Education to Save our Youth from Disenchantment, Poverty and Crime

As the country enters a new millennium, there is constant talk of us finding our place among the world’s powerful nations. However, with millions of people unable to access basic education, can we truly claim to be a developed nation? Isn’t it our responsibility as a society to ensure that rural India receives equal and quality education?

In India, it is estimated that over 100 million children do not attend school. The vast majority of this figure is accounted for by rural India. This extremely disturbing statistic is further skewed by the fact that boys make up a much higher percentage of children in rural India who obtain a high school diploma, making the girl child, in particular, overlooked and denied.

With increasing advancement, development, and industrialization, there is already a demand for skilled labor that will continue to rise steadily in the foreseeable future. Diverse skill sets in each sector will pave the way for promising careers. Rural India, with its millions of untapped youth who are currently unable to obtain even a basic education, has enormous potential for meeting this mutually beneficial need. It’s a never-ending cycle that can only be broken through education.

“In India, rural illiteracy is a real problem, and if we talk about the youth, they are unlikely to receive a basic education. At some point in his or her adolescence or early adulthood, he or she is enticed by the glitz and glam of the urban jungle and decide to relocate. Only when that move occurs does that person inevitably find himself or herself with no work and no prospects, forcing him or her to resort to menial housework or, worse, a life of petty crime that is further entangled in debt cycles.

One perhaps foolproof way to break this decades-old system is to ensure that rural youth receive an education and then some specific skills training after their basic education.” Says Anoop Singh Bishnoi, Chairman of The Doon School, Dehradun.

Rural education holds the key to addressing many of India's major issues, including youth disenchantment, poverty, and crime. A life with the possibility of a good living. All that remains is to ensure that the foundation is in place. A paradigm shift in mindset is required; we must help rural India understand the benefits of education. We need to help them understand and appreciate the long-term benefits of education, of learning skills through studies; and for that, we need to make rural classrooms "connected" and "digital" so that we empower our students to be exposed and experience just what any other student anywhere else would.

Sponsor Ads

• Ad Space Available - Rent it Now!

Report this Page

Created on May 31st 2023 13:27. Viewed 117 times.

Share on APSense

Comments