ISSUES INVOLVED IN IMPLEMENTING COMPULSORY PRIMARY EDUCATION IN INDIA August 25, 2009

Despite recent hype over the Right to Education Bill making it mandatory for the Central, state and local bodies to provide free and compulsory education to all the children in the 6-14 years age group, the real scenario of elementary education in India is pathetic.Below are some of issues which make free and compulsory education in India a mammoth task.

1. Inadequacy of Financial Provision:Due to over expenditure in defense,foreign debt,meeting natural disasters among others, the expenditure for education in the central level comes down.

2. Poverty Among Parents:Education in undeveloped areas still considered as a luxury because of financial constraints of the parents.

3.Indifference of Parents:An illiterate parent is generally averse to education.Again,
children from educated families climb the educational ladder more successfully than those from uneducated families.This develops antipathy in uneducated parents towards education.

4.Inappropriateness of Curricula:The primary school curricula vary from State to State.The school curriculum in each of the States is almost centrally-controlled. There are prescribed syllabi, textbooks etc., irrespective of diversities in languages and dialects spoken by the people and geographical differences. Besides, such curricula do not give independence to teachers to make variations depending on local needs, which makes them ineffective.

5.Ineffectiveness of Teachers:Lack of effectiveness among teachers takes root at the time of teacher training. In spite of the known effects of teacher training on efficiency of teachers, most developing countries have poor teacher training programmes.Such training programmes in India are also farcical in nature.

6.Inertia in Administrative and Supervisory Machinery:The inertia prevailing among administrators and supervisors has its origin in a faulty recruitment system.The inertia prevailing in the system is responsible for ill-distribution of available resources. Such problems get further accentuated because of the multitude of languages and dialects.

Universalization of primary education is intimately connected with the development of living conditions of the people. When a significant number of citizens are below the poverty line, the attempts made to provide free and compulsory education to children in the age group 6-14 cannot be successful in the near future. There are, in addition, certain educational and administrative bottlenecks that have been decelerating the process.Efforts therefore are to be made for complete revamping of the system both at micro and macro levels, so as to make free education a reality and not a myth in India.

Gender Analysis August 18, 2009

Gender analysis is a way of seeing/analyzing problems, situations and solutions with awareness of gender relations and in order to identify gender issues. The key elements of a gender analysis should include identification of similarities and differences between men and women and amongst women. These relate to work, resources, responsibilities and powers-Assessment of how gender relations have an impact on opportunities, needs, incentives and rewards. Assessment of capacity of intervening institutions to promote gender equality goals. Estimation of the potential obstacles and resistances to initiatives to promote gender equality and development of strategies to counter these resistances. It is important to understand practical needs and strategic needs of women.

Practical needs can be defined as women’s needs that do not question her subordination or traditional roles। These are often to do with the practical needs of day to day living such as housing, water; healthcare and employment. In contrast Strategic Gender interests are the needs of women identified on the basis of thier subordinate position in society. They may vary from context to context and may include issues such as legal rights to freedom from domestic violence, rights to land and property, sexual rights, unequal divisions of labor in the family etc.These are often less obvious and have long term implications.

For example a woman who is not in dire poverty, may still fight with her brothers for equal rights of inheritance to family land. The struggle for strategic needs is more difficult and encounters much more resistance than the struggle for practical gender needs. It is the SGIs therefore that often get left out of gender planning .Merely fulfilling the practical needs of women do not improve their status in terms of power or equality. It is important to acknowledge that addressing both is critical to the success of planning; addressing Practical Gender Needs alone will not lead to long term improvements for women and may reinforce their subordination. Similarly addressing strategic gender interests alone may fail as a strategy if practical considerations are not taken into account. Other steps in gender analysis include collection of gender disaggregated data, and collecting information focusing on gender differences in activities, access to and control over resources and roles and position in decision making processes.

Analysis may take place at various levels-individual, household, community, institutional and politics. At the institutional level, gender analysis may look at institutional policy and services, organizational structure and staff qualifications and training. At the family level, gender analysis may look at who does what work, how financial resources are controlled and by whom etc.Many tools, checklists and questionnaires are available to assist gender analysis in various sectors.

Water problem in India August 18, 2009

Summers are here and the cities in India are already complaining about water shortage not to mention many villages which lack safe drinking water। In the list of 122 countries rated on quality of portable water, India ranks a lowly 120।Although India has 4% of the world’s water, studies show average availability is shrinking steadily. It is estimated that by 2020, India will become a water-stressed nation. Nearly 50% of villages still don’t have any source of protected drinking water.

According to 2001 census 68.2% households have access to safe drinking water. The department of drinking water supply estimates that 94% of rural habitations and 91% urban households have access to drinking water. But according to experts these figures are misleading simply because coverage refers to installed capacity and not actual supply.

The ground reality is that of the 1.42 million villages in India, 1, 95,813 are affected by chemical contamination of water. The quality of ground water which accounts of more than 85% of domestic supply is a major problem in many areas as none of the rivers have water fit to drink.

37.7 million People –over 75% of whom are children are afflicted by waterborne diseases every year. Overdependence on groundwater has brought in contaminants, fluoride being one of them. Nearly 66 million people in 20 states are at risk because of the excessive fluoride in water. While the permissible limit of fluoride in water is 1 mg per litre in states like Haryana it is high as 48 mg in some places. Delhi water too has 32 mg.But the worst hits are Rajasthan, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. Nearly 6 million children below 14 suffer from dental, skeletal and non-skeletal fluorosis.

Arsenic is the other big killer lurking in ground water putting at risk nearly 10 million people. The problem is acute in Murshidabad, Nadia, North and South 24 Paraganas, Malda and Vardhaman districts of West Bengal. The deeper aquifers in the entire Gangetic plains contain arsenic.

High nitrate content in water is another serious concern।Fertilizers, septic tanks, sewage tanks etc are the main sources of nitrate contamination. The groundwater in MP, UP, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Kanataka and Tamil Nadu has shown traces of nitrates.

However it is bacteriological contamination which leads to diarrhoea, cholera and hepatitis which is widespread in India. A bacteriological analysis of the water in Bangalore revealed 75% bore wells were contaminated.Iron; hardness and salinity are also a concern. Nearly 12,500 habitats have been affected by salinity. In Gujarat it is a major problem in coastel districts. Often babies die of dehydration and there are major fights in villages for freshwater. Some villages have seen 80% migration due to high salinity.

Health is not the only issue; impure water is a major burden on the state as well. Till the 10th plan the government had spent Rs 1,105 billion on drinking water schemes. Yet it is the poor who pay a heavier price spending around Rs 6700 crore annually on treatment of waterborne diseases.

There is an urgent need to look for alternative sources of portable water in places where water quality has deteriorated sharply. Community based water quality monitoring guidelines should be encouraged. People should be encouraged to look at traditional methods of protecting water sources. Also in places where groundwater has arsenic or fluoride, surface water should be considered as an alternative.

Universalization of Education in India August 18, 2009

Universalization of Education in India: Right to Education Bill

India’s greatest wealth lies in its human resources. Universal schooling of decent quality could be the single biggest move it makes towards future prosperity. Towards this end the Government has come up with Right to Education Bill which promises free education for every child in the 6-14 age- group. Education requires substantative not just symbolic action. Merely passing laws without sustained political attention that plugs financial and administrative gaps in the school sector is going to fail. One of the problems of taking a purely legislative view is to define who will be held responsible if a child doesn’t attend school.

A related problem is to set out clearly who will pick up the bill for universal education, estimated to cost Rs 55,000 crore a year to implement. It is supposed to split between the centre and states but the precise arrangement is yet to be known.

The most controversial provision of the Bill is to drag the private sector in by imposing an obligation on private schools to take in at least 25% of its students of its students from disadvantaged backgrounds

. Their fees will supposedly be paid by the government, a promise it’s unlikely to keep. Providing free education for all should be unambiguously the government’s responsibility. Countries haven’t made rapid strides towards universal literacy by palming off the responsibility on the private sector. That will stunt the growth of the private sector rather than lead to universal literacy.

State of the World’s Children 2009- UNICEF Report August 18, 2009

UNICEF released the State of World’s Children Report- 2009 with some shocking findings regarding maternal mortality status in India. Avoidable complications during child birth are killing 78,000 women in India every year. One woman dies from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth every seven minutes. One million children born in India are dying every year even before they become 28 days old. A child born in India is 14 times more likely to die during the first 28 days than one born in the US or UK.The maternal mortality rate of India stands at 301 per 100,000 births. It is highest in Uttar Pradesh at 517 and lowest in Kerala at 110.For Bihar it is 371. An Indian woman is 350 times more likely to die in childbirth or from pregnancy –related complications than women in America or England. For every mother who dies, 20 others suffer pregnancy related illness. Around 10 million women annually experience such adverse outcomes. Despite an increase in institutional deliveries, 60% of pregnant women still deliver their babies at home. In India more than 2/3 of all maternal deaths occur in a handful of states- UP, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkand, Orissa, MP, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan and Assam. In UP one in every 42 women faces risk of maternal death compared to 1 in 500 women in Kerala

The main medical causes of maternal deaths are:

Abortion: 8%
Obstructed labor: 5%
Hypertensive disorders: 5%
Sepsis: 11%
Hemorrhage: 38%
Other conditions: 34%

In India the states with the top five neonatal mortality(Early neonatal mortality refers to a death of a live-born baby within the first seven days of life, while late neonatal mortality covers the time after 7 days until before 28 days. The sum of these two represents the neonatal mortality) rates are

Orissa- 52 deaths /1000 live births
Madhya Pradesh- 51/1000 live births
Uttar Pradesh- 46/1000 live births
Rajasthan- 45 /1000 live births
Chattisgarh- 43/1000 live births

Public Health System in India August 18, 2009

Public health system in India suffers from many problems which includes insufficient funding, shortage of facilities leading to overcrowding and severe shortage of trained health personnel. There is also lack of accountability in the public health delivery mechanisms. These are some of the reasons which have placed India at the lowest rank in the Human Development Index.

India however holds top position in migration of physicians to developed countries like UK and the US. According to Planning Commission the country has a shortfall of six lakh doctors, 10 lakh nurses and two lakh dental surgeons. This has led to a dismal patient-doctor ratio in the country. For every 10,000 Indians, there is just one doctor.

The much publicized National Urban Health Mission is yet to see the light of day. The scheme plans to monitor and improve the health of 22 crore people living in urban slums in 429 cities and towns. It was to be launched mid 2008 but the mission is yet to become functional.NURM is aimed at providing accessible, affordable, effective and reliable primary health care facilities especially to urban poor. Even for NHRM there is limited progress due to lack of standardization of medical facilities.

India has banned tobacco consumption in public places but only 12 states have started implementing the ban. More than 10 lakh people at present die in India every year due to tobacco consumption. At present more than 57% male and 10.9% female consume tobacco while 15% children consume tobacco.

Female feticide continues to tarnish India’s image.The child sex ratio (0-6 years) was 945 (1991 census) and this declined to 927 girls per thousand boys (in 2001 census).The figures are alarming in prosperous states like Punjab(798),Haryana (819),Chandigarh (845),Delhi (868),Gujarat (883) and Himachal Pradesh (896).

Number of PHCs,CHC and SCs
Year	CHC	PHC	SC
2007	4,045	22,370	1, 45,272

Infant Mortality Rate
Year	Rural	Urban	Total
2007	61	37	55

Number of Health Care Workers
Year	Doctors at PHCs	Specialists at PHC	Health workers	Health workers
			Male	Female
2007	22,608	5,117	62,881	1, 47,439