AS AUGUST 15 draws near and the newly-elected prime minister Narendra Modi prepares to deliver his first Independence Day address to the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort, Delhi, he has a great opportunity to outline a new programme for the redevelopment and rejuvenation of a nation eager to make amends for errors and misdeeds of the past six decades. High on the wish-list of the country’s 480 million children and discerning adults who truly care about the long-term interests of the nation, is revolutionary reform and a thorough cleansing of the Augean stables of Indian education. It’s self-evident that drastic improvement of teaching learning standards and learning outcomes in India’s education institutions from preschool to graduate school is the non-negotiable precondition of all attempts to recapture ancient India’s glories as a super power among the world’s nations. Unfortunately, there’s a sense of deja vu about the great expectations which have been aroused by the sweeping victory of the BJP and the BJP-led NDA-II government in the recently concluded general election. Similar expectations were aroused when the Janata Party swept to power in Delhi in the historic post-Emergency general election of 1977; in 1984 when the Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress party was voted to power at the Centre with the largest parliamentary majority in Indian history; and, again when the Congress-led UPA-II coalition was voted back to office in 2009 with an enhanced majority. Now once again, great hopes and aspirations are invested in the Modi sarkar to unshackle and revive India’s moribund education institutions which seem to lack all conviction. But the auguries are not good. The first initiatives of the NDA-II government in the national capital indicate that injecting Hindu mythology and propaganda is a high priority of the Modi sarkar. If so, India’s low-rated education institutions will continue to be stranded in shallows and misery, and the future of the world’s largest population of children and youth will continue to remain bleak.
