Free and compulsory education to all children in India up to the age of fourteen is established as a constitutional commitment of the country. According to the Parliament, the Right to Education Act, declared education as a fundamental right of ALL children. This commitment supposes that all children must be in school; government agencies should be taking action and ensuring high quality education for all these children. As it usually happens when politics, personal interests, and money gets in the way, this is not the case. The truth is heart-rending.
As a visiting educator, my personal account contradicts all that is written in paper. Truth is that, even though children comprise more than one third of the population, it is evident that they are not the priority of this country. Of course, I am referring to the majority, the underprivileged, the ones I have seen day after day ruminating the streets barefooted, begging for money or some hope. These are the one whose rights have been violated. Only fifty percent of them actually attend school. Not all of them finish it. Wondering why? One in every ten children is disabled. Ninety five in every thousand do not reach their fifth birthday. A staggering seventy four percent are anemic. Add to this the girl factor, child bonded labor, and child sex workers. Keep adding and consider that those who do go to school most of the times have to walk 15 kilometers, 9.32 miles, to get there. What do they have left?
Maybe you are thinking that India is a far away country; that we should worry and take care of our own problems, which are many. Maybe you don’t see how this country and their children would affect you. One of the things I have learned while waking up in this country every day is that, what happens here will eventually affect not only India but the whole world. These children and their pain, lack of education and opportunities will eventually touch each of us. As one big community we can’t limit our vision exclusively to our place, our own private circle. There is enough of that in this country. We must think bigger, enlarging our hearts, and looking for options to give these children some hope. Let’s not let them starve. Let’s help them paint their own dreams in different colors. It is our duty as citizens of the world. What if these were our children? Well, they are.
Norma,
ReplyDeleteWhat I feel about this situation, what I have felt since the crisis in Ethiopia many years ago is this: yes, these people desperately need education--sex education. They need to know that they are contributing to their own demise, to their own poverty levels by continually adding to their population, by continually adding more mouths to feed, more bodies to clothe, more illnesses to cure, and more minds to educate. It has to begin to end somewhere.
Is this harsh? Is it realistic? Can we discuss?
I somehow agree with you. They need that kind of education desperately and they also need to be provided with the resources to stop the madness that has created such a huge population living in poverty. Unfortunately, what I have seen here is that the government agencies are blind or in the worst case indifferent to this problem. Many foreign agencies are trying to help but this needs to be more of an inside job. Their reality is truly tough. At the same time, I do believe we should all be in this together.
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