The inequality in education in India

The context - inequality

I have always known that India is a country of contradictions. We know this to be true in the area of income inequality, social and economic justice and so on. However, in the past six months as a teacher, I have been confronted by the contradictions in India's education system.

On the one hand, we have new age schools coming up incorporating the latest ideas and findings from learning science. And on the other hand, we have more than one lakh schools in India running with only one teacher. Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh have 20000, 8000 and 12000 teaching vacancies respectively.

International schools are all the rage in the cities and metros, where students who may not do great academically still can go abroad for higher education and get an edge on students from rural areas, where even the reading and arithmetic abilities are abysmally low and have in fact deteriorated in the past ten years. In other words, if you are not great academically from a rural area, you have no hope. And academically, you get very little help in terms of infrastructure as well as teachers. Whereas, in the city, even if you are not good academically, you have innumerable opportunities to do well in life. The fluency in English language that is easier obtained in the cities also gives the urban kids an edge over the rural ones. Now, I studied in both a semi urban setup (Bacheli, Chhattisgarh) as well as an urban set up (Bangalore). And I have seen how much more options are afforded to the kids in the cities. And so this is not just inequality. It is a vicious cycle of inequality, where the affluent continue to be so, and the majority of the poor continue to be denied opportunities.

My natural reaction to this inequality is anger. I am angry at the way the world is. I am angry at our education system. I am angry at our country. And I also feel guilty when I see less privileged people. And perhaps this might be some of your feelings too. I have not done anything wrong and I feel guilty. According to this video,

psychologists say that a little bit of guilt feeling is good because it encourages people to act in what they call pro-social ways, where they are concerned about the society, and try to do good and so on.

The responsibility of the privileged

I am not going to focus on the policy possibilities or what the government can do. But rather I want to look at what we as individuals can do.

John Green in the above video asks the question, "what are you going to do with the guilt and the resources you were born with? But do people even feel guilty? Indian cities and especially the corporate world does a brilliant job of keeping you with people like yourself. As the popular adage goes, "ignorance is bliss." This also translates to how people migrate from rural to urban settings but there are extremely rare cases of people migrating from urban to rural settings. Call someone to Bangalore, and it's very easy to get someone to come. Call someone to Balod, Chhattisgarh (where I live now) even for a short visit, and people will hesitate a lot (though funnily, population in the cities is the overwhelming minority). And just so you may not feel guilty about these things and think about quitting your high paying jobs, the mega corporations keep you distracted on netflix, steam gaming, social media, youtube, etc.

But in case one does feel guilty. I believe it is right to take appropriate action. The guilt might just be God given to spur you to do the very thing God gave you those resources and privileges for. One of my friends put up a post on facebook a while back. It was a quote by Jacques Ellul, in 'Money and Power.' I have not read the book myself, but the quote was pretty interesting:

"The wealthy have duties toward others and God. Job lists them: to care for the poor, to consider the needs of people, animals and even things. The rich have a potential that allows them to understand and assist the unfortunate. This is the true price of wealth. This is the only good use they can make of it. Scripture goes even further and speaks of the rights of the poor over the rich...
Thus when when the rich give, they acquire no virtue, no merit; they are only doing their duty. For to give to the poor is only to grant them their rights...whenever they are denied their rights, God's justice must intervene to reestablish them."

It is this Biblical ethic and understanding that spurred the Church through the ages to set up schools, hospitals, and other avenues for societal development. Many missionaries left the safety and comfort of their own home to venture to dangerous and uncomfortable places with the light of the gospel and the burden to help the people there. Much of it was in the past. And much of it still continues on till today, whether we know it or not. But it is vital for each one of us to ask and answer the question: How are we going to fulfill our responsibility towards God and others?

The responsibility of the privileged with respect to education

How does this responsibility apply to the education field? And why do I choose to talk about it now? As a teacher, I want to give my students the best learning experience they can get. And being new to teaching, I try to learn as much as I can about teaching. I read articles, blog posts and find other resources online. Much of it are great resources, but they are all set to the Western context. I find that I cannot implement a lot of it in my classroom. So there is a huge need for good literature and resources to help the Indian student. This is especially true in the 21st century when the world is undergoing massive changes. Kids, even in the villages, grow up familiar with smartphones. At the same time, they are extremely inadequate in their English language capabilities. How do we implement innovative teaching practices in such contexts? Most of the resources online for innovative teaching are not helpful since the context is too different. We teachers need resources (and good training). For this need for resources and literature to be met, we need brilliant minds with good exposure. I don't want to sound elitist and condescending, but from my experience here I can say that cities have more such people than villages generally. And until people from cities are willing to move to semi urban and rural settings, it's going to be difficult.

But I teach in a private school. What about the Government schools? There is a Government school less that 5 kilometers from my house, where 80 to 90 students are there in a general 9th grade classroom. And there are students who cannot write a single word. The Principal was telling us that she is trying to make the kids draw shapes such as triangles to teach them to write letters of the alphabet such as A. So there is a huge need for good policy makers in the Government. Or perhaps one can work even outside the Government through NGOs, like Operation New Hope and their work in Ladakh shows. Even such operations require people with vision who have the ability to think and solve systemic problems.

Conclusion

I could go on, but I think I have made my point. There is a lot of need, when it comes to education. And I'm sure the need is also in other areas such as rural community development, urban slum community development, healthcare and so on and so forth. Perhaps, you could come down to Balod where I live (please come here 😛) or go elsewhere. Or maybe stay where you are. But the question does remain. What are we doing with the resources we have been given? After all, to whom much was given, of him much will be required [Luke 12:48]

P.S.

This entire post may have been motivated by a desire to see some of my friends come down to Balod. (I'm lonely here 😐 Just kidding 😅). I see a great need here, both in the school and elsewhere. And for some reason, people are too reluctant to make such a commitment to come here. But I do also want people to think more on such issues.

Why recent events have got me troubled.

Deathnote is probably one of the most well known manga/anime out there that deals with questions of morality. For those of you who have not read/watched the said comic/show, the story deals with a genius protagonist who is given a book of the shinigami (god of death) by which he can kill people by writing their name on it. Light Yagami, the said protagonist proceeds to cleanse the world, beginning with criminals.

Eventually, the world takes notice that someone is killing criminals and though in public they say he is a criminal (since the Governments have declared him one), on the internet under anonymity many hail him as a god, and call him Kira (Killer). Kira catches the interest of famous investigator L, and what follows is one of the best wars of intellect in modern storytelling.

What is interesting throughout the story, is the many questions of morality and justice that the story raises. Crime rate drastically reduces as a result of Kira and eventually even Governments develop a neutral attitude towards Kira. But L, and later on Mello and Near continue to fight him, and the audience is left to wonder who is truly justice in the story. The whole philosophy is well captured by Light Yagami, "If we catch Kira, he is evil. If he wins and rules the world, then he is justice." And L himself states, "it's not a sense of justice. Figuring out difficult cases is my hobby."

It is good to ponder on these questions raised by Deathnote. We are so used to the existing ethical and moral values surrounding us that we may not be aware that our society may not always have held the same values. For example, the Western world derives a lot of its thought from the Greek tradition. And ancient Greek thought did not always value pity. E A Judge observes of the ancient time, “Pity was a defect of character unworthy of the wise and excusable only in those who have not yet grown up. It was an impulsive response based on ignorance. Plato had removed the problem of beggars from his ideal state by dumping them over its borders” [“The Quest for Mercy in Late Antiquity,” 107]. However, we today celebrate celebrities who give for charities and consider empathy to be a very important trait to have to be even considered human.

But if our ethical and moral values are not so constant and universal and must be seen as arising from within a spatial and temporal space, then that puts us in a tricky spot when violations of our values take place. Recently, a community that I have been associated with for a while was shocked at the behaviour of one its most prominent faces. The said prominent face violated one of the most sacred values on which the community was built - that of being against violence against women - by himself having engaged in predatory behaviour against women. The community itself was enraged, and quite rightly so. But without a fixed point of view for our viewing of moral values, we are going to be in a problem like that of Deathnote. On what basis can I blame a person for the transgression of a moral value, which I cannot defend objectively? On what basis do I say, "till here and no more?" On what basis can I draw my lines?

I myself am deeply troubled by the incident, and that is because the worldview I hold on to considers human life to be very valuable and of high worth. My worldview moreover considers love as the highest virtue, and this value has been perverted by the incident. And my worldview has an objective stand because it proceeds from an objective ultimate reality - that of God.

P.S. I don't want people thinking I've actually read EA Judge (though I'd like to be that well read someday). I got the quote from another blog post. And I've borrowed some ideas from him as well. And here's the link:
https://varughesejohnblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/05/a-haunting-ethic-that-refuses-to-go-away/