Effects of globalisation on Indian children

NEW DELHI: Fifty students huddledtogether in a makeshift school in Debitola block of Dhubri district in Assam arepart of a single-teacher village school which has been in existence for fifteenyears.The school, however, has received absolutely no aid from the stategovernment. The teacher functions without a salary. The school comes under thecategory of the Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha’s Lokshal Programme for theUniversalisation of Elementary Education, under which a school can be started byany individual.The teacher is running the school in the hope that someday, it may get recognition from the state educational authorities. Meanwhile,its attendance register is being used to swell primary school educationalstatistics to meet the diktat of the World Bank to achieve 100 per centliteracy.The first State of the Nation Report on the impact ofglobalisation on Indian children brought out by an NGO, Haq: Centre forChild’s Rights, takes an overview of how the country’s 370 millionchildren are faring. Educational expert Anil Sadgopal says pressure from theWorld Bank forced the government to reduce the span of elementary education fromeight to five years.‘‘Article 45 of the Constitution hasunambiguously declared that primary education would be spread over eight yearsand an eight-year curriculum was drafted at Wardha Conference in 1937. Not onlyhas this been changed, but also the newly-introduced Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan orthe Education Guarantee Scheme has reduced the duration of primary education tothree years,’’ says Sadgopal. Experts are equally critical of howearlier educational commitments have been swept aside.