The phone rang on Monday morning. It was Rani. I do not know why but I felt something was wrong. even before I picked it up. “There is some sad news about the Yamuna centre” said Rani. For a second I thought or rather hoped that she would say the waters are rising and we need to evacuate the centre. But that is not what she said. “The bulldozers have come, the police are there. The whole place is being raised”. My heart missed a beat. This time was no more a cry wolf situation. It was no more a cat and mouse situation when huts are broken but then people resettle again. This game went on for years. The wolf never came. But this time it has.really come. A court order has sealed everyone’s fate.
I rushed to the centre and was shocked at the number of bulldozers, police personnel and even the Rapid Action Force armed with batons and even tear gas shells. I wonder why. These are the gentlest people ever. As I walked along the muddy track towards the centre I saw the families quietly packing their lives and sitting down wondering what next. The children who normally greet you with loud Good Morning Ma’am were eerily quiet.
At the centre things were being packed hastily. The staff stood bravely but I knew their hearts were broken. Everyone spoke in almost a whisper as future plans were discussed. No one had the heart to engage in conversations. The mood was broken by someone who told me to move fast as the police would barricade everything. I sent the car away but did not have the heart to leave yet.I just sat, lost in memories of all the beautiful moments I had lived at this very spot over the past decade. Too many to recount.
It was time to leave. We retraced our steps to the exit slowly. As we reached the end the road we encountered the bulldozers who had begun their destruction. One was almost in my face. I wove my way past police, forces and batons and shields making me wonder why all this was needed. These people are not the ones that would engage with the police unlike our cockroaches. Quite frankly one felt disturbed.
Some of you know the Yamuna Centre, It was the most beautiful place you can imagine.amidst trees and green fields. The river at a distance, a gentle breeze always blowing. Once you came it was difficult to get one self to leave. I have spent many amazing moments there.
For the past decade Kabir and Azure hospitality have beeb feeding these kids a healthy scrumptious lunch a beautiful moment we will all miss.
The Yamuna children are very different. They are not spoilt by urban ways and live close to nature. They are grounded. They know things take time to grow and have learnt patience. But they have a thirst for knowledge and a burning desire to learn as they intuitively know that education alone can change their lives. Over the past years they have proven their worth. Some have secured their class XII and one is even working with us.
They too have dreams, dreams that we wanted to fulfil. I remember one girl wanted to be a fashion designer and another a teacher. How will be able to fulfil our promise? I do not know. But I know that we will leave no stone unturned and find a way out. I still believe in miracles and know the God of Lesser Beings will not let us down.
And taking of lesser beings. I am truly infuriated. Yes I understand fully the need to protect the food plain. Honestly no one should have been allowed to settle there. But they did. People from nearby areas have actually “bought” tacts of land and hire them to these poor people who leave their villages to come and tend to the land. The ‘owner’ rents out the place at quite a high price, a tithe that needs to be paid even if the crops fail. But that is not all. Look across the river and you will see buildings, a games village and a swanky temple. But they will not be touched! The divide between rich and poor is a reality we have to live with. A law for you and another one for you.
We wait for the decision of the parents before we decide our next move. If they move back to the village then we will work out an online programme. If they stay as some parents want their children to continue their studies, then we will set up a new place close to where they move. It is all fluid for now.
Today, the Yamuna children and staff hoisted the national flag for the last time. It was a moving and heartbreaking moment.
FCRA or Foreign Currency Regulation Act is something NGOs aspire to as it allows them to get funds from foreign countries. Today FCRA is out of the closet. The government wants to amend it and the opposition is up in arms.
Wonder why?
Till date the FCRA did not have stringent rules and many were misusing the money. You had 50% available for administrative cost which could mean anything: the spa cost of the top person, entertaining friends and so on. Some time back, the government amended it to 20%.
Working areas were defined loosely and could be interpreted to suit any situation. Rigorous reporting was not mandatory and it was a free for all. When you said you ran an NGO people looked at you in a strange way. And many thought all NGOs were dishonest.
A guest in a TV programme, an eminent one at that, stated that NGOs should not get money from abroad and raise their needs from within the country. Well my dear Sir this is what we have wanted for decades but were never able to do. At best we raise 10 to 15% from India and that too painfully.
Some may wonder why do we need NGOs at all. Good question. I can only talk about education and women’s empowerment as that is the field we work in. When we started over a quarter century ago, schools were in a poor state and drop out rates alarming. Sadly they still are. Over 1 lac schools in India run with ONE teacher.
We arrested drop out rates, pushed children back in school and ensured that they complete their schooling with honourable marks. Today we are busy redesigning our approach to meet XXI century skills in a job market hijacked by AI.
Were we successful? I leave it to you to decide: 4 of our alumni made it to the IIT, we have chartered accountants, journalist, lawyers, engineers, dental assistants, army officers and more. In my humble opinion NGOs are still needed in the field of education.
Over the years we have grown as Project Why is not a static but a dynamic organisation ready to answer any WHY that comes its way. Our needs have also grown and no matter how we packaged ourselves funds from India were not forthcoming. We have survived thanks to the generosity of Indians living abroad and whose heart still beats for India.
However we have ALWAYS complied with all government. regulations, and always used all the money we received for the stated purpose. I am quite flummoxed when I hear on debates that some NGOs do not use even 10% of what they get!
When I look at the new FCRA bill that is to be tabled in Parliament. I feel no panic at all. We have met most of what is asked barring maybe not shared our social media handles:)
That NGOs should be up in arms because they are asked to use the money for the purpose stated and give detailed account of how it was used to me it is a no brainer. Frankly, if you are doing good and honest work there should be no problem so why the hue and cry.
“I want to be a doctor” are words that I have heard innumerable times for over 25 years. Every time you ask a child what she aspires to be doctor is often the answer you get.
For the past few days the hallowed entrance examination you need to pass in order to get admission in a medical college is in the news following the disturbing exam paper leak. This led to 12 aspirants taking their own lives.
Nothing is more tragic than the death of a young soul. No wonder students are angry and have taken to the roads. They definitely had reason to do so and we all supported them. The Cockroach Janta Part (CJP) was the result of this anger. The protest began but sadly was soon hijacked by political parties, each one looking for their pound of flesh; each one looking at a possible new vote bank. The cause of the children was soon forgotten.
I am not going to recount the incidents of the past few weeks. Everyone knows what happened.
I would like to delve deeper and share some thoughts based on the work I have done with children of underserved communities for over a quarter of a century.
For the past 25 years we at Project Why have been working with children of a lesser God. We have helped thousands of children succeed in their studies and gain employment. As I said at the beginning of this post I want to be a doctor are words I have heard every so often, and each time my heart breaks as I know that this is one dream I cannot fulfil.
True NEET is a tough exam and may not be for these children many would think. You are both right and wrong. My children can crack NEET as you will be surprised to know that many of them are super bright. But in the present scenario, to crack NEET you often need to. join a coaching institute that comes at a heavy cost that parents of these children cannot afford. As you would have realised much of the leaks that have happened is because of the coaching mafia. I think we should borrow a page from China’s playbook. China banned for-profit private tutoring and coaching for core school subjects under its sweeping “Double Reduction” policy. The major goals of this nationwide crackdown are to reduce student stress, lower family living costs, and shift academic responsibility back to public schools. It is laudable for sure but has its own problems.China has seen the emergence of underground clandestine tutoring.
However I strongly feel that something needs to be done to regularise and monitor all coaching institutes.
Over 2.3 to 2.4 million students apply for the NEET UG exam annually, competing against a total of approximately 1,36,939 MBBS seats. This pool includes roughly 63,296 government seats and 73,643 private and deemed university seats across 823 medical colleges. Now the cost for each is astronomicalThe average total course fee for an MBBS degree in India ranges drastically from ₹30,000 to ₹15,00,000 in government colleges, compared to ₹40,00,000 to over ₹1.5 Crore in private colleges and deemed universities. I do not have to spell out the fact that these costs cannot be met by lower middle class and middle class families and loans are not easy to get when you live in a slum and your parents do not have steady jobs. So even if you clear NEET the door slams shut! Your family cannot afford it.
You can now understand why my hear breaks when I hear the words: I want to be a doctor. And what is even more disturbing is knowing that many of these children have the intelligence and motivation to succeed.
Becoming a doctor is not for the underprivileged. I wish people understood that, So you see even if papers are not leaked medicine is only for the privileged. Many aspiring students go to smaller countries like Uzbekistan or Ukraine to fulfil that dream even if it means that they will have to take another examination to be able to practice in India.
The article concludes with these words: India’s higher education journey reflects remarkable progress in expansion and diversification. However, the next phase of transformation must focus on equity, quality, employability, and affordability to ensure that higher education becomes a genuine instrument of social mobility and national development.
And if the CJP truly wants to work for the betterment of education than it has to look deeper at the aspirations of all children.
As I write these words, lacs of students from across India and even outside are writing their NEET retest! The retest was ordered as numerous leaks of question papers were discovered after the initial exam. Paper leaks are not new. They have been happening for years with impunity. Often instigated by the coaching industry who would go to any level to ensure their students pass the said examination.
In the past few weeks, there have been many articles about the state of our education each one more horrifying than the other. There is only one common denominator :nobody really cares about children! Education has been in the news for more reason than one. First and foremost this year marks a sea change as new books have been introduced in line with the NEP (New Education Policy 2020) and require the teaching fraternity to adopt new and challenging changes in their approach towards education. What was/is hoped is that education will transition from rote learning to comprehending and acquiring skills that relate to the XXIst century employment scenario. Laudable indeed but is it feasible in the present state of our education system.
New books I said! Well first of all the school year commenced on April 1st but many books are still not available. In Odisha books are filled with aberrations and have, hold your breath, 1678 errors! Sample some: Sir Isaac Newton is described as the greatest pilot, a photo of the Karnataka Assembly was identified as the Odisha assembly, the Hampi temple was labelled as the Konark Sun Temple. Temperature is labelled as pressure. Equinox is replaced by Equator!!
Class VII books have the most errors: 705.
As always a high level committee has been formed to look inti the matter. Wonder what they will say?
So much for books.
Now let us look at the ground situation of schools across the land. The Niti Ayog Repor, titled ‘School Education System in India — Temporal Analysis and Policy Roadmap for Quality Enhancement’, highlights the ‘pyramid’ problem.
The education system currently resembles a sharp pyramid, housing 14.71 lakh schools and 24.69 crore students. The drop our rates are still very high. While the country boasts of 7.3 lakh primary schools, that number plummets to 1.64 lakh at the higher secondary level. Four out of every 10 children who enter the system drop out before completing higher secondary education. only 5.4% of schools offer a continuous journey from Grade 1 to 12. For the vast majority of students, moving up through the grades requires changing institutions multiple times. Girls are the first to drop out as high schools are often located far from their homes and parents are reluctant to send their daughters alone.
To add to this, close to 7,993 schools across the country reported zero enrolment. While these schools appear operational in administrative records, they no longer serve any student population. These schools, despite zero enrolment, continue to receive financial and human resources due to the lack of updating of records, showing the difference between on-ground reality and planning, Many schools do not have water facility or electricity. You may wish to read the article.
The reason I share all these facts is twofold. One is to highlight the sate of schools, and the other to show that implementation of the NEP looks like a long way happening.The new education policy wants to teach AI from class III. My simple questions is: are the 7.3 lac primary schools and their teachers ready to do it?
Children are our future and education that meets the challenges of today is the only way out. It is sad to see the way students are treated. Because of paper leaks lacs of students have to study again for their exam resulting in unnecessary stress and mental distress. Six students committed suicide. Recently a new form of marking in class XII resulted in students wanting heir papers rechecked. The problem was that they would miss some admissions schedules. But who cares.
We do at Project Why.
We have begun computer skills and English from class I ! The children are also introduced to AI but are also taught to use AI responsibly by making them aware of the amounts of water and electricity the ginormous data centres use. We teach our children to think out of the box and be creative. We teach them critical thinking and communication in order to maker them ready for the job market that awaits them.
Empowering young minds with knowledge, confidence, and life skills. Through our collaboration with Modicare Foundation, children and adolescents participated in engaging sessions on life skills, good & bad touch awareness, growing up and adolescence, self-esteem building, physical & mental health, and gender equality. Together, we are creating safe spaces where young people can learn, grow, and thrive.
We are very grateful to the Modi Foundation for having conducted workshops on issues faced by children and adolescents in every centre for many years now.
The workshops are interactive, entertaining and loved by the children
