Author: Tavleen Singh
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: April 1, 2007
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/27204.html
Introduction: If there were enough colleges,
we would not be discussing caste quotas and the Supreme Court would not need
to waste its time questioning the basis of a caste census done in 1931
Delighted though I am that the Supreme Court
kicked the government in the butt over educational quotas last week, may I
remind you that the issue is not quotas but education? The issue is the abysmal
failure of the Indian state on the educational front, not merit or the absence
of it.
In the 27 per cent debate started by that
old cynic, Arjun Singh, too often have we forgotten this. Too often have we
forgotten that what handicaps underprivileged children in India is not their
caste but the inability of the state to provide them with decent primary and
secondary education, without which they have no chance of getting into IITs,
IIMs or institutions of higher learning of any kind.
To emphasise this let me describe for you
a school I recently visited in an Uttar Pradesh village less than 50 km from
Delhi. It consisted of a collection of rooms built around a barren field.
Neither aesthetic nor academic considerations had been kept in mind in its
construction, so the general impression was not of a place of learning but
of a village godown.
The classrooms had dirt floors, so clouds
of dust were a permanent fixture and crude wooden planks served as desks and
chairs. How can we begin to discuss so grand an idea as learning in such a
place? How can children who are taught in such a school hope to compete with
those who have played with computers in the kindergartens of Delhi and Mumbai?
And, what has any of this to do with caste?
The reason caste has been made the only issue
by our fossilised and intellectually backward minister for human resource
development is because he seeks to divert attention from his total failure
to improve higher education. He knows that our colleges and universities are
dying for want of funds. He knows that fees need to be raised and that private
money and a system of endowments is necessary if these institutions are to
be saved from certain death, but he does nothing because he is a politician
of the old school.
Politicians like him thrive in an atmosphere
of control and patronage and they have seen their powers slip away as state
controls have been weakened with the end of the license-quota raj. So he clings
to one of the last bastions where this political philosophy continues to flourish
- education.
And because the debate has got stuck on whether
other backward caste students should be entitled to 27 per cent reserved seats
in state-run colleges, we do not ask the more important questions. Why is
there a shortage of colleges in the first place? Why do we not have a thousand
more medical schools? Why do we not have thousands more IITs and IIMs? Why
is the private sector not allowed to invest in building them if the state
does not have the money? Why is there a single AICTE to regulate every technical
college in the country?
If there were enough colleges, we would not
be discussing caste quotas and the Supreme Court would not need to waste its
time questioning the basis of a caste census done in 1931. What is the government
going to do now? Will it be able to conduct a new caste based census by August,
when it has to report back to the Supreme Court?
Why are we wasting time on such stupidities
when what we need is for the state to either deliver on the education front
or allow someone else a chance. This column has suggested before that if the
state cannot run schools and colleges as they should be run then it is time
we considered privatising these institutions. Education is too important a
subject to be left in the hands of politicians who are more interested in
making money out of building contracts than building schools for the sake
of learning.
The prime minister likes to remind us that
the 21st century is going to be India's century. With the largest number of
young people in the world this is definitely possible, but if there is one
thing that will hold us back, it is education. If we fail to build the institutions
needed to give Indian children learning that goes beyond basic literacy, we
are doomed.
There is a Knowledge Commission report that
says this, there are senior officials who say it privately, but for some reason
the prime minister and his boss are not listening. Is it because of those
dreary old Marxists again? If it is, then it is time that Sonia Gandhi or
the prime minister finally told them to shut up and confine their energies
to solving their own problems in West Bengal.
Meanwhile, three cheers for the Supreme Court.
tavleensingh@hotmail.com