Teach India...

Teach India...
Each one Teach one...

These r the few slogans which we r coming across very regularly these days. India has been trying to educate its citizens nd this try has been for years. How far has dis goal been successful???

The abysmal fact is, even today India's literacy rate is below 75%. Kerala is topping the list in the literacy rate nd de obvious Bihar has de lowest rate.


Today, as most of you might have noticed, English is becoming increasingly popular. Ever noticed that little kid who comes to you at the traffic signal? Doesn’t he know a few words of English? So would you call him literate or illiterate? The National Literacy Mission defines literacy as ‘acquiring the skills of reading, writing and arithmetic and the ability to apply them to one’s day-to-day life’. That child may not have gone to a school, he may not even know that he was talking in English! Most of them today don’t know ‘Hindi’ numbers, but on the other hand English numbers are on their finger tips. It is the same with directions and simple words like ‘yes’, ‘no’ etc. How many times have you sat in a rickshaw and then suddenly realized that the driver knows English? Or don’t you absent mindedly give him directions in English? Or what about when you just know the address of somebody’s place, and your driver helps you point out the house? Ever thought about how he reads those house numbers? I wonder how many people have realized that the digits on a cell phone are in English and not in Hindi or any other regional language. But it is a common misconception that just because a person knows English, people think he’s educated! Most of them know English only because that is what they have grown up hearing. On the other hand, many people also think that just because a person doesn’t know English, he is uneducated. This is also not true. Many people in India are educated in their regional language and not in either Hindi or English.


Today, the government is trying to increase the literacy rate with the help of a whole lot of new programs. The ‘Sarva Siksha Abhiyan’ was started in 2001, and it aimed at ensuring that all kids between the ages of 6-14 years attended school and completed 8 years of education by 2010. This wasn’t the first program to be launched but earlier programs weren’t as successful. One of the most popular schemes adopted to attract children to schools is the ‘Mid-Day Meals Programme’ launched in 1995. But it is a squalid situation that children considered it only as the place for a meal nd not as a place for education. There are various private organizations which have also taken responsibilities in educating the children. Very recently an organization Agaram foundation was founded by actor Surya. The agaram foundation was inaugurated with much fanfare with Vijay nd Madhavan as its non-malicious ambassadors. The slogan of agaram "Saadhikka Va Thozha" seems to have reached de rural areas to a wide extend nd hopefully dis shuld yield success as a proof dat de cine media is quite powerful.

Private companies too are lending a helping hand to this noble cause, Like the ‘Teach India’ program launched by The Times of India, or the NGO ‘Literacy India’ which helps underprivileged children with their dreams and aspirations of good quality higher education or the National Literacy Mission which pays special attention to women’s education. Another foundation that helps educate the underprivileged is The Smile Foundation. Mission Education is a national level program started by the foundation which focuses on basic education for underprivileged children and youth. They are working with ‘partner organizations’ in various states across India.

One of the major problems we face today is lack of infrastructure. It is not easy to create schools for our large and ever growing population. Today ‘good’ schools mean expensive schools, mostly private which most lower middle class people cannot afford. That is the fact—every year education gets more and more expensive. It is a vicious cycle—the more the population, the more the unemployment, and the more the unemployment, the more illiteracy, and the more the illiteracy, the more the population will keep growing! We need to somehow break this cycle somewhere. And like they say, nothing is impossible! If each one of us contribute in our own way, may be we can make a difference...