Mr Ritwik Patra of Deepalaya talks to Sayli Udas for IndianNGOs.com about his NGO and the scene of elementary education in India.
He says…

Deepalaya laid its foundation stone in 1979 and since then it has devoted itself to the cause of elementary education for the unprivileged children. We believe that education is one of the most effective instruments bringing about positive changes in the society. While working for universalisation in education through arranging provision for elementary education, we have always tried for the best at an affordable cost. In India there are 2 systems of education; one is for the poor - mostly vernacular with lack of infrastructure, teacher and other facilities, poor quality teaching, few teaching hours, no involvement of parents .The other system is for the rich - English medium, availability of teachers, involvement of the parents, good infrastructure. In such a system the most that an NGO like Deepalaya can do is bridge this gap between these two systems.

Some people project non-formal or minimal education as a good alternative to this problem. But is not the solution. It does hold importance while mainstreaming children into the formal system, but again how many non-formal children are really mainstreamed remains to be seen.

Another concept in the field of Indian elementary education is the FREE CONCEPT. The Indian government has been providing "free" elementary education for last 54 years; even then 50% of us are still illiterate. We should come out of the mold of "providing" education and start "marketing" education (without misinterpreting it as complete commercialisation). This can be supported with an example that Mr. T.K.Mathew of Deepalaya gives. He says that "Coca Cola and Uncle Chips are popular, people buy these products as large investments are made not only to keep the quality standard but also on marketing and packaging. The same should happen in the case of education."

Nikita Sud & Nandini Nayak : There is a clear political economy behind the provision of international aid to third world countries. Could you comment on this? How does the existence of the international funding agencies(IFAs) affect the ministry, its policies, its areas of focus etc.?

Asha Das: The existence of the IFAs does not affect the areas that are focused on by the government ministries. There is a political economy behind the provision of this aid, which we are aware of, but the fact also remains the funding of NGOs by IFA's helps in promoting and expanding programmes in some areas. There is, though, a need to coordinate this for better use and optimum results.

One of the ways in which we do get adversely affected by the presence of the IFAs is that charges for service delivery often go up. People in the field in several parts of the country who we are in contact with us say that the same services can be provided for costs that are significantly lower. Once the higher service delivery charges come into play, it is very difficult to decrease these.