by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 4, 2007 | two indias
My meat seller and I go a long way, more than 30 years I guess! He is a gentle Muslim who runs a tiny shop in a close by market. Over the years much has changed and many shopkeepers have spruced up their shops bu not Salim whose establishment takes me back three decades as I walk into it. Spotlessly clean, with many sayings from the Holy Koran displayed in garish frames, the meat neatly displayed and the large wooden blocks on which he and his son transform the meat into the cuts you want. The same smile greets you each time you enter except when you get the cold snub which the now initiated old clients know as translating into: the meat is not good enough for you today, as you quietly beat a hasty retreat.
I have always enjoyed the few moments spent in this tiny shop, where time seems to have stopped long ago and forgotten values still hold high.
Holi is a festival when in North India many cook a meat dish that goes well with all the intoxicants consumed. So yesterday was busy time at my Friend Salim’s shop. Many ladies in bright clothes, a handful or servants from rich homes and innumerable phone calls with orders rapidly written on a tiny note pad.
As i waited my turn, I him if we was opened the next day which was Holi. he looked at me with a smile and said yes we are, as today it will be all the high clas people that buy their met but tomorrow we will be catering to the poor.
Yes everyone eats meat on Holi, but for those who have no refrigerators and who actually do not know how much would be left when the colours for the children have been bought, and the hooch of the day consumed. Salim keeps his shop open so that everyone can have a feat, albeit a tiny one!
Happy Holi!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 2, 2007 | two indias
On the day when millions of young Indians set out to write their class XII Board examinations, a TV channel aired the story of Samant Singh Rao, once a part time lecturer in Panna (Madhya Pradesh) and a proud recipient of two masters degree. A series of misfortunes led to his losing his job.
Armed with his degrees got after much toil, this son of a poor farmer set out to India’s capital city, confident that his education would get him a job. After a long search all he managed was to get a cycle rickshaw he now plies in the university area, and eeks a few thousand precious rupees that barely feed his two children back home. And to save his money, he simply sleeps on his rickshaw at night.
Samant Singh Rao is a living example of the of our state our education system where on the one hand education is branded as a panacea to all ills, while on the other useless degrees are handed out to unsuspecting candidates.
Samant Singh Rao has two Masters degree, one in history and the other in political science, and yet they seem to be useless in his quest to get a job. He is still holding on to his dreams, and maybe as a result of his brief appearance on TV someone may reach out to him. But what about all the others who clutch such degrees and wander the streets looking for employment.
We have had many come our way, and though they had the coveted piece of paper, they were often unable to pass the simple test we give any prospective teacher. And each time I come by a Samant Singh Rao, I feel terribly sad. I can imagine the hopes pinned on this child by parents who must have worked hard to ensure that their child gets an education, and can almost sense the pride they must have felt when the child succeeded in one exam after the other. And yet at the end of the day they it seems like a long journey to nowhere, almost an absurd play that Brecht could have written.
Third rate education is an impediment as often there is no going back to where you came from. Somehow the years spent learning have robbed of the right to revert to where you began. Expectations remain high and somehow it almost becomes a matter of honour. I wonder if Samant’s family know how the money the postman brings is earned.
Just this morning, as I drove to work, a police tow van was towing away two cycle rickshaws, and the two owners ran behind the van pleading for mercy. I believe that some ply without licenses and that is considered illegal. I also wondered whether any of the two had a heart rendering story to share.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 1, 2007 | two indias
The main objective project why set out to achieve 7 years ago was to contain the alarming dropout rates in India’s capital city. Around 70 % of all school going children drop out and most dropout before class VI.
We can say with a certain amount of justified pride that for the past 7 years no pwhy child has dropped out and that last year both Manisha and Farzana crossed the 80% mark in their Xth Boards exams, one must add that Farzana had failed her class VII three times!
Our modus operandi is simply to help the child after school hours with locally recruited ‘teachers’ none of whom have the required certificates. However what they have in abundance is commitment and patience.
Yesterday Budget 2007 was revealed with its plethora of social programmes. We all welcome the fact that the Finance minister has recognised that the number school dropouts is high however his progarmme to contain these numbers seems a little lopsided. The National Means-cum-Merit scholarship ( class IX and above) seems to rest on the premise that underprivileged children with often illeterate parents manage somehow to reach class IX.
The reality is quite different. Most children drop out well before that class, actually by class VI and this is often not because they lack the ability to do so, but because of a variety of factors that can easily be redressed. A 70% attendance ensures that you move on from class to class till class V. We have seen children who are in class IV or V barely read or write. Another reason for poor performance is the abysmally low pass percentage (33%) as it instills mediocrity in a child who is never asked to perform beyond that figure. There are many such reasons many of which can be corrected without much fanfare.
Sadly when the government decided to hold teachers responsible for performance, instead of improvement in teaching one saw teachers dictating answers to kids during in house examinations. Needless to say the results were excellent while the children in question remain as, if not more ignorant.
My detractors would again ask me to stop harping and find solutions. My answer is that 7 years of producing a 100% result vindicates me sufficiently. And if we at pwhy with our limited and local resource can mange this, then anyone could.
To arrest drop out rates one has to start at the bottom and ensure good teaching in primary schools and realise that in municipal schools where most of the por kids go, teachers cannot expect any support from the parents. The only way parents deal with poor performance is by beating the child and hurling some misplaced abuses or recrimination. But how can one expect this 7 or 8 year old to learn on his own!
A staff member pointed out that in a city where the same building houses two seperate schools (morning = girls; afternoon = boys) teachers and other staff members worked only a half day while they were paid the same amount as a full day worker. Maybe one solution would be to find a way in whcih the other half day could be used in helping weaker children. We all know that many such teachers run very lucrative coaching classes in their free half day!
The scholarship scheme proposed by the Finance Minister aims at giving 100 000 scholarships a year. This is a drop in the ocean of children just about to dropout. And then knowing how the system works, I wonder how many wil be truly deserving candidates, and what the selection procedure will be.
Simple measures like strengthening primary education by reinforcing and improving existing schools is what will contain dropout rates in a more equitable way.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 1, 2007 | girl child
I have never understood the intricacies of economics and figures, inflation and GDP or all such terms. During college time budget day was one when one waited to find out whether cigarettes would cost more. Not that one gave up smoking, one just adjusted things and I guess unconsciously made our own yearly budget. And come to to think about it this happened with every commodity as one slowly watched petrol going from 3 rs to 4o rs or so: one just adjusts one’s life.
For many years too the budgetary allocations to social programmes did not mean much bar the fact that one felt that they were needed and welcomed them with a nod of approval: midday meals for school kids, education for all, jobs for all: it felt comfortable and appeased one’s conscience as one felt something was happening.
It is only in recent years when I descended from a comfortable ivory tower that I faced a reality check. The Utopian midday meal became a real inedible offering, the superlative SC girl child programmes turned out to be a catch 22 game, and primary education a transit of many years in a insalubrious school before you dropped out. And yet on paper all these schemes seemed to right.
So yesterday as the new budget unfolded and new social schemes were revealed I was glad that many voiced what I silently thought: will these reach the beneficiary or be fodder for more hungry officials as the mind boggling administrative requirements will fly right over the true beneficiary.
Come to think of it we only have one year to make all this happen as on 28 February 2008 a new budget with new schemes will be presented. And this game will carry on till the day civil society does not come to the fore and ask for accounts! Last year we got a tool to do just that: RTI Act and some of taken on the formidable task to bring this act to the people. We as voters and tax payers need to demand accounts for every penny spent. A commentator mentioned a past Prime Minister stating the sad reality that of every rupee allocated only 16 paise reached the beneficiary.
As long as we remained silent spectator or armchair critics nothing will change. There are excellent schemes in existence and should they be allowed percolate down to the right beneficiary a tangible change would come about. The true beneficiary cannot turn whistle blower: he is often totally unaware of the scheme itself let alone the way to seek redressal. he will continue making his budgetary adjustments . The government will continue making yearly social schemes as they make good copy for electoral speeches, and we will remain in our obstinate silence and inertia, emerging out of it for brief moments when we feel the issue may directly touch us.
Yes we all want a shining India but how can it shine when a large chunk of it survives in darkness. Unfortunately it cannot be wished away. We need to be the whistle blowers; each one of us, asking accounts for the money spent as it is our own!
Last week a friend who was organising a workshop on disability asked a senior government official how a person without papers got a disability certificate; the answer was predictable: ma’am everyone in Delhi has a ration card.
No Mister, that is not true, there are many who do not and getting one is quasi impossible and yet they are handicapped and the ones who really need access to your programmes!
