Blog #13: Poor literacy major problem for Indian youths, says report

            One major hurdle for Indian youth in terms of employment opportunities in India is poor literacy. The Opportunity for Action Report released a report saying that in India an estimated 270 million people aged 15 and older remain illiterate. Women between the ages of 15 to 24 are twice as likely to remain illiterate. The girls in rural areas average fewer than three years of education and the attendance rates for girls have declined since 1999. Levels of education in India are greatly influenced by class differences and gender. The report then stated, “On average, young people in India receive just over seven years of education. The wealthiest 20 percent, for example, attend 11 years of school, whereas the poorest quintile averages only four years.” The Right to Education Act, which is in its second year and makes it the state’s responsibility to give education to all between ages six to 14 only has 17% percent of its school pass-outs going to college. They currently are trying to start a program to give skill training to those youth who do not want to opt for traditional education.

            India places importance on obtaining an education so that in the future you will be employed. However, I believe that even though education is the key, it will take more than education to sustain an actual career. I think India is focusing entirely too much on just wanting people to have jobs and not enough emphasis on educating their people, improving literacy overall. The gap between genders is also terrible considering that everyone is supposed to be treated “equal.” This article is further proof of why the Right to Education Act needs improvement and better implementation as stated before in a previous blog. Thought it is only the second year, the percentages are still fairly low and they should focus on this act and possibly a new framework for another act that focuses on bridging the gap between genders.  

http://india.nydailynews.com/newsarticle/697edead482d55b8028b7b8b990738eb/poor-literacy-major-problem-for-indian-youths-says-report 

Blog #12: Ambitious higher education reform plans for Africa’s newest nation

            Policy-makers have come up with a vision for higher education in South Sudan. South Sudan achieved independence from Sudan last July to become Africa’s newest state and of the nine public universities in South Sudan, only five are operating. President Salva Kiir Mayardit stated, “Universities are the nucleus of national development; no country can prosper without strong institutions of higher education.” He also said, “Put your minds together and come up with well-studied recommendations and plans for strengthening our institutions.” Some of the problems facing three of the oldest universities are a shortage in qualified staff, a lack in basic infrastructure, and inadequate lecture halls, libraries, and other needed buildings. However, they are developing new policies, reviewing and upgrading all programs so that they meet the needs of the new nation. One thing they have already welcomed is an improved pay structure for the professors. The higher education minister also announced his plan to give priority funding to the five operating universities and their other important projects under way.

            Unlike other places that I have been learning about while doing these current events, South Sudan seems to have done a lot of work to try to improve their institutions. Since they declared independence, the government of the Republic of South Sudan had to start from scratch with developing their plan for the universities. Former secretary for academic affairs at the University of Juba, Charles Bakheit has been instrumental in giving numerous suggestions on how to advance their higher education. I think that this former secretary can provide great insight into developing the new reforms and those who are involved should take his ideas into consideration given his past experience. One of his ideas is to postpone opening the other universities and concentrate on building up the five that are already operating. This is a great plan because South Sudan would be spending more money in trying to open up the other five on top of renovations and rebuilding of the already operating universities. South Sudan is dealing with the same issues that regular public schools that are not universities are dealing with and it will be a constant progression as long as these places stay committed to the cause. 

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20120329103110290 

Blog #11: Many schools in Bihar lack adequate rooms, toilets and even teachers!

Bihar’s Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has said, “The current age is the era of knowledge and not of weapons, and only through education and knowledge can one break out of the abject poverty.” The Bihar Government has done work in trying to raise the awareness of education in the state. The initial efforts were towards the enrollment in schools and the work became evident in 2011 when only 2.5 percent of children were out of school, compared to the 12 percent in 2005. After achieving this success, the efforts have shifted to improving the quality of education in schools. Unfortunately they still have several cases in the state where you can see how reality really is. One example is, Vidyapati High School, which has over nine hundred students and has only about 40 percent of girls attending. Defying all promises of sanitation this school does not have a single toilet on the premises. “This reflects not just upon India, but our attitude towards sanitation. It also reflects the Government over the years has not paid the kind of attention that ought to have been paid on issues related to sanitation,” said Union Human Resources Development Minisster Kapil Sibal. Sanitation alone is not the only problem, but also there is no electricity, no windows, no doors, and no library. Studying in classrooms is an uncomfortable experience; they sit and study on the floor in the five classrooms that are provided. Rural Indian students do not have the same luxury has other students that live in the metropolitan cities. Rural Indian students survive and study in absence of even basic facilities. With the condition of Vidyapati it is reported that less than a third of class III students in rural Indian schools can solve two-digit subtraction problems.         

Like many other places, Bihar is trying to provide a quality education for their students. However, there is a gap between the government initiatives and their implementation. In India here is an existing National School Sanitation Initiative that lays emphasis on personal hygiene, proper sanitation, clean toilets, safe drinking water, and separate toilets for both genders. However, this is yet to be implemented in Vidyapati High School and I’m sure other schools are lacking as well. I honestly don’t even see how Vidyapati is still operating with no sanitary facilities. That is something that I believe should be required to run a school. How can a student effectively learn if they have to sit and hold their urine during class and more importantly if they have to use the restroom, where do they go? This goes back to the ability to fund for a quality education and how money is budgeted for different areas or school districts. In the metropolitan cities, they have somewhat of a five star treatment, but most of these schools are private. This then means that many students are paying excessive amounts to attend these types of schools, a fee that many parents in rural India can’t afford. It is not fair to the students in rural India to not have electricity or toilets among with other things. 

http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/2012/04/06/147-Many-schools-in-Bihar-lack-adequate-rooms-toilets-and-even-teachers-.html

Blog #10: South Africa: Corporate Social Investment is Key for Education

            South Africa is struggling in the area of education. With challenges such as limited resources and tools, standards in education are falling. Africa’s current suggestion is to get corporate South Africa more involved to help improve the level of education. They say that corporate should start thinking and investing in their future workforce to ensure that South Africa remains competitive. One main issue is that there needs to be more investment into education technology, saying that this will improve education and will make way for more qualified, better prepared future employees. However, they don’t want just the donation of money they want the education technology initiatives to be carefully planned out. They want it to be applied correctly within the school system and also for it to be accompanied by continuous teacher-training initiatives which would embrace new methods of teaching. There are ongoing efforts to incorporate technology into schools, but they are lacking a solution that is specifically designed for educational facilities. The Critical Links Education Appliance is the world’s first purpose-built education server that enables up to 3000 students to be connected on a single server. As a solution, the Education Appliance is a cost-effective solution that enables any classroom to become a computer lab with the special Classmate PCs that have been designed for this project. South Africa finds that getting necessary technology into schools is of the utmost importance and wants corporate to get involved. They believe that corporate and businesses should want to sponsor a classroom because they are not only investing in learners, but also their future employees and the economy as a whole.

            South Africa has the right idea to put out what their plans are in trying to implement this specific technology project. I think that now the decision has somewhat been put into the hands of corporate. South Africa is really trying to encourage corporate of all sizes to be a part of this great technology project through this article. I believe their main focus was on the idea of Human Capital Theory, that education too can be seen as an investment. They make sure to emphasize that by investing in this project, South Africa’s education would improve and that they would be investing in the people that will soon be working for them. This is one of the things that is expressed in the Human Capital Theory, that highly educated people can do more and do it better and so contribute more to national development. For an area that is not doing so well in the education sector and it is a place where they live and work, I see it is an important project that they should want to get involved in. I hope that South Africa gets several responses to this somewhat cry for help to trying to equip the youth with the tools for a better education.   

http://allafrica.com/stories/201203300227.html 

Blog #9: Despite RTE, 70% kids not getting proper education: Expert

            In a press conference at Banaras Hindu University, Padma Bhushan and P M Bhargava said that one of the key problems out of the five they came up with that is hurting the nation is education. They also said that if India wants to become a developed modern nation they would need to address those five core problems. The other core problems were water, energy, corruption, and governance. One of the main issues is that there haven’t been any provisions implemented from the Right to Education Act after two years of enactment. They want to follow common school systems where rich and poor get education under the same roof without discrimination. The speaker also noted that they need to develop and upgrade technology as far as the needs and requirements of their people so that it could benefit everyone. Though the literacy rate is increasing, almost 70% of school-age children are still not getting proper education. One question that Bhargava posed was “How can we expect to improve and change the higher education scenario when the primary education that provides the base and foundation is not given attention?”

            I believe that the last quote “How can we expect to improve and change the higher education scenario when the primary education that provides the base and foundation is not given attention?” is a very good question. A lot of the focus is moving away from primary education when that is the basis of where education begins. Everything that you learn in primary school is built upon as you progress through school, so I find it interesting that most funding is put elsewhere. You would think that the investment would be biggest in the primary education sector just because that is the start of molding minds of great innovators, entrepreneurs, teachers, etc. I also think that there should be more inquiry in why the Right to Education Act hasn’t been implemented when they say that 70% of school-age children are not getting a proper education. I don’t understand how they believe they will make change if the Right to Education Act hasn’t even benefited them because of lack of implementation. This would probably help get everything started if there were more people pushing the act into actual execution and not just an act on a piece of paper. In addition to that, they should explain exactly what the Right to Education Act is and what they are trying to accomplish with the act.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-03-21/varanasi/31219855_1_higher-education-early-education-pt-madan-mohan-malviya