Commercialisation of Education – The Hindrance for Superpower India

Let New India arise out of the peasants’ cottage, grasping the plough; out of the huts of the fishermen, the cobbler, and the sweeper. Let her spring from the grocer’s shop, from beside the oven of the fritter-seller. Let her emanate from the factory, from marts, and from markets. Let her emerge from groves and forests, from hills and mountains.

                                                                                        --- Swami Vivekananda

Once I was reading an article and there I found some exciting data on India “Today over 35% of the population is below the age of 20. By 2020 it is expected that around 32.5 crores (325 million) of people will reach the working age which will be the largest in the world and this will come at a time when rest of the developed world will be faced with the ageing population. It is estimated that by 2020, US will be short of 17 million of working age, China by 10 million, Japan by 9 million and Russia by 6 million. At the same time India will have surplus of 47 million working age.” To check the accuracy of this, I started to Google in different ways and found similar data from other different sources.

Next day I was casually turning over the pages of the quotation book of Swami Vivekananda and I read the above words of him on how the India should arise including all sections of the society. For some time I kept on thinking between the Swamiji’s words and India’s population structure by age. My analysis led me to conclude that this is the apt time for India to become a superpower and the most developed nation of the world before we breathe our last and we can very well become part of this transformation.

I thought that education can play an essential role here but at the same time I think that the current situation of education can also become a big hindrance for us.

Education plays the most fundamental role for the growth of a nation. It is only the quality education which leads to a civilised family, society and a prosperous country with a booming economy.

Currently, the higher education in India is becoming a distant dream for most of the economically middle and poor class families. A huge part of the savings is spent on the tuition fee of the universities and colleges of India. Most of the students pursuing higher education are already on the pre burden of educational loans. In metro cities, the primary and secondary educations are also extremely expensive. If this trend continues then we cannot hope and expect that all the sections of the society can get proper access to education.

When our government was not able to take care of the education from the government’s expenses, they brought private players in to the picture. Now many Colleges and Universities are run by private institutions or individuals and this has made the educational sector as a commercial sector of India. Here the main focus is not to provide quality education but to extract maximum money. Even the government’s contribution of funds is not sufficient to run government colleges and eventually the monetary burden comes on the students and their parents.

As India is still coming out from poverty and backwardness, the main expectation from higher education is mainly a medium which can provide good salaried job to them and can help them in getting rid of economical problems. When a child gets admission call from so many colleges after the entrance result, they and their parents first inquire about the placements which college can provide to them. Rarely any one inquires about the quality of faculties and education provided. It may take 2 or 3 generations when Indian students will go for higher education mainly to show their creativity and innovation or to fulfil their real dreams. Almost 99% of the Indian students pursuing higher education have the main aim of getting good salaried jobs. Understanding this mindset of the people, private institutions approach the corporate world, for the job placements, and then charges huge amount of fees. There is no need to work hard to clear the semester examination as most of the questions will be out and the evaluation of the papers will happen internally.

There are many young students who are ready to work hard and study but they cannot go beyond secondary education as they are not having economical support. They cannot get the loans from the bank as the bank demands some guarantor and financial securities. The percentages of such people are not less as some of the survey tells that around 70% of the educated youth do not go to colleges.  There are good percentages of people who cannot even afford the secondary education. They end up in doing small jobs and their hard work and earnings never come and counted in the growth of India’s economy.

Under these conditions we cannot see India emerging as developed and superpower nation. Providing quality education to all is more the responsibility of government than each parent. But I will say that we should not wait and watch to see some nice policies from our government on the educational reforms. Already there are lot of policies but the impact is not visible on the ground. Here I will not discuss what the our government can do in this direction but yes how we as an individual can contribute more and more in this direction.

We can make our contributions in various ways like

• We can contribute through NGO in spreading education; can contribute in the  construction of schools and colleges on one’s own level.
• We can take the financial responsibility of at least one orphanage student from any NGO.
• We can make regular visits to some schools and colleges to take some classes for free of cost. We can take the computer classes for free for which they are charged in huge amount.
• Helping the needy children with books, notebooks etc. We should take moral responsibility that from my own village each and every kid is enrolled for the school. If not, we can make the parents aware and help them for the same.

There can be many more other ways we can make big or small impact in this direction.

India is known as young country because around 50% of the India’s current population is below the age of 25 and around 65% is below the age of 35 and so India will remain as youth country for another 30-50 years. The work forces in other countries are declining sharply and their government’s expenditure is increasing on providing healthcare facilities. More and more people are coming under the category of pensioners. For us, this is the best time to channelize the energy of youth, kids and children in the proper directions.

In case the energy of youths and children are not channelized in the proper direction to get the economic stability then the unemployment and frustrations may lead to criminalization, loot, robbery, gang war and so many. If this time is not utilised, then there is a chance that India can go back to 20-30 or 50 years ago in terms of development. If such a strong and huge youth force is left starving on their own when some will be leading a luxurious life in front of them, then it will increase all illegal and criminal activities. More and more will become part of Maoism and Naxalism or any other such groups.

Once again I will say that we need to awaken the sleeping India from each and every corner of our society and I can say with confidence that “If this India wakes up, the world will tremble.” 

I would like to conclude here with the words of Swami Vivekananda on the responsibilities which lie on us.

“Arise, awake, for your country needs this tremendous sacrifice. It is the young men that will do it. The Young, the energetic, the strong, the well-built, the intellectual for them is the task.”

“So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every man a traitor who have been educated at their expenses, pays not the least heed to them!”

“Get up, and put your shoulders to the wheel-how long is this life for? As you have come in to this world, leave some mark behind. Otherwise, where is the difference between you and the trees and stones? They too come in to existence, decay and die.”

“Let us all work hard, my brethren; this is no time for sleep. On our work depends the coming of the India of the future. She is there ready waiting. She is only sleeping. Arise and awake, and see her seated here, on her eternal throne, rejuvenated, more glorious than she ever was-this Motherland of ours.”

DOWRY SYSTEM and its EVIL IMPACT

Mamta was asked to call up her parents and tell them that they should send her Rs 20,000 as was promised earlier. The villagers said that since this demand was not met, her sister-in-law, husband, father-in-law, mother-in-law and two brothers-in-law gathered and harassed her throughout the night and in the early hours of next day; they allegedly tied her to a nearby tree and set her on fire. (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-11-20/nagpur/30421508_1_villagers-goregaon-tehsil-sadak-arjuni)

Kalpana (26), hanged herself to death in her flat. A double graduate with a bright future was driven to the extreme step after persistent harassment by her husband.Even though the couple had been married for two years, the husband agreed to keep Kalpana in his house in Bangalore only when the family agreed to pay the money as was agreed earlier. (http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/article2844350.ece)

These stories are not from any movie or TV Serial but a real incident and such atrocious incidents are increasing in our Indian society with the end results of bride burning, mental tortures, physical violence and suicide. The cause is one of the accepted evil of our society called Dowry System.

If we go in to the history of this system, it started when the bride’s family used to give their daughter a part of land or other gift items at the time of her marriage as the daughter was not considered inheritor of parent’s property. With time the greed of individuals enlarged and now the boy’s family select only such type of family who along with his daughter can give large sum of cash, gold, clothes, vehicles or any other consumer durables.  Earlier it was due to the affection of the parents towards their daughter but today it has taken the shape of such an evil spirit that this is directly demanded from the boy’s side and has become a big liability to the parents of all daughters where the planning starts right from the time when a daughter is born.

 It should be very clear that this system is prevailing not due to the unemployment or illiteracy of the society. This is flourishing very well in almost every part of the society. They may be Engineers, Doctors, Lawyers, IAS, Managers or any respectable profession we can think of. There are strict laws against the dowry but like corruption this has also become an integral part of Indian society. Everyone knows and everyone discusses openly. On mutual agreement the law against the dowry is violated by everyone and everywhere.

The big and perplex question is can our Indian society ever be free from this evil. Could this ever go into one of the dark and grave histories of India like Child Marriage or Sati Pratha. If yes, then who can and from where it can start. It is said that education is the solution of almost all the ills of the society. But in this case education is of not that much use because more education and good job means eligibility for more and more dowry.

Before going further let’s see how this system impacts the individual’s life and retards the growth of women in India.

The existence of dowry system creates a sense of economic fear among the parents of girl child. If it is the story of middle class then they prefer to have only basic higher education for their daughter and save the money so that with the saved money they can get excellent earning and qualified partner for their daughter’s marriage. Some sensitive parents listen to their daughter’s wish and let her go for higher education but now parents always remain in anxiety to get the money arranged for the marriage.  Most of the time due to lack of money for dowry, it ends up in having unsuitable partner for the daughter and this brings sense of guilt to parents.

 In some cases daughter’s love make father go to any extent to arrange money for the dowry so that his daughter can have good qualified life partner for the rest of her life. They may sell their lands and can keep their home on mortgage and this makes their rest of life economically liable to someone.

In economically poor family, the terror of dowry leads to sex identification of foetus and then to abortion.  The sex identification through ultrasound is illegal in our country but in small cities and towns, the identification of sex in pregnancy is not a hard job.  If you want to know from the main doctor, you have to pay more otherwise just keep some money in the hands of doctor’s assistant, who takes care of ultrasound during the pregnancy check, and they will tell verbally. From the context of Indian society there are many reasons for abortion and dislike towards the girl child but there is no doubt that existing dowry system is a predominant one.

In most of the poor and middle class families, only the boys are given preference to get the education from a good school and college and not the girls. If you go and ask the reason they will say if girl is educated then they cannot get an educated partner for her marriage as they are poor. The daughter listens and bears for being a girl. She can’t fly and can’t dream like her brother. She only restricts herself in cooking, painting, and tailoring or any other household decoration things so that at least her parents can boast of these things and can get some what good life partner for her.

The existence of dowry makes people corrupt. Most of the time the cash paid as a dowry is generally through corrupt route and the money disappears without having any legal documents or without the knowledge of income tax office.

In the schooldays everyone would have written notes on the topic of Dowry. At that time everyone keeps the feeling of hatred against the dowry. But once grown up and time for action comes then forget what they have written. Even the parents do not give any lecture to their kids on dowry because they cannot present themselves as role model to their kids in the fight against the dowry. Even mothers demand dowry for their son. She forgets how her father has struggled to arrange the money to get her married through dowry. It seems no one is sensitive towards others. Everyone thinks about themselves and for that instant only. Everyone one says that when the actual time comes, one must be practical instead of becoming emotional and sensitive towards others.

 I really can’t think of effective solutions to bring down the dowry from our society. In the current system of education, more educated and qualified means eligible for more dowries and so no hope from literate section.  The existing law against the dowry is openly violated with the mutual consents. The law is brought in use only when the marriage is not successful even after the dowry.

I want to end typing here. But before closing this I just want to say to all the bachelors and their parents that when they are discussing about the dowry or offering the dowry, it creates fear in the society and somewhere this act of yours leads to abortion of baby girls, somewhere some girls will get devoid of higher education with their dreams devastated, people will be forced to follow the corrupt route for money and again somewhere someone like Mamta will be burnt alive and someone like Kalpana will decide for suicide.