The prime motivation behind the promotion of this sui generis magazine 15 summers ago, was to secure a fair deal for the country’s neglected and short-changed children and youth. The number of children below age 18 in India aggregates 450 million — the world’s largest child population. And if to this you add youth below 24 years, the number of India’s young citizens aggregates 600 million, more than the populations of the United States, United Kingdom and France combined.
Unfortunately, the disruptive innovation essayed by EducationWorld has had limited success. The public is unenthused by our mission statement, viz, “to build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda”. The annual outlay for public education (Centre plus states) is stuck in the 3.5 percent of GDP groove and learning outcomes in primary, secondary and higher education are in free fall.
Early this year, the Annual Status of Education Report 2014, published by the well-reputed Mumbai-based NGO Pratham, indicated that learning outcomes in rural primaries in 588 districts countrywide are continuously falling. Now comes a Young Citizen National Survey, 2015, a study commissioned by the Bangalore-based NGO, Children’s Movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA, estb. 2000). It reveals that class IX and first year college students in urban India are woefully ignorant and casual about the rights and obligations of democratic citizenship and entertain shockingly regressive attitudes towards women, and poor and marginalised citizens of the Republic.
It’s all very well — and fashionable — to celebrate the nation’s youth. But if they fool around for years in a highly subsidised education system without making any effort to learn, and graduate as ignorant and callous duds with an exaggerated sense of entitlement, one shouldn’t shy away from blowing the whistle on them. Formal school and collegiate education aside, the country’s youth have a social obligation to undertake self-study and learning initiatives to mature into responsible, socially aware and contributing citizens, rather than mere party animals. Nevertheless the valuable CMCA-IMRB survey is yet another wake-up call to the country’s purblind and moribund educators and teachers that Indian education needs urgent reform across the spectrum, if the nation is not to slide into chaos and dictatorship in the near future.
Regrettably, our special report feature on a determined effort being made to extinguish the academic autonomy of West Bengal’s premier Jadavpur University makes much the same point. Perhaps the only bright spot of this spring issue of EW is the newly introduced Eyewitness Despatch feature visually detailing the success of a lone ranger against the system and establishment. Check it out.
