2005: Historic Year for Indian Education

The year 2005 was remarkable for unprecedentedly frenzied activity in the education sector. Like latter day Rip Van Winkles, India’s somnambulistic politicians seem to have woken to the reality that the rest of the world which was quick to discern the vitally important connection between education and national development, has left the sovereign, socialist, secular, etc Republic of India which harbours over 350 million complete illiterates, way behind. Hence a flurry of activity in the education sector in the year that was. The presentation of the most pro-education Union budget in Indian history; the formulation of a new child-friendly National Curriculum Framework for School Education; establishment of a National Knowledge Commission to transform India into a 21st century knowledge society; circulation of a draft Right to Education Bill 2005, which makes it mandatory for the State (i.e. government) to provide free and compulsory elementary education to all children between ages six-14; promulgation and passage of the 104th amendment to the Constitution which makes it obligatory for all non-minority aided and unaided education institutions to provide state government determined quotas for scheduled castes, tribes and socio-economically disadvantaged classes. All these initiatives which will deeply impact the future of the nation’s primary, secondary and tertiary institutions were taken during the past 12 months. Moreover for the first time since the First Plan era, the Central and state governments’ combined allocation for education crossed 4 percent of GDP. In the following pages EducationWorld’s Summiya Yasmeen presents a more detailed retrospective of landmark initiatives of the recently concluded calendar year which may well prompt future historians to notify it as an annus mirabilis when education moved from the periphery to the near-centre of national consciousness. Unicef highlights India’s child neglect record January 1. India received a damning indictment of its pathetic child health and education record. Unicef‘s The State of the World’s Children Report 2005, highlighted that 175 million children (below 18 years) in contemporary India suffer utter poverty and deprivation. Of every 100 children born in this country, only 35 births are registered, seven won’t make it to their first birthday (of whom five die of malnutrition), 47 remain underweight and only 53 complete primary school. Girl children suffer more. An estimated 43 percent of adolescent girls are anaemic and 31 percent drop out of school every year. The indicators of child deprivation defined by the report are lack of shelter, unsafe drinking water and sanitation, health and food insecurity, lack of school access, low infant mortality, malnutrition, child labour and child abuse. The report indicates that only 33.9 percent of India’s child population has proper shelter and a mere 30 percent accesses sanitation facilities. Moreover only one in four of 26.2 million children suffering chronic diarrhoea receive basic oral rehydration treatment. Comments Unicef director Carol Bellamy in her preface to SWC 2005: “As children go, so go nations.” (See Education News, EW January 2005) Also read: Child safety: A neglected issue in pre-primary education Supreme Court crackdown on private varsities February 11. A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court forced closure of 97 self-financing private universities…