Why does China soar where India continues to struggle? The most basic reason is state priorities towards education.
As of 1947, the literacy rate in India was barely 11%. But the Chinese emulated Japan’s earlier policy choices (and were themselves soon copied by the south east Asian “tigers”) by investing very heavily in primary education. By contrast, Nehru focused national resources on higher and technical education, leaving hundreds of millions out of the nation’s aspirations. Those fateful decisions underlie the trajectory of both countries into the 21st century.
In this regard, the latest annual state of education report (ASER) surveying schools across India illuminates hope, as well as room for improvement. Produced by the giant non-governmental organization, Pratham Education Foundation, “ASER continues to be the only national source of information about children’s foundational skills across the country” and its vast operations involves 500 partner organizations and 25,000 volunteers reaching out to 589 districts encompassing 562,305 children in 17,473 villages.
ASER 2018 reports school enrolment has reached 97% nationwide, and all trends for primary school attendance are up. While it comes at least two generations late, this means that universal literacy is just around the corner for India. But the jubilation must be tempered, because ASER also reports barely half (50.3%) of Class V students can adequately read at second-standard level.
There’s tremendous variation in ASER 2018, as must be expected from the wildly diverse and fiendishly complicated educational landscape across India. In Manipur, 70% of students go to private schools. In Kerala, Class V student reading ability catapulted 10% in two years (Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha are not far behind). But states like Jharkhand, West Bengal, Gujarat and Rajasthan are all trending in the opposite direction, which does not bode well for the future of economic growth in many parts of the country. […]
Source: “Small steps out of India’s education quagmire” by Vivek Menezes, Times of India, 20 January 2019
URL: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/small-steps-out-of-indias-education-quagmire/articleshow/67616637.cms
Date visited: 28 August 2019
Review by PIYUS GANGLULY
SEPARATE IDENTITIES
Contesting Marginality: Ethnicity, Insurgency and Subnationalism in North-East India
By Sajal Das, Manohar, Rs 795This book provides an account of the political movementsinvolving the tribal communities of north-east India: the Nagas, Mizos and Meiteis. Sustained insurgency and the demand for secession finally earned them statehood within the Indian union but not independence, which was their professed goal. […]
In Manipur too the advent of colonialism brought about a change in every sphere of life. The land system introduced by the British was qualitatively different from the pre-colonial one. It involved a thorough monetization, commercialization of agriculture and private land ownership. Meanwhile, the introduction of English education among the leading tribes, calculated to serve imperial strength, also helped the growth of a modern middle class. Das points out that “The British emphasis was on structural detribalization while encouraging the retention of tribal way of life at a superficial level.” […]
Source: The Telegraph – Calcutta : Opinion, Friday, January 28, 2005
Address : http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050128/asp/opinion/story_4272862.asp
Date Visited: Mon Jul 11 2011 15:29:54 GMT+0200 (CEST)
[Bold typeface added above for emphasis]
Tips for using interactive maps
Toggle to normal view (from reader view) should the interactive map not be displayed by your tablet, smartphone or pc browser
For details and hyperlinks click on the rectangular button (left on the map’s header)
Scroll and click on one of the markers for information of special interest
Explore India’s tribal cultural heritage with the help of another interactive map >>
Learn more
Adivasi Academy & Museum of Adivasi Voice at Tejgadh | Lecture “A View of Higher Education in India”
Anganwadi | Community facilities | Ekalavya
Appropriate education for Adivasi children – the Vidyodaya School model at Gudalur
Childhood | Children’s books | Childrens rights: Education | UNICEF India | Safe search
eBook | Background guide for education
Santali education | Teaching Santal children by Boro Baski
Unesco | Unicef | Unicef India | United Nations
United Nations International Days and Weeks
We cannot let our culture and society stop (interview)
Home, shelter and security as well as music, education, nature, and books for every child
In 1911, the American poet and novelist James Oppenheim wrote the now infamous poem “Bread and Roses“, inspired by the women’s suffrage activist Helen Todd. Working as a factory inspector for the state of Illinois, Todd spent her days listening to women’s accounts of low pay, inequality, and the drudgery of their work. Along with four other women from the Chicago Women’s Club, an association of wealthy middle-class women that had recently established some of the first kindergartens in Chicago, Todd began organising Illinois automobile workers for women’s right to vote in the summer of 1910. Inspired by a discussion she had with a young woman the night before giving a speech, Todd pronounced that the women’s “vote will go toward helping forward the time when life’s Bread, which is home, shelter and security, and the Roses of life, music, education, nature, and books, shall be the heritage of every child that is born in the country“. More than 70 years after the Seneca Falls convention declared women’s universal suffrage as its goal, the seemingly impossible became inevitable, and in 1920 Congress past the Nineteenth amendment to the US Constitution.
Source: Radical Abundance: How to Win a Green Democratic Future >>
“If a man cannot enjoy the return of spring, why should he be happy in a labour-saving Utopia? … I think that by retaining one’s childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies and … toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable, and that by preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader worship.”
George Orwell quoted in Two Cheers for Democracy (London: Penguin Books 1976), p. 76 | Learn more about Childhood | Childrens rights: UNICEF India | Safe search | Ecology and environment | Misconceptions | Modernity | Seasons and festivals | Social conventions >>
The house, in which British novelist George Orwell was born more than 110 years ago, has been converted into a museum by the Bihar Government >>
SafeSearch: Find educational and children’s books on tribal culture published in India
List of sites covered by this Google SafeSearch engine
https://books.katha.org (Katha Books)
https://publicationsdivision.nic.in
Search tips
Combine the name of any particular state, language or region with that of any tribal (Adivasi) community.
Add keywords of special interest (music, poetry, dance just as health, sacred grove and biodiversity); learn about the rights of Scheduled Tribes such as the “Forest Rights Act” (FRA); and the United Nations “Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, “women’s rights”, or “children’s right to education”.
Ask a question that includes “tribal” or “Adivasi”, for instance: “Adivasi way of life better?” (or “tribal way of life worse?”)
Specify any particular issue or news item (biodiversity, bonded labour and human trafficking, climate change, ecology, economic development, ethnobotany, ethnomedicine, global warming, hunter-gatherers in a particular region or state, prevention of rural poverty, water access).
For official figures include “scheduled tribe ST” along with a union state or region: e.g. “Chhattisgarh ST community”, “Himalayan tribe”, “Scheduled tribe Tamil Nadu census”, “ST Kerala census”, “Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group Jharkhand”, “PVTG Rajasthan”, “Adivasi ST Kerala”, “Adibasi ST West Bengal” etc.
SafeSearch browser tips
If your (mobile) browser fails to display “embedded” media contents, Google maps and SafeSearch windows
Try another browser like Firefox, Chrome or Safari available on your device
Ensure your favourite browser is up to date
Close your present browser
Check your browser and mobile (gsm) settings:
e.g. permission for video or JavaScript
(seen under Preferences >Security >Enable JavaSript)
Restart your computer (smartphone, tablet)
Reconnect to your wifi network or connect to a different one
On some iPhone models the following helps:
>Settings >Safari >scroll down to:
SETTING FOR WEBSITES
Enable “Request Desktop Website” (All Websites) temporarily
Return to the map-post in Safari and “Reload”
Return to >Settings and disable “Request Desktop Website” again
Return to the post in Safari and “Reload”which should now display “embedded” contents as intended (with the convenience of browsing the mobile version on a small screen)
Note: similar solutions may also work with other mobile operating systems.