Rajiv Desai: Quiet revolution in Indian education

One often reads bits and pieces about the revolutionary education policy of the Congress-led UPA-2 government which was returned to power in the general election held last summer. But the media has yet to cotton on that fundamental reforms that could change the face of India in the next decade are in the process of implementation.In 1992, I was appointed adviser to the United Nations Childrens Fund (Unicef) in India. At the time Unicefs chief executive, Eimi Watanabe, told me that the countrys primary education system was a major problem, in terms of enrolment as well as dropouts. Therefore Unicef launched an advocacy campaign for universal primary education which reached far and wide. We looked for ways and means to influence politicians, bureaucrats, journalists and businessmen to push for free and compulsory primary education. Our argument was simple: India boasts that its technical and scientific prowess is recognised the world over, and yet it also harbours the worlds largest number of illiterates. In our campaign we highlighted this paradox to promote universal primary education. We showed the contrast between poor enrolment and high dropout rates in primary schools and the huge demand for higher education. A powerful argument in our campaign was that this paradox of Indian education has created and perpetuates a class divide, with educated elite on one side and a vast illiterate underclass on the other. Primary education is a powerful equaliser, we said. In addition, the Unicef advocacy campaign demolished several excuses offered by policy experts, including the pernicious one that children of the rural poor are needed to help out as family farmhands. Nearly three years of dogged advocacy paid off when on November 14, 1994 (Childrens Day), then prime minister P. V. Narasimha Rao and his senior cabinet colleagues made a public commitment to provide ‘Education for all by the year 2000. But nothing happened as India suffered a period of political instability, resulting in several wasted years of a BJP-led coalition government which was ousted in 2004. Fifteen years later, in August 2009, Parliament passed the landmark Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, 2008. My good friend Kapil Sibal, who, as Union human resource development (HRD) minister, piloted the Bill, described it as the harbinger of a new era. For me, it is a vindication. In 1992, we faced severe opposition. But Eimi Watanabe — now a member of the World Banks inspection panel that works to ensure the banks activities dont harm people — is the unsung heroine of this landmark legislation. Without her commitment to education for all in India, this Bill would never have become a reality. Its been just two months since the RTE Bill was passed by Parliament. But its impact will be felt over the next decade. Free primary education provides access to the poorest. Making it compulsory will gene-rate sustained demand that will eventually overcome the bugbears of enrolment, dropouts, absentee teachers and irrelevant curriculums. Kapil Sibal is indebted to Eimi, who placed…