themselves into school drop out by the end of the fifth grade. How, states like Andhra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, UP and West Bengal have 94 per cent districts with female literacy rates less than 30 per cent. How, on an average the Indian spends a little over two years in school whereas the Chinese, Sri Lankan and South Korean spends five, seven and nine years respectively.
“This isn’t a school, it’s a farce. I’d like to meet the fools who thought up of starting it here—in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to teach; none to learn! I’m trying influence to be posted to Jaipur,” says Kesra Ram, primary school teacher at Bha-gwaniyon ki Dani in Rajasthan’s Barmer district where literacy rates are an abysmal 18.8 per cent; worse, at 7.7 per cent for women. A deadwood hutment, wiggly children squatting on sand, no water for over three miles, no blackboard, no table, no books—this is what the system has given Master Kesra Ram to work and educate India with. Little wonder then, he neither works nor educates. He drones out lessons that interest neither him nor his students. Unhappily he says: “It’s tough being a teacher here, tougher being a student. Tough getting them in, tougher keeping them here.”
Any ideas then on how to resolve Kesra Ram’s dilemma? Any suggestions on how best to educate the largest illiterate mass in the world? Any prescriptives on tackling the problems involved in schooling children across so many cities and small towns, over 600,000 villages, in little hamlets with no more than 150 people, children who speak over 17 major languages and more than 1,600 dialects?
Defying textbook solutions: “To begin with, we have to redefine the nature of literacy. Policies have to be geared at changing the perception of education as being merely about reading and writing; schooling being about parroting alien text-books,” says Prof. Marmar Mukhopadhyay of the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA). Having conducted a unique four-year-long experiment on arresting dropouts among 6,304 children in 20 villages around West Bengal’s Udang in the Howrah district, Mukhopadhyay saw dropout rates coming down to 17 per cent as against the state average of 49 per cent. “At one level it was so simple: it happened through music, sports and using unemployed local youth as resource,” says the expert.
Among other things local primary teachers were encouraged to write out lyrics and set them to local tunes on subjects as varied as mathematics and environment. Local youth were employed with the simple brief to come in, play and sing with the students. Attendance in these schools peaked to 79 per cent on the days with music and sport periods; 76 per cent on other days. “Their songs, their sports, their school, that’s what got the children into school and made them stay there. Cultural compatibility and relevance of content and activities was their uppermost consideration,” says Mukhopadhyay.
Something Prof. Anil Sadgopal, head of the department of education in the Delhi University, has been advocating for long. “Nothing will work in this vast country if our geo-cultural plurality is not recognised as the basis for decentralised and segregated curricula development,” says the academic. Further, he suggests the concept of a locally managed Common Neighbourhood school system to be introduced by an Act of Parliament. School clusters, if Sadgopal’s concept were to be operative, would through local communities decide upon their own curricula, appoint their own teachers and monitor their own management. Centralised board exams and out-of-context syllabi would have no place in this system.
“In the beginning, many such schools would enhance results to prove their merit. But over time, the quality of the outgoing students would manifest the actual worth of each cluster. What good are the board results anyway—most institutes of higher education already have their own entrance tests over and above the standardised result the country’s education system seeks to manufacture annually,” says Sadgopal. Too revolutionary? Not really. Canada works this way. So does Switzerland.
Our politicians and their unlettered voters: The commitment of our politicians to education is pathetically wanting, to say the least. In the world’s largest democracy, where even onions have made political parties lose power, few believe that the issue of education will cost them an election! Besides, educating the Indian populace would certainly not benefit the manipulative, rhetoric-gurgling politician. Where else in civilised society would a state education ministers’ conference be boycotted by state education ministers themselves as happened some time ago? The reason for the whimsical abandonment: a frenzied argument not about how we need to educate our children but whether we should teach them the Upanishads and make them sing Saraswati vandanas.
The Constitution, though, had made a commitment to educate the country. It had envisaged having every Indian child in school by 1960 through its directive to “provide free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of 14 years”. If present trends continue, this promise is still, at least, half-a-century away.
Wiping clean myths and rewriting rights on the blackboard: “Many things need to be done. Allocation of funds, teachers’ moral accountability in the system, contextualising curricula. But to begin with education has to be made a Fundamental Right. While Parliament is caught up in the discussion of trivial issues, a constitutional amendment bill aimed at making every child’s fundamental right to be educated gathers dust,” points out economist Jean Dreze, who as part of an eight-member research team brought out a Public Report on Basic Education (PROBE). Conducted in over 200 villages of north India, the survey investigates the country’s schooling situation to explode some common myths.
MYTH I: Unlettered rural parents don’t want their children in school. The survey, in fact, had a resounding 80.2 per cent demanding that education be made compulsory for all children.
MYTH 2: The overworked rural child who has no time to attend class was shown to be an empty stereotype. The study revealed that the rural boy and girl child have 71 and 62 per cent of a 12-hour day free.
A Vision and a Mission: “Somehow the vision has to expand. The focus has to change from ‘we have to get kids into school’ to ‘what do we want them there for’. There’s no point in having schools everywhere if there’s no social or gender accessibility to them,” says Alan Court, representative, Unicef’s India Country Office. Putting forth a radical suggestion, Court says a Primary School Mission should perhaps be set up with University lecturers teaching children on a war-footing on their vacations: “It doesn’t have to be a permanent solution. It can be a transitory scheme to break the cycle of ignorance.”
Because it is a vicious one, this cycle of ignorance and poverty, illiteracy and deprivation. One begets the other. Till both become humungous. And both thrive. And along with them thrives the growing number of Indian illiterates: every third illiterate in the world. People are not illiterate by choice. They are illiterate because they never had the opportunity to learn, or when they had the opportunity, they lacked the motivation to learn. The fact is that when they are motivated, they can and do learn. And revel in the new found power that the ability to read and write suddenly gives them. But then, that is what our netas are mortally afraid of.
Many policies, many committees, many buzzwords and yetlater, we also have many more illiterates. Having superpower dreams is not enough, every third illiterate in the world is an Indian. Unicef already predicted in ‘State of the World’s Children 1999 report’, that by 2000 India will be “the most illiterate country in the world”.A disgraceful distinction. Compounded by yet another conclusion reached by a parliamentary committee report tabled India’s education network—the world’s largest—is also the “most diseased”.
Statistics, and schools that are mere statistics: Year after year, statistics, reports, studies, committees and demographers have devoted themselves (and often the taxpayers’ money and the nation’s time) to calculating how unlettered we are. Worked themselves into a tizzy researching how a country with so many illiterates, in the Information Age, needs to invest more than a mere four per cent of its GDP on education. On how the number of illiterates in today’s India is larger than the population of the country three decades ago. How less than half of India’s children between age six and 14 go to school. How 110 million of them never do. How, more than half the children who enrol themselves into school drop out by the end of the fifth grade. How, states like Andhra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, UP and West Bengal have 94 per cent districts with female literacy rates less than 30 per cent. How, on an average the Indian spends a little over two years in school whereas the Chinese, Sri Lankan and South Korean spends five, seven and nine years respectively.
“This isn’t a school, it’s a farce. I’d like to meet the fools who thought up of starting it here—in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to teach; none to learn! I’m trying influence to be posted to Jaipur,” says Kesra Ram, primary school teacher at Bha-gwaniyon ki Dani in Rajasthan’s Barmer district where literacy rates are an abysmal 18.8 per cent; worse, at 7.7 per cent for women. A deadwood hutment, wiggly children squatting on sand, no water for over three miles, no blackboard, no table, no books—this is what the system has given Master Kesra Ram to work and educate India with. Little wonder then, he neither works nor educates. He drones out lessons that interest neither him nor his students. Unhappily he says: “It’s tough being a teacher here, tougher being a student. Tough getting them in, tougher keeping them here.”
Any ideas then on how to resolve Kesra Ram’s dilemma? Any suggestions on how best to educate the largest illiterate mass in the world? Any prescriptives on tackling the problems involved in schooling children across so many cities and small towns, over 600,000 villages, in little hamlets with no more than 150 people, children who speak over 17 major languages and more than 1,600 dialects?
Defying textbook solutions: “To begin with, we have to redefine the nature of literacy. Policies have to be geared at changing the perception of education as being merely about reading and writing; schooling being about parroting alien text-books,” says Prof. Marmar Mukhopadhyay of the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA). Having conducted a unique four-year-long experiment on arresting dropouts among 6,304 children in 20 villages around West Bengal’s Udang in the Howrah district, Mukhopadhyay saw dropout rates coming down to 17 per cent as against the state average of 49 per cent. “At one level it was so simple: it happened through music, sports and using unemployed local youth as resource,” says the expert.
Among other things local primary teachers were encouraged to write out lyrics and set them to local tunes on subjects as varied as mathematics and environment. Local youth were employed with the simple brief to come in, play and sing with the students. Attendance in these schools peaked to 79 per cent on the days with music and sport periods; 76 per cent on other days. “Their songs, their sports, their school, that’s what got the children into school and made them stay there. Cultural compatibility and relevance of content and activities was their uppermost consideration,” says Mukhopadhyay.
Something Prof. Anil Sadgopal, head of the department of education in the Delhi University, has been advocating for long. “Nothing will work in this vast country if our geo-cultural plurality is not recognised as the basis for decentralised and segregated curricula development,” says the academic. Further, he suggests the concept of a locally managed Common Neighbourhood school system to be introduced by an Act of Parliament. School clusters, if Sadgopal’s concept were to be operative, would through local communities decide upon their own curricula, appoint their own teachers and monitor their own management. Centralised board exams and out-of-context syllabi would have no place in this system.
“In the beginning, many such schools would enhance results to prove their merit. But over time, the quality of the outgoing students would manifest the actual worth of each cluster. What good are the board results anyway—most institutes of higher education already have their own entrance tests over and above the standardised result the country’s education system seeks to manufacture annually,” says Sadgopal. Too revolutionary? Not really. Canada works this way. So does Switzerland.
Our politicians and their unlettered voters: The commitment of our politicians to education is pathetically wanting, to say the least. In the world’s largest democracy, where even onions have made political parties lose power, few believe that the issue of education will cost them an election! Besides, educating the Indian populace would certainly not benefit the manipulative, rhetoric-gurgling politician. Where else in civilised society would a state education ministers’ conference be boycotted by state education ministers themselves as happened some time ago? The reason for the whimsical abandonment: a frenzied argument not about how we need to educate our children but whether we should teach them the Upanishads and make them sing Saraswati vandanas.
The Constitution, though, had made a commitment to educate the country. It had envisaged having every Indian child in school by 1960 through its directive to “provide free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of 14 years”. If present trends continue, this promise is still, at least, half-a-century away.
Wiping clean myths and rewriting rights on the blackboard: “Many things need to be done. Allocation of funds, teachers’ moral accountability in the system, contextualising curricula. But to begin with education has to be made a Fundamental Right. While Parliament is caught up in the discussion of trivial issues, a constitutional amendment bill aimed at making every child’s fundamental right to be educated gathers dust,” points out economist Jean Dreze, who as part of an eight-member research team brought out a Public Report on Basic Education (PROBE). Conducted in over 200 villages of north India, the survey investigates the country’s schooling situation to explode some common myths.
MYTH I: Unlettered rural parents don’t want their children in school. The survey, in fact, had a resounding 80.2 per cent demanding that education be made compulsory for all children.
MYTH 2: The overworked rural child who has no time to attend class was shown to be an empty stereotype. The study revealed that the rural boy and girl child have 71 and 62 per cent of a 12-hour day free.
A Vision and a Mission: “Somehow the vision has to expand. The focus has to change from ‘we have to get kids into school’ to ‘what do we want them there for’. There’s no point in having schools everywhere if there’s no social or gender accessibility to them,” says Alan Court, representative, Unicef’s India Country Office. Putting forth a radical suggestion, Court says a Primary School Mission should perhaps be set up with University lecturers teaching children on a war-footing on their vacations: “It doesn’t have to be a permanent solution. It can be a transitory scheme to break the cycle of ignorance.”
Because it is a vicious one, this cycle of ignorance and poverty, illiteracy and deprivation. One begets the other. Till both become humungous. And both thrive. And along with them thrives the growing number of Indian illiterates: every third illiterate in the world. People are not illiterate by choice. They are illiterate because they never had the opportunity to learn, or when they had the opportunity, they lacked the motivation to learn. The fact is that when they are motivated, they can and do learn. And revel in the new found power that the ability to read and write suddenly gives them. But then, that is what our netas are mortally afraid of.
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