Author: Maeve Hickok
Publication: Earthzine.org
Date: August 26, 2009
URL: http://www.earthzine.org/2009/08/26/kuruom-vidyalaya-the-power-of-one-in-a-billion/
In Korown, an Uttar Pradesh India farming
village where little has changed for hundreds of years, a 21st century school
opened its doors for the first time in July to 100 girls and boys in grades
1-4, 6, and 7. Kuruom vidyalaya is the bricks-and-mortar embodiment of the
Hindu goddess Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, and testimony to one man's
spirit and commitment.
Bal Ram Singh, Ph.D., 51, once a child of
the village and now a successful biophysical chemist at a U.S. university
(University of Massachusetts Dartmouth) and director of its Center for Indic
Studies, built the school himself without government assistance. Deeply engaged
as a Hindu, a family man, a professor, research scientist, and a U.S. citizen,
he is also determined to prove that "one little man" can change
the status-quo in India for the better.
India's population, which is over 1 billion,
is second only to China, which it is predicted to pass by 2030. India has
2.4% of the world's land area, and 15% of the world's population. Eight percent
(8%) of the world's poor live in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) alone. UP
has a population of 170 million - larger than most countries - and 60 million
are poor, according to a 2002 World Bank report. Malnutrition, maternal and
child mortality, and disease levels are higher in UP than in other states,
while immunization and literacy rates are lower.
"According to the 2001 Population Census,
literacy increased from 42% in 1991 to 57% as of February 2001, substantial
progress but still well below the all-India average of 65%. Female literacy
in particular, at 43%, is also below the all-India average of 54%… Uttar
Pradesh spends little on elementary education: spending rose from only "1.7%
of GSDP in the early 1990s to 1.8% by the end of the decade," according
to The World Bank.
Korown, Singh estimates, has a literacy rate
of 30-40%, slightly higher for men than women; and most residents only go
through middle school. His late father was educated and a land-owning farmer,
but most residents are laborers with yearly incomes of about 2000-3000 rupees
or $200-$300 USD.
Singh's own education came about unexpectedly.
His family did not encourage his schooling past middle school because they
were farmers, and expected he would join the family business. But he enjoyed
school, did well, and was encouraged by his teachers to go on to the next
level. He did so "almost by rote," he recalled, eventually earning
his doctorate in the U.S. and becoming an academic research scientist with
a specialty in the botulinum neurotoxin. Yet there were no educational options
past middle school for his younger sister, and the inequity of her prospects
first inspired his resolve to build a school.
Singh, who was interviewed in Massachusetts,
chose to build this school originally just for girls out of this personal
conviction as well as demographic reality. Education confers respect and respectability,
he believes, and when only the men in a family are educated, "the respectability
of a family goes down." He also believes women have to receive education
in order to become leaders in their families, their communities and in the
broader world of work, politics and the world's myriad problems. "It's
not enough to educate them; we have to educate them well, so they become leaders."
So, he built this school in northwestern India
on his family's land, which lies near the small city of Sultanpur. He initially
planned to help an education group to set up the school, but they wanted to
bring in advisors from the city. As he wanted local control they parted ways
and he built the whole school himself. His extended 30-member family also
helped and still helps, but they don't interfere; he has stipulated that no
member of his family can be paid for service to the school. Singh decries
a pattern of nepotism he has observed in other schools in India.
Ultimately, he set up a non-profit 80G corporation,
administered by treasurer Prem Prakash Singh (no relation), who also runs
BB Tech, the ayurvedic factory he previously set up to employ people in the
village. Bal Ram Singh himself earns no income from the school or from Harbal
Products, the ayurvedic business.
Prem Prakash Singh was also raised in rural
India and holds a Masters in Information Technology (MIT) degree from Aligarh
Muslim University. He writes in an email, "Kuruom Jankalyan Sansthan
(the school's official name) is supported through the North South Foundation
in collaboration with Dr. Singh, but we expect to become self sufficient within
a year using student fees and other donations locally. Kuruom is a place to
learn about real life through 'punchmukhi siksha' [Five-fold Educational Programme].
These days very few persons care about poverty / rural education. Dr.Singh
is one who has devoted his time as well as his real worth for all these types
of works."
The board of directors staffed the school
with fully-qualified teachers and a principal, and welcomed the students who
applied for admission and pay a fee to attend the private school. "There
are other rural schools that have been built in the last 5 years, but they
are very crowded, and not really up to the mark," Bal Ram Singh said.
"There was a lot of excitement and parents waited until the school opened
in July rather than send their children elsewhere." The school year usually
begins in May.
"Currently the school has both boys and
girls, and we plan to have boys and girls until 8th grade at which point high
school classes will be only for girls. This is done to get the school going
(with enough beginning students) and due to the pressure from parents, particularly
those who had boys and girls both in the family. The school was initially
planned as a high school but we added K-8 so that students are trained in
our way of education from the beginning," Bal Ram Singh said.
Construction is not yet complete, but one
of two planned wings is open, learning is going on, and the Educomp Solutions
Limited.com Smart Class rooms are bringing the newest technology via broadband
Internet access to children, many of whom have never used a computer before.
Singh's mission and that of the school is to teach leadership as well as a
full curriculum with co-curricular traditional and modern Indian arts, sports,
music and dance. It has a holistic pedagogy, much like Saraswati's, "whose
four hands represent four aspects of human personality in learning: mind,
intellect, alertness and ego." He says the curriculum is integrated so
that subjects are not taught in isolation-computer instruction incorporates
math.
Kuroum vidyalaya is not a religious school
per se; although the majority of Indians are Hindu, it welcomes students and
hires staff that are Muslim and other faiths. It does, however, follow the
Hindu practice of dharma, "a righteous way of being." Singh said,
"In India, we worship all living things… and we don't expect to
receive anything in return but respect… I want students to learn about
sustainability, to learn to protect the environment. This is dharma. So, in
this respect, the school is religious."
Singh's vision for Kuruom vidyalaya is congruent with the UN Millennium Development
Goals of 2000 in which world leaders came together and pledged to halve the
number of people living in extreme poverty, as well as reach seven other goals
set by the United Nations. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are designed
to relieve the world's most pressing problems by 2015, and include halting
the spread of HIV/AIDS, providing universal primary education, promoting gender
equality and empowering women; and ensuring environmental sustainability.
These eight goals represent an unprecedented global partnership, both in size
and scope, and have come to symbolize a new age of humanitarianism.
Why Girls' Education in a Society Thousands
of Years Old is Vital
In India the educational status- quo for girls
is poor. Singh says the barriers to girls' education are social and political,
not cultural. Women in India have always been worshipped through powerful
deities, even if mortal women were socially subservient to men. Modern women
are able to hold positions of power if they have wealthy families who support
them with education and influence (e.g. PM Indira Gandhi), or if they are
able to independently obtain education, which is more available in the cities.
Socially, however, most rural Indian parents are conservative: they want to
marry their daughters, not send them away to cities for educations in facilities
not equipped for their safety or even with girls' toilets. This is a kind
of de-facto discrimination that the Indian government says it is striving
to correct.
"Growth in access to schooling has been
matched by a steady increase in enrolment with the most dramatic upswing since
1990s in girls' participation levels. From 13.8 million boys and 5.4 million
girls enrolled at the primary level in 1950-51, the number rose to 69.7 million
boys and 61.1 million girls in 2004-05. At the upper primary level, the enrolment
increased from 2.6 million boys and 0.5 million girls to 28.5 million boys
and 22.7 million girls," according to the Ministry of Human Resources
Development Department of Education & Literacy (2008).
But Singh sees a more troubling dichotomy.
"I think it is a mistake to focus on girls versus boys. It is more important
to distinguish between those who are well-to-do and those who are not."
Rural Reality v. Big City Allure in One of
the World's Fastest Growing Economies
The vast majority of India's one billion population
lives in its 550,000 villages and outlying rural areas, not in its 200 cities,
which are densely populated, nonetheless. Agriculture is the basis of the
rural economy in Uttar Pradesh, but most employment is in low-wage, intermittent
labor for men and boys. That fragile economic safety net doesn't exist at
all for women and girls without male breadwinners, as well as for the ill
and disabled, and those perceived to have low social or caste identity, according
to The World Bank.
Many move to the city: "Urban poverty
has a distinctly different face than rural poverty. Many of the urban poor
included in the consultations were first generation migrants, and the majority
felt that migration had improved their economic position. In urban areas,
unlike rural villages, employment opportunities - if only scavenging, petty
hawking, and begging - are available year round, typically at higher wages
than paid in rural areas…," The World Bank reports.
Yet India, despite a worldwide recession,
has the second fastest growing economy in the world today and an educated
middle class increasing its prosperity. A March 2009 editorial in India's
Economic Times titled "Focus on the Rural Economic Base" argues
that India has to expand its economic support to its rural population:
"Unlike China, where exports and manufacturing
sector have been the main engines of economic growth, India's growth has been
stimulated by the emergence and rise of an educated middle class who have
prospered in the services sector. The share of the services sector in GDP
has increased to 58% and it is often said that the performance of this sector
has become independent of the performance of other sectors of the economy.
This argument will be put to the test during the current slowdown…
"Even in the last quarter of 2008, consumer
spending and retail sales in China and India did not witness a significant
decline. Much of the prosperity in India has been starkly visible in the top
20 cities of India. A look at the earnings structure across India's top 20
cities reveals that the average graduate earns Rs 1.8 lakh per year compared
to just Rs 91,000 in rural areas…"
However, The Wall Street Journal's India Edition
reports, "India started from a lower economic base but has made greater
gains: Its urban-rural income gap has slowly but steadily declined since the
early 1990s. Over the past decade, economic growth in rural India has outpaced
growth in urban areas by almost 40%. Rural India now accounts for half of
the country's GDP, up from 46% in 1993. Unlike the Chinese, rural Indians
do not have to migrate to already crowded urban areas to earn a better living."
India is complex and many layered.
Bal Ram Singh's View of India Post Independence
from Great Britain on August 15, 1947
"I think India is doing very well in
some sense, and very badly in others. In 60 years they have proven that they
can live democratically at the local level and certainly at the national level.
It is a multicultural society. The people are Muslim, Christian, Hindu and
other groups and they all live together. This has been very successful. Economically,
India has capitalized on technology: computer technology, nuclear technology,
with satellites and so on. Socially, it has not done so well. They have not
been able to use India's experience over a long period of time to develop
the rural areas where they could have significant impact on people's lives
through education, through economic development. All this has not happened.
There has been a dichotomy between the cities and the rural areas in India.
And people have adopted a way of living that is mostly westernized, which
is not possible in my opinion…India has not done very well integrating
our culture with the modern way of life where they allow people to be educated,
to be creative, to be innovative, but to not move to the cities. The movie
Slumdog Millionaire shows what can happen when people move from rural areas
to the cities without education or the capacity for modern life-they create
slums. Those of us who have moved to the West can look back with some objectivity.
That is some of my motivation."
