The other day my friend shared an exciting news, "my son has scored high and has come among the top 3 in his class". I relayed back the excitement & congratulated him but was surprised with his immediate next line, "i need to change my son's school real quick, may be by the next class". I didn't follow him & asked out of curiosity, "but why?". My friend replied, "there's a lot wrong with the school & a lot lesser in place.. my son though scores good marks in his class but then i never find him happy or bright, he's turned obese as he never gets to play, he's always sunk with homework or some class assignment….i just can't see him missing his childhood like that".
This is just not an abberation, but a story with almost every second home. Parents today are struggling to strke the right balance for their children so that they don't miss on their childhood. Be it, in their ability to play outside in the open, excel in extracurrics & sports, mingle with other children outside of the class & so on. These signs are dangerous. With the ever growing pressure & evolution of the urban landscape, the young ones have a lot to catch up on….probably they don't have even a slight idea of what are they being devoid of. Introspection then makes me side my friend who has given up the idea of changing his child's school & decided rather better to look for another school…..it's still much better than deciding to let go of his child's childhood in vain.
A little more looking around & some number crunching helps one gain some more perspective. The total national budget for education is $ 10 bn, the current literacy in India is 74%, 27% of the Indian children go to Private schools which have so called above average physical Infrastructure, India's education system is the third largest just behind the US & China.
And then one GLARING, hard hitting stat, India's ranked 134 in the Human Development Index. Even Bahrain, Qatar, Croatia are much ahead of India. Srilanka is ranked 97. These are for 187 countries worldwide & needless to say, India figures in the last 60 countries.
A lot to be desired for real DEVELOPMENT through Education, clearly there's a huge distance between Education & Development. It will take "lastmile" efforts to empower a shift in the Education curve to bring it closer to "Development". one mile at a time will not be sufficient, the entire ECOSYSTEM needs to positively shift.
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