BY ALL MEASURES, THE interaction between Indian school children and prime minister Narendra Modi on Teachers Day (September 5) was an unprecedented success. It was ˜first ever™ on many counts ” but perhaps most importantly in its scope and format. Employing new media technologies in a live town-hall setting, an authentic, inspirational and at times humorous conversation unfolded between the leader of the world™s most populous democracy, and millions of children who will lead the nation in generations to come. Video feeds from classrooms and schools across the country were networked-in, and the event was telecast live. However, a large group of children who would have certainly benefited from the caring and motivational words of the prime minister were left out of this national celebration viz, the country™s estimated 8.15 million out-of-school children. It is imperative to reaffirm our commitment to them as we approach Children™s Day celebrated on November 14. A recent (2014) report ” a collaboration between Unesco, Unicef and the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry released at the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) ” indicates that out of an estimated 190 million 6-13 year-olds, approximately 8.15 million children (or 4.23 percent) are out of school today. The total number of out-of-school children would actually be much higher if one considered the full schooling cycle i.e. children up to 18 years of age. These are hard facts. Yet India can confront and overcome educational exclusion of its children only if it can realise the potential of the landmark Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009. Understanding who is out of school and why, is critical to delivering the promises of the RTE Act to India™s children. The good news is that we already know a great deal in this regard. In a compendium titled Who Goes to School? (Oxford University Press, 2011), the contributing authors presented brilliant analyses of the social, cultural, political and economic factors that keep children out of school. The Unesco/Unicef 2014 report reinforces these analyses. Disproportionally large numbers of children from traditionally vulnerable groups ” girls, children in poverty, and from Muslim, scheduled caste and scheduled tribe communities ” continue to remain out of school. More fundamentally however, education research worldwide continues to indicate that children who are most vulnerable, are also most likely to be in schools least equipped to serve their learning needs. In other words, getting children into school per se is not a panacea if the schools are not places where they can grow and thrive with real learning ” cognitive as well as affective. Hence the focus of the campaign to get out-of-school children back into classrooms shouldn™t be ˜back to school™, but rather back to education and learning. And this raises the question of what™s the point of celebrating Teachers Day. First, the capability of teachers is the touchstone of education quality. What teachers say and do with children in their classrooms, constitutes the core of teaching-learning. Hence a successful back-to-education campaign…
