Reflections on India

I have just returned from a 5-day trip to Amber, near Jaipur in Rajasthan, India. I flew to Delhi then took a four-hour car drive to Amber - this was my first taste of India. I have already travelled to Africa, Pakistan and the Middle East and my snapshot of India leaves me puzzled, the people, especially the women, as so colourful but this is contrasted by, for example, mountains of litter, people urinating and abject poverty. You quickly get used to camels pulling carts, elephants carrying loads, dogs, sheep, goats and cows wandering everywhere. On most flat areas of land you will see an impromptu cricket match. I wasn’t expecting the freely wandering pigs however. But the litter and dirtiness is strange to accept, most walls are stained with urine and tiny children intermingle with traffic begging at most corners, even the busiest intersections.
Yet the colours of the women’s clothes are wonderful and vibrant. The roads are fantastic but the driving totally dangerous, I saw a car reverse down the outside lane of a 4 lane motorway, a car drive the wrong way around a roundabout and a lorry on it’s side, the load of paving slabs strewn across the road. This could of course be due poor driving or to one of the ubiquitous cows wandering anywhere and everywhere.
In Delhi, Jaipur and Amber, the magnificence of the Mogul buildings and British new Delhi are in stark contrast to the general squalor. A man bent double, walking on all fours on wooden blocks near a market was not an uncommon sight. And India is a nuclear power?
The schools were bare and spartan. The walls had posters depicting how to be nice and how to develop good habits. The learners were dressed in the state uniform and many wrote on slates a few had exercise books. There were very few text books and lessons were all teacher at the front, class at desks copying. One school had only recently been donated desks and chairs. Some classes sat on the floor, always in neat, quiet rows. Class sizes varied. In one school a class of just 7 older children studied science. This was from a text book but there was no apparatus in sight, this is taught as a theoretical exercise. In another school of 180 the head teacher was there to greet us, apparently he rarely attended school, only 15 days in the last month, turning up at 10 and leaving before 2 each day. The only other teacher in the school, yep, just one other teacher was responsible for all 180 learners! A complaint had been raised by the community, but mot much action had been taken so far. This school did have a women’s project attached to it and the women were making cloth, clothes, greetings cards and so on, all to an amazing standard.
In the communities surrounding the schools there were many people sitting around doing nothing. Children clearly not in school are everywhere and some young looking children were putting sequins into saris, they looked school age to me. I could not get a straight answer to an estimate of how many learners were not in school, but it must be significant and given the chaos I would have doubts about how anyone would have accurate figures. I would guess that 40% children are not in school.
In class the learners were quiet and respectful but clearly as bright as buttons, one little boy had turned up a few weeks ago and asked if he join a class, so he was in. The simple fact is the kids want to learn and most if the teachers want to teach. However, the schools are drab places with no celebration if learning or much in the way of learning stimulation. Rajsthan is part of the WEF global education initiative but nobody had heard of it on the ground, but a Government official told me how well it was working. Unicef and British Airways support a project that is stimulating environmental awareness and teacher training but it is all very basic stuff.
Nobody seems to be tackling adult illiteracy, which is very high and was told that most adult women are unable to read, but often they pick up what work there is to support a family. Often the woman is the main breadwinner. $2 a day represents a good family income in the area, but very clearly, many do not reach this level of income.
The educators need help, they need structure and they need resources, the communities need access to opportunities because in between the inactivity there are communities trying to make a difference, small enterprises, like the sari makers making beautifully coloured garments are in fact around most corners, but for every person working there were at least as many not.
I spoke with the teachers about what they wanted to do with the televisions and DVD players that had been recently donated to three of the schools. Truthfully, they didn’t know. The thought that some stories or cartoons might be good for the younger learners. I suggested that they may start looking at the areas of the curriculum like environmental studies that might be supported with videos, as this could not just impact learning , but also impact their own environment. But they have not got a curriculum development frame of mind – there is a long way to go before they will start to comprehend the possibilities available through technologies.
The DVD players have the potential, if training is provided, to start to open up creative possibilities for the schools but since they have no money to purchase more DVD tiltes the chance of this having an impact will depend upon the ability of the community to explore how new technologies (to them) can start to impact learning.
As I said earlier, I’m puzzled, levels of education elsewhere are very high but people with degrees still aspire to be telesales works and I have seen first hand very poor standards of education. The communities themselves are the key, education is just one part of life and I am convinced that a coordinated community effort is necessary to make a long lasting change to the lives of the people in the community. All that is needed is opportunity and some well thought through support. The people are bright and willing we have a responsibility to help them to be able to help themselves.