The return to power of the Congress-led UPA government in New Delhi is a welcome result of the 15th general election of the world’s most populous democracy (size of electorate: 714 million). Undoubtedly there is greater commitment to the nation-building values and principles enshrined in the Constitution of India in the Congress than in other political alliances and formations, which contested the recently concluded five-phase general election. Yet within the business premises of this publication, relief relating to the electoral denouement is tempered by sharp awareness that the track record of the Congress party — which has reigned in New Delhi for over four decades — vis-a-vis educating and preparing the world’s largest child population for the challenges of the 21st century is less than sub-optimal.
The government’s own statistics relating to education provision recount a story of shocking neglect of human resource development which ought to have topped the national development agenda ab initio after independence. Of the 200 million children enroled in primary school countrywide at the commencement of every academic year, 107 million drop out before completing class VIII; a mere 35 million children are enrolled in secondary schools, of whom only 11 million — equivalent to 9 percent of eligible youth in the age group 17-24 — are enroled in institutions of tertiary education. Moreover a record 1.25 million government school teachers across the country are AWOL (absent without official leave) every single day of the academic year without fear of repercussions.
Numerous excuses are routinely advanced by Congress apologists for this dominant political party’s consistent neglect and failure to place education of the world’s largest child population at the very top of the national development agenda. Yet the prime cause of the inability of successive governments at the Centre and in the states to provide the resources required to universalise quality primary and secondary education (and expand capacity in tertiary education) is the high cost of bloated government, which dissipates the overwhelming share of tax and other revenues for its own maintenance. EW estimates indicate that the salaries and perquisites bill of 4 million Central government employees is over Rs.70,000 crore, twice the amount New Delhi allocated for the education of 450 million children across the country in the Union budget 2008-09. Nor is there any reason to believe that the tax-and-spend priorities of state governments differ.
Therefore even as the new Congress-led government takes office in New Delhi, this publication serves notice that it will be put to the strictest test to ensure delivery of high quality schools and education (with the parental option of English medium instruction) to every child countrywide. We shall be relentless and unsparing in our quest — which does not rule out direct action — for universalisation of quality school education for all of India’s 450 million children.