India, in a Very Small Nutshell
By gef on Feb 18 2011
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You need more than one life to understand India, so the saying goes here.
Well in this life India is charging along – paradoxes and all, new world and old world side by side – with the expectation of becoming the third largest economy in the world by 2020.
To start off our meetings we heard from experts on the economy, politics and education. Here are some data points we heard to give you a feel for things (generally right I hope, and surely disputed by some faction in this multi-faceted place).
There are well over a billion people living here, with 800 million living in rural India in 30 states, with over 300 languages – English, Hindi (mostly in the north), for each state, and many more. There is great wealth here, along side 75% or more who live on less than 50 cents a day on average. Bangalore in particular and many of the larger cities are as cosmopolitan as they come; 65%, in the rural areas mostly, live in areas without electricity. Education is highly valued with world-class elite educational institutions; publicly funded, bureaucratically run, primary and secondary government schools serve 85% of the population. Vestiges of colonization are alive and well, including in the government school system that is dominated by rote learning with the teacher as the “guru” or ultimate authority – to be respected and not challenged. They expect and get “pin drop” silence, as they say, in the classroom. Teacher quality and attendance are big challenges in these schools. There are many “private” schools – from schools for the wealthy to “affordable” schools for those that can pay something to schools for the neediest of children who cannot afford school at all. These schools are run by private individuals, NGOs, and religious groups, such as missionaries.
India achieved its independence from Britain in 1947 and adopted its constitution, modeled after the US constitution, in 1951. While the right to free and compulsory education is embodied in the constitution, like many things here I take it, it has not been universally implemented – sidetracked for many reasons and made more complicated by ingrained, pervasive government corruption.
Last year, India passed the Right to Education Act (part of a new rights based approach and a follow on to Right to Information and Right to Work laws). The hope is that RTE will do for education what IT has done for the economy. Most educators we talked to – which were mostly the innovators and therefore not a part of the government system – are very concerned about its implementation. It has access, school infrastructure and management requirements that would make most of their schools illegal. To meet the act’s requirements, 1.2 million teachers will need to be hired and trained. The consensus seems to be that it’s a good step forward but will need to be revised in its implementation over a period of years to make it work. Again, the lament is that corruption at all levels will only make it more difficult.
I wouldn’t count India out on this one, however. There is a phenomenon here that is palpable. In all of our meetings and everywhere we visited, there were young people - educated, worldly, brilliant 30-somethings, many educated elsewhere, who have come back to be a part of their country’s future. The IT boom has happened in the last 10 years and they see the possibility for that level of success over the next 10 years and beyond for the larger economy.
The IT boom has brought enormous campuses of high rises filled with companies from all over the world to India. It has infused the economy with money and jobs for a lot of people. There are nowhere near enough jobs in this sector to employ the vast majority of Indians. But, there is plenty of aspiration — as a result of its success — to infuse a sense of what is possible into the wider populace and they are very focused on it.
Meg Porfido, GEF Board Chair
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