द्वारा : वी शांताकुमार एवं अनंत गंगोला | Mar 9, 2022

सामान्य तौर पर सुकमा और बस्तर क्षेत्र में आदिवासी समुदायों और मुख्यधारा के समाज की भाषा के बीच एक उल्लेखनीय अंतर है। यह आश्चर्य की बात नहीं है क्योंकि मुख्य जनजाति — कोंड — और उनकी भाषा द्रविड़ परिवार का हिस्सा है जो हिंदी से बहुत अलग है। हालांकि, वहां की जनजातीय आबादी को भाषा-उपयुक्त और संदर्भ‑विशिष्ट शिक्षा प्रदान करने के पर्याप्त प्रयास नहीं किए गए हैं।

The real problem is the lack of an approach to connect academic subjects with the real-life or occupational contexts of students. The subjects that students study in their UG programme should contribute to their lives and occupations even if they do not pursue higher levels of education.

A mere increase in the enrolment in higher education may not be the ideal way forward. There is a need for a deeper analysis of factors which encourage youngsters to go to a college/​university.

The slow spread of school education for all has affected the economic development in South Asian countries. This seems to be the case if we compare the situation of India with that of China. The latter could ensure the provision of basic education to the majority of children, which helped the growth of manufacturing industries.

The restoration of peatlands in Indonesia and elsewhere is important not just for these countries but also globally. The burning of peatlands can add significant amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and can also lead to other problems, such as haze that affects airline traffic.

Discussions on land restoration have so far not focussed adequately on the connection between human development and the restoration of land and ecosystem. There are cases where broad-based development led to an increase in the vegetative cover over those lands which were used for intensive (or degrading) agriculture in the past.

The cases of Roma people and the Dalits show that specific social groups can remain less educated and underdeveloped for generations. An equilibrium of social discrimination combined with economic deprivation can sustain for a long time as evident not only from the study of these two sections of people but also from that of the Black community in the United States.

Historically, there were periods of suppression and exclusion of the Roma people. Even when their children were admitted to schools, they were not fully accepted. Their historical underachievements in education continue to impact the performance of children from these communities, even though government policies have become more enabling for their children.

Despite a relatively better economic status as a whole and higher public investments, India seems to be facing challenges in terms of retention and learning in schools somewhat similar to those that Kenya faces. But the reasons for the underperformance in school education seem to be different in the two countries.

There are important differences in the schooling patterns in India and Kenya. For example, those social groups that do not do well in education are different in the two countries. But this note focuses on the differences in the responses of governments in both countries in addressing the challenges related to the demand for and supply of education, among the rural poor.

SPCE-Afghanistan is unique within the SPCE system because it is embedded in state educational establishments and, in effect, is a private-public partnership. Three of its Learning Centres are at Teachers Training Colleges located in remote mountain towns of the Badakhshan province.

UCA defines itself as a ​‘development’ university. Its locations reflect this commitment. The campuses are in secondary towns among poor mountain communities where UCA becomes a significant driver of economic growth, providing quality employment during construction and ongoing operations and helping re-envisage mountain futures with the emergence of ​‘university towns’.

This article looks at low-fee paying private schools in urban Nairobi and is based on short-period fieldwork in a set of such schools and interactions with school directors and teachers. We have interacted with other stakeholders, including the association of these alternate schools. A public school was also visited and the possibilities and challenges of the education of children from urban slums in these public schools were discussed.

When demonetisation took place, I called it ​‘madness’. Neoliberalism means you don’t tamper with the money and here is somebody doing away with the money. Nobody was willing to condemn it. See, there is a whole lot of PR work and manipulation. Money is not a simple thing. Whichever party in India is in power, has money. All the money is cornered by them. They have champion investors who have an interest in this régime and are continuing to fund it.

In a democracy, there will be and there should be alternatives before the people. But I don’t agree with the fact that competitive politics demands that the ruling party keeps on changing every five years. It has proven to be detrimental to people’s interests. If the party in power is able to perform well based on the expectations of the people, it should be rewarded, otherwise, there is no incentive for it to function.

Though it is obvious, the possible positive contribution of education towards economic and human development can be seen from the experience of different countries in the South Asian region. A virtuous equilibrium can be seen in Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh and the Maldives. On the other hand, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nepal show a vicious equilibrium marked by social factors disabling education and this impacts and is impacted by economic underdevelopment. 

Bhutan is a one case where a desirable equilibrium or mutually beneficial interlinkages between education and development could be achieved. This is despite the fact that modern education started in a major way only about 50 years ago. The internal factors (the absence of caste segregation, and the fact that gender norms did not work against the school education of girls, etc.,) facilitated this process. There are challenges, but these are there in any society and one can hope that the mutually strengthening interlinkages between education and development would enable the country to address these challenges.

The traditional community norms in these regions were also strengthened by the versions of Islam which got dominance there, overtime, strengthened the norms against modern education for girls. Instead of a religious issue, it is more of a cultural issue. It may be more correct to say that the traditional values in these localities may have found certain rigid versions of Islam acceptable over time.

Bangladesh is an example where the education-development linkage provided a positive feedback loop which strengthened both spaces even though the country is at a relatively lower level in terms of both education and development. This may have implications on poverty, reduction, economic and human development.

Nepal is the only country where internal factors and forces of globalisation have not helped in substantially increasing the demand for and use of education on the one hand and the better and more opportunities for educated people on the other hand.

Barring Sri Lanka and Bhutan, other countries have not been very successful in extending school education to all through pro-active governmental efforts which re needed to overcome the constraining family circumstances of the children that prevent them from using school. This would mean that family and social conditions continue to play an important role in the educational achievements of children in the region.

Despite various challenges in the first year of implementation, the project has achieved huge success in terms of promoting dietary diversity among the beneficiaries. Till March 2021, around 3.13 lakh households have grown nutri-gardens in their households.

There could be other negative impacts due to the lack of interaction among growing children in physical spaces, including behavioural issues, such as the absence of desitrable peer relationships, lack of opportunities to interact with students from other social identities and the internalizing of useful norms, etc. The argument in this paper is that despite the problems of the digital divide, there is going to be an‘excessive’ use of technology in education in countries like India, even after COVID-19 and that could lead to certain adverse outcomes.

A few researchers and a set of parents argue that low-fee private schools provide ​‘quality’ education. Though such schools fail in terms of almost all indicators of quality (basic infrastructure, qualified teachers, availability of learning materials), personal attention may enable some of their students to score better on standardized tests (and not necessarily in terms of all goals of education) than what they would have done in a typical government school.

There are thousands of villages like Nagada and Guhiasal in India. Small villages face similar challenges of development. Based on the case study of Nagada and Guhiasal villages of Odisha, we can make some inferences for small villages. The road to economic development requires basic infrastructure, like all-weather roads and physical access to health, education and market.

The source of financing expenditure for various goals indicates the predominance of state-sponsored schemes in many of the goals. This in itself can be taken as the commitment of the state towards target compliance as regard SDGs.

Education has the potential to enhance equality of opportunity (for higher education) and employment. However, the evidence is mixed. Even in a developed country like the USA, social mobility facilitated through education is mediated through the socio-economic background of the family. This could be more so in India.

There could be different theoretical reasons for the positive impact of education on good governance. One could be the potential role of the middle class in strengthening democracy and governance, and the role that education plays in the creation of such a class.