A nationwide study commissioned by the Bangalore-based Children™s Movement for Civic Awareness highlights that high school and college students are shockingly casual about democracy and entertain regressive beliefs and anti-social attitudes Dilip Thakore WITH THE INK HAVING HARDLY dried on the recently released Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2014, which indicates that 53 percent of children studying in rural primaries can™t read and comprehend class II textbooks and almost 74.7 percent of class III children can™t do simple subtraction sums, comes another shocker highlighting that class IX and even college students are severely under-schooled about their democratic rights and duties. According to a national survey released on India™s 66th Republic Day (January 26), which celebrated the momentous adoption of the Constitution of India by free India™s first Parliament, students countrywide are shockingly casual about democracy, ignorant about their democratic rights and responsibilities, and entertain regressive beliefs and anti-social attitudes which bode ill for the nation in the new millennium. Commissioned by the Children™s Movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA, estb. 2000), a Bangalore-based public charitable trust, and conducted by the well-reputed market research agency IMRB (formerly Indian Market Research Bureau) with offices in 17 cities across the nation, the survey reveals that the country™s youth are ignorant of the basic principles and objectives of the Constitution. œIndia is the world™s most populous and most complex democracy established with the noblest objectives. The preamble of the Constitution promises to secure justice, liberty, equality and fraternity for all citizens of the Republic. Yet with monotonous and ineffective civics education dispensed in secondary school classrooms, no real effort has been made to provide citizenship education to the nation™s youth. Although co-curricular activities such as NCC (National Cadet Corps), NSS (National Service Scheme) and boy scouts and girl guides have been introduced in education institutions to promote some of the ideals of the Constitution, their outcomes and effectiveness have never been measured. Therefore, last year under the guidance of a high-powered advisory panel, we commissioned IMRB to conduct a survey of the attitudes and opinions of 10,542 class IX students and first year college undergrads, plus 757 social science teachers in 11 state capitals to ascertain their citizenship attitudes and values. But our survey is not a mere opinion poll. The respondents were tested through multiple choice questions administered in classroom settings, supplemented by 30 focus group discussions. The outcome of this elaborate exercise is an accurate reading of the abysmal awareness of the country™s youth about citizenship rights and duties, says Dr. Manjunath Sadashiva, an alumnus of Bangalore and Dortmund (Germany) universities, former joint director (1996-2009) of the Public Affairs Centre (PAC, founded in 1993 by former IIM-Ahmedabad director Dr. Samuel Paul) and co-founder and director of CMCA. The social attitudes, beliefs and sheer ignorance of students including college undergraduates starkly reflected in the survey, are certain to shake taxpayers and right-minded adults out of their complacency. Many of them entertain fond illusions of India emerging as a democratic superpower in this millennium,…
