Missing link in HRD

WHILE WE often boast of higher education policy, rarely we think of school education policy and possibly never of rural education policy, notwithstanding the fact that despite high urbanisation, our country even today has predominantly rural population - two- thirds of the total population. And it is here that the largest number of illiterates are to be found whose number even this day exceeds that at the time of independence. This shows how even after a period of over 50 years we have failed to achieve the most elementary input of economic and social development - literacy. Little surprise that today we happen to be the world's one of the poorest and most illiterate nations. Several developing countries which got their independence later than we did have left us far behind in the field of human development.

Even China that had started on the path of development later and was in a worse position in human development compared to us is now far better placed in basic growth indicators such as population pressure, literacy, industrialisation, skilled manpower and overall social development. It has far higher rate of literacy, especially among women while in India even today several areas continue to be obsessed with the notion that no useful purpose will be served by educating women who have by and large to manage household affairs and look after children. While much is talked about China's dictatorial administration which achieved one child family norm through instilling fear in the minds of the local population, little is appreciated of the role that literacy among women has played in this aspect. The wide population gap that existed between India and China earlier is soon on the way of closing down when we would become world's number one country in population.

Message is clear

Thus the message is clear. In case we want to avoid further population catastrophe we must move fast enough on the road of rural literacy programme and here, especially in the sphere of female literacy, a lot of spadework is required. That a positive relation exists between female education and social development becomes evident even when we look at the experience of our own southern States which are better placed in literacy compared with the North. See what a dramatic social change has come about in Kerala where women enjoy a high rate of literacy and consequently have a say in family decision-making. While in most of the northern States such as Bihar, U.P., Rajasthan and M.P. it is the male members who have a predominant say in family affairs.

Thus if we want to emerge from this vicious circle of population and poverty - both are so closely interrelated - high priority should be given to rural education.

So far, with our bias for higher education we have failed to provide sufficient funds as well as attention to rural education. It is well known that benefits of higher education have only gone to a small segment of the population, mainly the urban elite. Even in school education much attention has been paid to urban schools. In rural education programme we have imposed urban school curriculum irrespective of whether it suits the needs of rural children who live under a totally different environment. Equally there has been a tendency to employ urban trained teachers to man rural schools who generally hail from neighbouring towns and have little interest in rural schools.

Uninteresting approach

With such a system how can we expect rural children to take interest in their education? While we attribute the high dropout rates from rural schools to all sorts of flimsy excuses like illiterate parents who are not in favour of getting their children educated as well as family compulsions, we rarely bother to get down to the root cause of the problem which is clearly the uninteresting approach adopted to educate these children with city based books and teachers. Both have been a big failure.

Every State should therefore commit a major portion of its education budget to rural education instead of diverting it for higher education; in fact a good part of the latter can be effectively delivered by the private sector as has been the experience of the southern States. For training rural teachers special institutes should be set up where they are provided intensive training in the new system of rural education. It would be appropriate that in future such teachers have also rural moorings as they would then be more committed to rural education than their urban counterparts.

Much effort should go in for preparing new courses relevant to rural environments. While we have a national body like the NCERT, very little effort has been made by this body in the area of rural education. In fact in its high profile programmes little has been done to draft textbooks that would suit the needs of rural children where a lot of effort is needed to understand their special needs and interest. Here individual interest of both boys and girls as well as of the community would have to be kept in view. Their special needs for agriculture, environment, vocational and allied courses would have to be dovetailed into these courses. Girls should have exposure to courses that are relevant to them.

Also we have hitherto made little attempt in providing infrastructure for delivering rural education. Several areas yet do not have proper school buildings and where these exist they are not well maintained. Now we have panchayats practically in all villages; these bodies should be made responsible for construction as well as maintenance of school buildings, for which sufficient funds should be provided. Also why should the rural education be under the charge of the District Education Officer whose staff rarely visit these schools much less the DEO? We should discard this bureaucratic system and instead ensure effective decentralisation and management of the rural education programme. Let us strengthen panchayats in this respect which should be able to deliver the goods more effectively.

Thus a meaningful rural education programme and its effective implementation would help wipe out the high illiteracy in the country, especially among women.

V. S. MAHAJAN

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