by Anuradha Bakshi | May 17, 2006 | common school, reservations
The summer of 2006 will go down as one of disturbed and angry students, greedy politicians, brutal policemen and bewildered citizens..
All is not well on planet India.. the hydra headed monster of reservation has resurrected for reasons that only God or a few know!
Reservation was instituted by our erstwhile policy makers as a short term relief measure aiming at unifying and not dividing, at making up for past mistakes and at healing wrongs. When was its spirit hijacked and usurped by greed, I do not know but today it looks like a hydra headed monster that grows new heads each time one is severed.. and far from uniting, divides with glee an already fragmented society..
A simple look at statistics would show how miserably this policy has failed: the reserved seats often lie vacant, the poor get poorer, the drop out rate increases in quantum leaps and no rocket scientist is needed to guess what segment of society those falling out of the net of learning belong to.. and the number of reservations grow and new castes are created. Even when tiny voices of reason are heard begging for better primary education, solutions suggested reek of division: classes for ‘them‘ after ‘ours‘, prep schools for ‘them‘ but not with ‘ours‘..
The dreaded privatisation of education lies waiting to pounce, a deat knell for many children, and making us think of the obvious hidden agenda: prime land!
Wait a minute, are we all not stating, albeit unknowingly, that in the ultimate analysis the contenders of reservation are getting a second grade education, admitting that the constitutional right of Indian children to recieve free education is being violated as they are getting an education that is not up to the mark: 33% pass percentage, schools without teachers and so on..
The question is who will have the courage to wring the neck of our hydra headed monster. Severing heads only serves vested interests in all strata of society, the neck lies elsewhere. where no one is willing to look, in two littke words that have proved their mettle: the common school..
Why is no one talking of the common school, something that countries we seek to emulate have always had: schools run by the state where the admission factor is the area you live in.. in Delhi there is a government or municipal school in every posh locality ( 3 are under 5 minutes away from where I sit): spruce it up, create a Indian Education Service on the model of the IAS and put an end to the proliferation of poor quality private schools that have emerged as clones to inaccessible public schools and cater to the desire of poor parents to give their kids the best they can!
I know it is a tall order, and sadly it is the upper end of society that will block it because of age old hang ups and social nonsense: How can my child sit on the same bench as my driver’s kid! Therein lies the real neck of our monster, in our own attitudes, our own fears, our own minds. I was in a common school way back in 1958 in Rabat, Morrocco. My best buddy was Omar, the local butcher’ son and what linked us amd name us bond was that we were both top of the class in studies and mischief! Omar went on to become a film maker..
We need a MK Gandhi or a Patel like politician to have the courage to do what is right for India. Children of India being hit by water canons and police sticks is not what many gave their lives for.. Reservation was instituted to make all children of India equal citizens, not to sear them with life long labels..
How many more reservations will it need to finally seek the neck… come to think of it after higher education, private jobs someone will think of 49% reservation of the India cricket team!
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 6, 2006 | common school, lohars
One was born in a place that has acquired a generic name in north india – madrassi – and the others were born on a polluted road side waiting for unfulfilled promises of an uncaring administration.. one traces its ancestry to one of the 12 rishis, the others to the lost battle of haldighat and hurriedly taken wows that made them nomads.. and yet in the scorching heat of last week they met… part of an hidden agenda, one that has not been worded or scripted but kept as a close guarded secret..
pwhy has been built on many dreams, some visible and some not quite so. if pwhy began with the determination of giving all children a safe environment to acquire a meaningful education and skills, it also has a flip side, one that addresses itself to the other side of the spectrum: the big children who have already obtained it.
The stubborn refusal to accept any funding that looked impersonal, the obsessive campaign for the yet elusive 1 rupee a day , the endless hours pecking at a computer keyboard were all part of the jealously guarded hidden agenda: that of making the two ends of the spectrum meet and not only get to lknow each other but learn from each other..
Over the past months the toiling hours have paid of and many beautiful connections made and last week when K who works for a software giant in the land of the chosen (or so it is said) spent time with little lohar kids, I am sure he learnt many lessons: that you could learn in scorching heat and breathing fumes, that you could smile and be happy even if you had nothing.
For me India will only change when the twain meet and connect, be it in on the school benches of the elusive common school, or as it happened, through bonds created through invisible networks..
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 10, 2006 | common school
(in the previous post we tried to imagine what a child’s tomorrows may look like, if the persent situation continued; let us now imagine how things can change..)
M’s or s’s tomorrow can be safe.. but if many ifs happen! So let us take it from the top again..
Their tomorrows will be safe if a common school comes into being, if they are taught their rights and their duties as citizens; if they are taught about existing institutions, if they are taught the reality that nothing come easy.
Their tomorrows will be safe if the lure of government jobs is demystified, if they are given the right skills to return to their villages and habitats of origin; if they learn to respect Nature, if they are taught to respect one another, to celebrate differences.
But this no mean task and one has to tread slowly. Today children are still under the spell of cityLights and maybe not willing to listen. But one has to start weaving te web and using every possible to pass on messages..text books have to be rewritten and lessons that show little ramu the village cousin be shown the magic of the city by little manoj should be reversed..
A long way to go, but one that has to be walked.. one step at a time so that M’s tomorrows are safe
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 9, 2006 | common school
Yesterday, the Delhi High Court pronounced a jugement directing 70 up-market state-of-the-art private hospitals to provide free treatment to the poor by reserving 25% of their resources to people below the poverty line.. the court also directed these hospitals to place large hoardings in english and hindi about the same..
Imagine if this were to be true, what a relief it would be to the scores of poor people who have few options: either trudge miles away to public hospitals or surrender to the local quack!
This jugement is akin to the one passed some time back on reserving 25% of seats in up market schools for poor children .. what happened there was that divisive lines got deeper and instead of the so called poor kids sitting next to their rich peers, all kind of excuses were found and alternatives worked out which in some cases resulted to a parrallel system for the poor kid, after the rich had returned home for the day..
So it stands to reason to think that something similar will happen in hospitals. First of all the poor illiterate BPL person is unlikely to be able to read the hoardings and understand them.. then will he ever be able to muster the courage to enter the hospital and ask for his right… making it passed the uniformed chowkidar would already be a miracle… and then if he does make it that far, who will decide where free treatment stops: a simple cursory check up by an intern or the much needed treatment which could be as expensive as complex surgery… you can conjure many scenarios but the common denominator remains the same..
What wil happen though is that many phone cals will be made between politicians and hospital administration and te 25% allocation will be easily met making everyone happy: the politician would have pleased one of his voters and the hopsital administration would have pleased the powers that be.. kept waiting at the gate would be someone like nanhe or munna’s mother who after some time would quietly turn back and take the bus to Safdarjung Hospital…
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 26, 2006 | common school
Yesterday on the eve of R day, segregation in schools on the basis of performance was banned in Maharashtra.. strange that in a country where all children are deemed equal, such a practice existed for over half a century..
A child was branded A or B or C… at an early age, when he or she had not even had a chance to develop fully… many children interviewed by a TV channel on this issue shared the pain and agony of such an unfair procedure… and let us not forget that children often perform better when stimulated by their peers..
More so because a child branded as ‘poor’ or ‘bad’ will never get the will to do better.. because they will be marginalised by the so called ‘good’ ones..
All the above was in reference to up market schools.. but have you ever thought of the fact our educational system itself segregates children? In a country where every child has a fundamental right to education, there are two kind of schools and it is sad but true that those run by the state are not up to the mark and yet they are the only options for million of children in India.. it is from these schools that a large number of children drop out and yet it takes a simple option like pwhy to reverse the process and make failures into toppers!
33% gets you a school leaving certificate, but does it get you a place in university or allow you to apply for a government job… disturbing is it not, and more disturbing when you are told by a government school teacher that there was no need to complete the syllabus, as what they were taught would be sufficient to ‘pass’…
In the nation’s capital city there is talk of privatisation of education… something that makes my blood run cold… as in the best case scenario it would mean a parrallel option for the poor which would run into financial difficulties.. what it would lead to is many children just dropping out of the school system.
Many countries have a common school, where children from all walks of life meet and learn together and from each other.. it would be the right option for India one day, but are we ready to take that step..
Rang de Basanti realeased today and though one has not seen the film, a quote from its dialogue rings terriby true: there are two ways of looking at wrongs – accept them and carry on or take action and do something…
The children of India deserve better than to be assigned labels according to their performamce or social origin…
