Commercialized primary education in Urban and semi-urban India

By Chinnaa

Greetings!

There are two educational sectors in India, private and government. Starting from nursery up to collegiate in general, polytechnic to engineering in technical, medicine and law and professional education there is a big division between private and government, in terms of quality, quantum and infrastructure.

Though education is a fundamental right up to a certain level, primary education in urban and semi-urban India is highly commercialized and market-driven.

The haves are enjoying private English medium education, whereas the have-nots are doomed to the mercy of government-run schools and colleges.

In primary education, the scenario is worst with parents doling out heavy fees in terms of tuition, capitation and infrastructure; leave alone the books, uniform and etc. etc.

People are crazy about sending their kids to English medium schools thinking that fluency in English will give the latter the required knowledge and intelligence. For them, fluency in English will fetch their kids all knowledge. This is a myth.

No where in the world, children in the primary level are given education and orientation in English. Mother tongue is the preferred language. If you force a language other than the mother tongue at a tender age the children are forced to learn other language, when they are already conversant with their mother tongue. It is an exploitation and sheer fraud on their childhood.

The concern should for all of us would be to look the way these ‘education shops’ are commercializing primary education. Sheer and crass commercialization though they claim that education is a service! Their institutions are registered as charitable, educational society!

They employ English-medium convent educated men and women as teachers. They are cheaply available in India. They are also obedient, subservient and not assertive.

Construct or hire a building, sometimes without even play ground and other facilities, to attract the parents. Hence they include capitation or donation or building funds.

Next they invest in buses and vans, prompting the parents that there are no transportation problems. There is a separate collection in this regard. Each primary maintains one or two buses. There are law-enforcing officials who have got scant regard for enforcements. Even a building collapse killing many children may not wake them up from their deep slumber.

At the receiving end, there are gullible parents hoping against hope thinking that this type of education will redeem their children and put them into bright future with job in a Multi National Company, preferably an IT one.

The final go-by is the ‘value based education’ which is the need of the hour in India