By Anjan Roy
How can an agitation for a fair examination system ring such a bell across the country and humble a proud government? To understand I recall today what Dr Manmohan Singh observed in his typical monotonous way after presenting his first budget in 1991-92.
After the budget presentation in Lok Sabha Dr Singh had come to the Press Information Bureau convince room in Shastri Bhavan. He joined the traditional crowd of senior most North Block bureaucrats for explanations on union budget.
The earlier practice was that it will be only the bureaucrats who come to explain the budget to scribes after its presentation. That was the first time, Manmohan Singh himself came to speak.
After finishing his explanations of the budget provisions, Dr Singh fell into informal chats with the scribes, mainly the financial press. He said that his housemaid had asked him for help to admit his son in a private English medium school.
In his quiet manner, he said that he had told the housemaid why she was asking for this. There are good government schools which were much cheaper. The maid had persisted, explaining that the private schools taught better. They prepare students to get better prospects.
Taking that cue, Manmohan Singh explained that the housemaid represented a new India where even the most humble could dream of a better life, based on better education. That represented the trust of the Indian society in the value of education and it was the base of Indian society.
Manmohan Singh could appreciate the housemaid’s point because he had learnt this through his own life. He had to migrate from a strife torn Punjab to Delhi when he was graduating from high school. He had to appear in school leaving examination over again.
After his initial tribulations he did so well that he went to Oxford and with his excellent work in the university obtained one of the highest awards of Oxford — the Adam Smith Prize. The best was of course dream-like. He won so many of the prized positions that for any other person achieving any one of them would be considered a life-time achievement — governor of the Reserve Bank, chairman of the global South Commission, deputy chairman of Planning Commission, and then prime minister of India.
The repeated paper leaks in effect had hurt this intrinsic faith of Indian society in a merit based equitable education framework. Its faith that if you study well you can make it to the highest levels. A faulty education system where the examination results get tampered before these are held destroys this basic faith.
That is why, the agitation for a corrected education system caught on so easily. These spread as easily and as fast as the wild fires are raging in France and Europe now. It rang a bell through Indian society.
The government failed to recognise this basic fact of life in India. This is not only today’s phenomenon; it is the traditional attitude of an Indian household. Come to any Bengali household, you will hear what the parents and elders will remind a child: “one who studies, would go around well”. If you don’t you stay behind.
This is exactly why Indian children are doing so well wherever their parents have migrated. This also explains America’s current predicament. Fewer American children are educated enough to go to the institutions of higher learning. STEM students among native Americans are falling. Spelling Bees are so often Indian children than native American ones.
A government which is seeking to emphasise Indian values and promote these among the people, a government which is aiming to highlight the inherent Indian superiority over every other alternatives, failed to appreciate the concern of the average Indian at erosion in education.
Now, it seems, the government has learnt the lesson the costly way. Whoever in the ruling BJP in charge of handling the crisis over leaked questions took the issue lightly. They should now undertake a deeper evaluation of their broader political strategies..PM has taken the first step in setting up a task force to reform the examination system headed by the IT honcho Nandan Nilekani. The CJP protesters are supposed to review the government steps after a month. If this time, real reforms take place in the interests of students, that will be a positive development for the future. The future generations will be grateful to the Jantar Mantar protests for that. (IPA Service)
