Sashi Tharoor on eductaion in India

Just a few days before Teachers’ day, I came across Sashi Tharoor’s article “Let’s groom teachers of tomorrow” in the Times of India. Succinctly written, intense, urgent, and genuine. I can’t agree more with him. It’s one of those articles of which I take a print out, laminate and neatly store in my article collection box. I know with technology there are many convenient ways of storing such things, but it’s just an old habit that refuses to die. Here are some excerpts from the article:

UNESCO defines an illiterate person as one who cannot, with understanding, both read and write a short, simple statement on their everyday life. By that definition, i fear that fewer than half our population would really qualify as literate

What is missing is not just financial resources, but a commitment on the part of our society as a whole to tackle the educational tasks that lie ahead.

How are we going to cope with the 21st century, the information age, if half our population cannot sign their name or read a newspaper, let alone use a computer keyboard or surf the Net?

Good news from UNESCO

Early last year, while researching on education, I read bundles of reports from UNESCO, UNICEF, EFA etc. The 2005 UNESCO report, while highlighting the phenomenon of the Out-of-School students, called upon us to understand better who they are and what background they are from, to help us design programs for them.

A vibrant organization here in Hyderabad, the MV Foundation takes care of over 2500 schools in A.P. They employ volunteer teachers in these schools and make sure that the dropout rate is controlled. They also rescue child labors, who are often dropouts, rehabilitate them, and prepare them to rejoin school with the help of their specially designed bridge course.

If the number of school dropouts has decreased in recent years, organizations like MVF have had a lot to do with it.. As I read this news from UNESCO, I rejoice with high sounding cymbals.

06-05-2008 - The number of primary-school-age children not in primary or secondary school fell by 2 million worldwide between 2005 and 2006, according to new estimates published by UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS).

The new figures confirm a downward trend: between 1999 and 2006, the number of these children fell from 103 million to 75 million. From a regional perspective, South and West Asia reported the greatest progress. This was mainly due to changes in India, where the number of children out of school fell by over 12 million as participation in primary education significantly improved for girls (accounting for more than 75% of the decrease).

Sub-Saharan Africa also made important strides, with a reduction of 10 million. This was largely the result of progress reported by the Governments of Ethiopia and the United Republic of Tanzania.

Globally, more than one-half of the 75 million out-of-school children are girls. The following countries had 2 million or more children out of school in 2006: Afghanistan, Ethiopia, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Sudan.

These figures are part of the latest release of UIS education statistics for the pre-primary to tertiary levels for the school year ending in 2006. The new data are available in the UIS Data Centre.