By Barnes Mawrie
In India we speak of a variety of discriminations like social discrimination in the form of caste system, racial discrimination, economic discrimination, religious discrimination, political discrimination etc. In the last few decades a new type of discrimination has emerged and that is educational discrimination. In the past, education was of an equal level in most parts of the country. Any person who completed his or her graduation or post-graduation from any university, would easily be absorbed in the employment market. There was a high degree of egalitarianism in education and so discrimination on this ground was unheard of. The phenomenon of expensive private schools and colleges was still absent. Today however, we are witnessing a great disparity in the level of education all over the country. This is seen at different levels of education:
At the primary education level, we have English medium schools which cater to the elite class and vernacular medium schools which cater to the poorer classes. Most of the former type of schools are located in urban areas while the latter are mostly found in rural areas. The same is with Secondary and Higher Secondary levels. There are those meant for the elites and others meant for the poorer classes. So what is actually happening is that discrimination sets in right from the start of a child’s educational pursuit. It is evident that elite schools would have the best of infrastructure and the best of teachers. The reason is that the school fees are exorbitant and so they can afford to provide such high standards. The poor schools on the other hand usually do not even have the basic infrastructure and much less qualified teachers since the fees are comparatively low. Such schools are more prevalent in rural areas where the population is poor and backward.
When it comes to higher education, the poor students are always left behind in the race since they have no financial back up. As of today, higher and professional education is meant only for the rich people. Who are those able to afford to procure admission in IIT, IIM, Medical and Engineering Institutes? They are the well to do students whose parents can afford to spend lakhs of rupees. It is a fact that such professional and specialized education is reserved for the rich classes. The poor are meant to content themselves with simple graduation from ordinary colleges. In most cases they are doomed to be either unemployed or doing some small clerical jobs or become daily labourers. Who are those who climb up the social ladder and become bureaucrats and powerful persons who are at the helm of state affairs? They are those born with the silver spoon in their mouths, whose families can afford to pay for their higher education. There is a lot of injustice in our present educational system which if not addressed immediately will worsen discrimination in our country. The maladies are easily traceable in our present educational system:
First of all, education has become extremely expensive and so the majority of the people who are poor cannot afford it. Educational costs rise higher as a person goes into higher education. Moreover, private institutions who provide quality education demand higher fees from students. This naturally excludes the poor from accessing such facilities.
Secondly, the shamble in which government educational institutions are, brings down the quality of education provided there. The poorer classes who can only afford to study in such institutions get only a third-class type of education. It is not unusual to see that in rural areas government schools do not even function normally. Lack of basic infrastructure and adequate qualified teachers spell doom for these schools.
Thirdly, the present educational system in India is a cut-throat competitive system where marks decide the fate of a student. Cut-off marks for admission in all colleges, universities and professional institutes are monstrously high that they automatically exclude the poorer classes. Students hailing from poor families who study in third-rated institutions cannot compete with rich students from elite educational institutions. Therefore as long as admission is based on marks system, only the privileged students will get the opportunity for higher education.
The only solution perhaps is through levelling of education in the whole country as done in the west. Some sort of egalitarianism and uniformity must be brought into our educational system. This can be done if the government gives priority to education as a national investment. In last year’s central government budget education gets only Rs. 85,000 crores while Defence gets 2.95 lakh crores. This indicates how little importance education is given by the nation in general. If the government were to invest more in education, it could provide equal financial assistance to all educational institutions and it could afford better scholarships for students from poorer families. This would bring down the educational fees and give more access to higher education for the economically poorer students. The government must understand that investment in human resource is of primary concern; and what is more valuable and more effective for nation building than educating its citizens? The present system in our education is a malicious method of perpetuating domination of the higher castes over the low castes. George H. W. Bush has rightly observed that “education is the key to opportunity. It is a ticket out of poverty.” I hope our leaders and our governments understand this and revamp our educational system so as to make all levels of education accessible to the poorest of the poor. Then only can the massive population of poor Indians get out of their age-old ignorance and misery.
