Illiteracy Among Children – The Solution

Dear Readers,

I hope, you are doing great. I’m going to present to you a powerful concept that could be used to address some of the major problems in our India.

Before, I talk about the solution, let’s speak about the problems first.

Illiteracy – among children:

Literacy level and educational attainment are backbone of development in a developing country like India. It enhances quality of life, awareness level and level of skill of people in the society.

What is literacy?

The basic definition of literacy is having the ability to read and write. Literacy refers to the total percentage of population of people of the age of seven years and above who can read and write with understanding.

Steps taken by the government

• Mid-day meal scheme is launched by the government under which students were provided with free meals and their parents are sending them to school.
• Samagra Shiksha which is prepared with the broader goal of improving school effectiveness measured in terms of equal opportunities for schooling and equitable learning outcomes.
• India has rolled-out the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009. But, it is yet to witness its complete and proper implementation.

Provision under Indian Constitution

The Constitution of India has also recognised the importance of educating the citizens therefore, several provisions in the constitution are laid down that take care of the rights of the individuals.

• Free and compulsory education- The constitution under article 41,article 45 and article 46 of the Directive Principles of State Policy instructs the state to take necessary steps for providing equal educational opportunities to the citizens.
• Equality of Opportunity in Educational Institutions- Through amendment in the constitution article 21(A) was added in the Constitution of India to provide free and compulsory education of all children in the age group of six to fourteen years as a Fundamental Right.
• Education of Weaker sections- Article 15, 17, 46 safeguard the educational interests of the weaker sections of the Indian Community.

Despite all the efforts of Indian Govt. following are the gaps remaining

1. India is home of largest population of illiterate adults in world – 287 million, amounting to 37% of the global total.
2. 47.78 % out of school children are girls.
3. Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh are amongst the bottom five states in terms of literacy.
4. India’s literacy rate has increased six times since the end of the British rule — from 12% to 74% in 2011, yet, India has the world’s largest population of illiterates.
5. >100 lakh children in India are still out-of-school
6. 92% government schools are yet to fully implement the RTE Act.
7. India is ranked 123rd out of 135 countries in female literacy rate.
8. In the South Asian region, India ranks fourth, behind Sri Lanka with a female-male ratio of 0.97 and Bangladesh with a female-male ratio of 0.85.
9. The percentage of women to the total number of school teachers has gone up from 29.3% in 1991 to 47.16% in 2013-14.

The Solution

Having spoken about the problem, I’m presenting you the solution. We’ll call it Jan-Jan Sahayog. As the name suggest people should be helping other people (like a stronger hand supporting a weaker hand, until the weak one is capable of taking care of itself).

Our mode of operation

We work on principle of “Pyramid Marketing”, i.e. an idea or act starts with one individual that spreads to further two people in the down-line, which further spreads to four people further down the line and so forth.

We take care of following while providing aid to our beneficiaries

Those families which are having income below INR15,000 per month in metro cities and INR10,000/- per month in non-metro cities are included.

If the family has more than one child then we ensure that every child in the family is supported for education. This is to ensure that no jealousy or competitive feeling should arise in heart of any child. Unity among sibling is sine-qua-none, we can’t divide siblings in name of educating one.

We first see proof of fee being submitted by the parents then the same amount is transferred to child’s parent account or the fee is directly submitted to school and the receipt is collected and provided to parents.

We keep in touch with the principal of the school to ensure that the child is regular w.r.t. its attendance, thus our money is serving the purpose it’s supposed to.

We distinguish ourselves from other humanitarian organizations in two ways

1. There is no connecting link between the benefactor and beneficiary. The Jan Sahayogi (the Benefactor) in our model directly passes its help to the beneficiary in terms of school fee etc.
2. Most importantly, "We don't accept any donation in terms of money". The Jan Sahayogi is imparting his own money to the beneficiary child. In other org model the benefactor usually donates his money to the organization and then organization passes the help to beneficiary. We all know, what this gap can do to the support money before it reaches the beneficiary.