Actually to tell the fact when we started ASHA
in 1991 my concept of education was not different
from what is going on in the school at present.
It’s when I started interacting with the
children of the underprivileged community for
the first at Kanpur, children of construction
workers from Bilaspur.I realized that this education
system was not really meant for everybody. As
P Sainath says this education system is only
meant
to those around 5%, who can fit in various jobs
the IAS, IPS, Engineers,Doctors, and Managers,basically
what ever you need to run the system. But there
are students who get thrown out of the systems,
who don’t do well in the studies or who
are so poor that they cannot continue and most
of the children drop out form class four or
before that. The government doesn’t have
any programme for them and as a result a vast
majority of people who went to school have to
lead a life of underemployment and unemployment.
Because everybody cannot be in this kind of
job for which this education system prepares.
This education only prepares us for service
sector kind of jobs and 100% of people cannot
be in service sector. The economy has to run
on the production sector, and it is very sad
that the people engaged in the production sector,
people doing food for us, preparing clothes
for us, all in the construction industry. None
of them are trained from IIT, they are essentially
uneducated. They get paid the least where as
the people in the service sector are enjoying
a very high salary. So it is physically not
possible that 100% people going for this education
system get benefited.
Therefore
I reject this education system at that point
and started my search for an education system
which could be universal, which could fulfill
the aspiration for all the people not just
some selected privileged few. Then I met
Nagaraj Sharma, a philosopher from Amar
Kantak. He has spent his 22 years of life
in thinking about these questions. The concept
of education which he had satisfied me and
since then I hold views that education system
must fulfill two things. It must give us
a system of values which would form the
basis of just human order and it must give
us skills so that we can mould our livelihood
by being a part of the production sector
of the economy and live a comfortable and
dignified life. Human life is one aspect
and, self reliance is another which must
be fulfilled by the education system. Unfortunately
the present education system is working
in the opposite direction. It will give
the kind of values, which certainly cannot
be the basis of your main system. For example
it promotes competition, which is totally
unnatural to human beings. It is the value
imposed by the market and it serves the
needs of the market and the system. We never
compete when ever we have to solve real
problems in our life. We solve all our real
problems with the help of the people around
us, so in natural situation we seek for
cooperation. Whereas the trend is to believe
that competition is a great thing, it enhances
quality. So system of education which encourages
cooperation instead of competition is required.
If we are to form a system which is humane
then we have to train the people in skills.
Education system should be about learning
skills doing things, interacting with this
material world. So that we can acquire skills
which will help in earning our livelihood.
But the government policies are not conducive
in supporting a system like this and we
have been working on a model so that we
can demonstrate that these kinds of things
can be successfully implemented. We are
still under the process of setting the curriculum
Right
now we working with the underprivileged
children from all the country, trying to
ensure they are not left behind in this
race for development.
