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Azim
Premji's Article " Fundamental
Right to Education - The Next Step"
In 1950, the architects of the Indian Constitution
stipulated that every child upto the age of 14 years should
be provided education by 1960. But successive governments
have only extended this deadline by 10 years. In 1993, in
a landmark judgement, the Honourable Supreme Court, in the
case of Mr. Unnikrishnan, pronounced that basic education
(education upto the age of 14 years) is a fundamental right
of every child. However, although several years have since
passed, the constitutional amendment to include this right
as part of the constitution is still pending.
Today, about one-third of the country's population
is illiterate and nearly half the children of schooling age
are out of school. We also have a dubious distinction of having
an estimated number of 100 million children working as child
labourers.
On the other hand, during the past five years,
India has been fast emerging as a superpower in Information
Technology (IT) industry in general and global software services
in particular. It is unthinkable to achieve leadership position
in the global market if we do not quickly put our act together
and universalise the elementary education in the country.
Besides this, a number of socio-economic studies have revealed
that basic education has a direct positive impact on a number
of social and economic indicators such as:
•
Population control
• Healthcare
and Sanitation
• Law and
Order
• Employment,
Productivity, GDP, Economic Growth etc.
• Opportunity
to make informed choices for each citizen - leading to a better
country
Elementary education is also an effective
solution to child labour. The problem of girl-child
education is even more acute and requires special mention.
The enrollment as well as retention ratios of girls as compared
to those of boys are significantly lower. In one of the rural
education camps I visited, I was personally moved and impressed
to hear the story of a girl who was married at the tender
age of 11 years and yet fought her way back in the education
camp with the help of volunteers. The girl had tears in her
eyes while narrating her own story. There are thousands of
such stories. These children are courageous, intelligent and
are determined to make their own destiny than surrendering
to the circumstances around them. It is sad to know that even
after 53 years of independence and despite the existence of
plethora of laws and law enforcing machineries, children are
still forced as bonded labour by unscrupulous elements in
the society. More disturbing is the fact that even educated
families do not find anything wrong in employing children
for household work !
I also found that poverty as an excuse for
not sending the children to school is a myth. Dozens of parents
I met in rural areas wanted to send their children to the
school despite their abject poverty. They were willing to
make the sacrifices to see their child in school and learning.
The fundamental problems in universalisation
of elementary education are enrollment, retention and satisfactory
learning of children in the school. There are so many reasons
for this, ranging from the lack of schools to insufficient
number of teachers to poor attention towards children to lack
of training of the teachers.
The essential requirements to universalise
elementary education will be:
•
Strong political will on the part of the Government
- both Central and State
• Greater
involvement of communities and society at large
• Effective
leveraging of available financial resources and mobilisation
of additional financial resources
• Innovative
approaches and an urgency to achieve results in this area
The good news is that the Government has
now set a target to universalise the elementary education
in the country by 2010. It is encouraging to note that progressive
leadership at the centre and in some of the states is very
keen to ensure that this goal is achieved much before the
deadline. That many corporates, individuals and NGOs are coming
forward to help achieve this goal. I was also very impressed
to meet many government officers and employees in the education
department, who are passionate, sincere and determined to
make a positive impact in the education levels in the states.
I personally feel that we do not have an
option but to ensure that every child in the country goes
to a formal school, remains in the school and most importantly
learns in the school. In fact, the definition of literacy
needs to be changed to education till 10th standard
and Information Technology literacy needs to be made compulsory.
There is, in every child, unlimited potential
to learn and achieve. All the child needs is an opportunity
to discover and develop his/her full potential. The most important
issue is that every child has a right to childhood and right
to education. It is the duty of every citizen of this country
to ensure that this right of the child is protected.
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