Why education needs more than just lip service and public speeches
By Anshul Tewari
“Educating our young people is important and a priority for us, as they are the leaders of the future” - lines like these are commonplace at college or Government events, where leaders and decision makers want us to know how much they believe in young people’s right to education. But ironically, beyond these public platforms, no one ever takes this right seriously. If you’re reading this article you’re probably a bit more privileged than many others who do not even have access to the most basic source of information, and for a ‘young country’ like India, wishing to exploit the power of youth, we aren’t giving the youth enough space to access this right.
In 2008, when I established Youth Ki Awaaz as a media platform for young people to speak up on issues of importance, I had little idea about the kind of conversations it would start. I still remember one of the first stories I did about India’s upcoming Right to Education policy that would ensure that every child under the age of 14 received primary education. At that time, India did not have enough schools, and the ones we had did not have adequate resources. One would believe that seven years is a long time to give India’s youth access to schools and better education.
Cut to this day in 2015 and the situation hasn’t changed much. There are schools that lack facilities as basic as a toilet for girls, leading to higher dropout rates. The situation is so grim that as per a Times of India report , the textbooks promised to students as a part of India’s Right to Education Act 2009 did not even reach their intended schools. And the situation across India remains the same. A 2014-2015 survey conducted by the Right to Education Forum, a non-profit based in New Delhi, India, shows that in 457 schools across 10 states (Bihar, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal) textbooks were not available in 50% of the surveyed schools. A 2013-2014 DISE data showed that around 27% of government primary schools did not receive books at all in the academic year; Kerala (70.72%), Delhi (49.33%) and Chandigarh (43.76%) are the worst performers in text book distribution. All this while the caste and class system still plague classrooms and influences how students are treated by teachers and even peers.
The situation, however, can change. There are organizations and campaigns that are, independently, trying to tackle issues around literacy and make Right to Education a lot more accessible. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also taken a vow to provide education to all children in India. The solution, however, lies in the idea that we all need to see education as a very important aspect of a child’s growth and development. Enough models prove that when children are made a part of a democratic learning and decision-making model, they take the baton forward. In India, Avanti Fellows, a social good organization, recently tied up with India’s largest cab service to provide education to the children of all cab drivers, most of who come from marginalized backgrounds. We need more models that reduce reliability on Government bodies and encourage entrepreneurial solutions to make access to education easy. At Youth Ki Awaaz, we have enabled an environment where organizations as well as individuals, everyday folks, can speak up and raise their voice - and reach our audience of millions every month.
At the same time, while education remains a global concern, we also need to make sure that our leaders remain accountable to their word and to the Sustainable Development Goals to ensure education for all. After all, while it is important that we address these issues by bringing them up at international forums, it is even more important that we as citizens hold our decisions-makers accountable.
For further reading on the topics discussed, please use the following resource that was referenced in the writing of this article:
Anshul Tewari is an Ashoka Fellow and the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Youth Ki Awaaz (youthkiawaaz.com), an award-winning and India's largest online platform for young people to speak up on issues of importance, through a critical approach to journalism and crowd-sourcing. Anshul is also a United Nations ITU Fellow for youth innovation, and a World Summit Youth Award laureate. His expertise lies in building sustainable, democratic and people drivemedia platforms. He also serves on the board of Collectively, a nonprofit focused towards engaging the current generation over sustainable development issues. He tweets @anshul_tewari.
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