The Education of Smriti and Nadhiya
Unless you have been living under a rock, you could not have missed the brouhaha about our HRD minister’s educational qualification. Is Smriti Irani a BA pass or BCom graduate? Is she a graduate at all? Did she lie about her educational qualification? Is this a political conspiracy?
It could easily be one of those pointless charades that are enacted from time to time-full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The current cloud of controversy over the ‘irony’ of the Human Resource Development minister not being a graduate, has one silver lining. It has got us thinking about education, its value, its relevance in the modern world. Education does not have a direct correlation with a person’s performance on the job. In the course of my career, I have seen several so-called ‘brilliant’ people with Master’s degrees in Management from the best universities struggle with their jobs and lives. However, what is dangerous among the legion of Ms. Irani’s defenders, is the notion that education has NO role in the success of an individual. ‘Look at her abilities and not the certificate’, they say. ‘Sonia Gandhi and Indira Gandhi were not graduates either and look at where they have reached.’
I really don’t care too much about Smriti Irani’s educational qualification. If she lied about it, too bad. Things will take their course. If it is a misunderstanding, it will be cleared up. I don’t know about her track record. I have heard her speak on a couple of occasions and found her to be astute and articulate. It requires life skills beyond academic qualifications to survive in politics. She will manage.
I do care about the discounting of education. Unless one is blessed with a prodigious talent or stunning good looks, education is the only guarantor of economic and social well being in an emerging economy like India. For every article that talks about 10 Successful people without College Degrees, there are 10000 unsung illiterate people languishing on the bottom rung of society.
Most of them are women.
The Statistics for Women’s Education provided by a report from the HRD ministry are disheartening.
The literacy rate for Indian women is 54 pc as against 75 pc for men.
62 pc of school dropouts are women.
25 pc of the girls leave school because they are held back for household work or the care of younger siblings or they get married by the age of 16.
One of the most important reasons why children drop out is because of the distance of the school, cost of education and poor infrastructural facilities. Only 50 pc of Indian schools have separate toilets for girls.
When it comes to higher education, only 10 pc of the population has access to colleges. Out of the enrollments, only 40 pc are women.. Many don’t complete their degrees. It is not easy for many girls to stay in school and it is a bigger struggle to study further.
Yesterday, I heard about Nadhiya. Nadhiya lives in a slum in Chennai. She belongs to the community of cobblers. Her parents sit at a makeshift stall by the roadside, mending shoes and bags in front of my childhood home. Together, they earn in a month, what I might spend on a slow day in the mall. Her mother has not gone to school. Her father dropped out early on. Both are illiterate but they have a burning ambition to educate their eldest daughter. At first, Nadhiya studied in a government school. Then her mother somehow secured admission for her in a better school run by Christian missionaries. Nadhiya studied hard. She has just passed her Class 12 exams. Her marks are good. She wants admission in a college. She wants to ‘do BCom and get a job’. That is her dream and her parent’s dream.
Nadhiya and her mother had approached my mother for advice and assistance. My mother is a retired professor of economics and has been teaching girls for the past thirty-five years. She is helping her with the college admission process. But my mother is worried about how Nadhiya will cope. The medium of education in the college is English. Nadhiya studied in a Tamil medium school. She barely passed in English. Nadhiya and her mother are determined. Education will give them opportunities and a life they could not have dreamt of otherwise. Education provides respect, promises financial independence and promotes self- esteem. I am sitting comfortably at a desk in an air-conditioned room, typing this article on my Sony Vaio laptop because of my education.
Girls like Nadhiya and Fathima Shabana, the dishwasher’s daughter who passed the IIT Main exam, will look to our HRD ministry for support. Education cannot be the privilege of a few. Though the RTE Act of 2009 provides for free and compulsory education till the age of fourteen, the quality of this education is dubious. We need more and better schools, dedicated teachers who are paid well, avenues for vocational courses and more colleges for men and women. We need a rigorous system of checks and balances that ensure that the schools function well. 3 pc of my tax goes towards education. This is an enormous amount. We need accountability. Girls like Nadhiya and Fathima cannot be exceptions. Going to school should be normal, taken for granted by all young children.
If Smriti Irani is sincere about her work, she can do a world of good. Education has the power to transform lives, to transform society. It is a power that has to be wielded with a sense of responsibility. If Ms. Irani can help to ensure quality education for every child, her own educational qualification will not matter.
This article was first published on IBN Live’s blog
