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Human Resource Development minister Smriti Irani’s diktat to government-run Kendriya Vidyalayas to start studying Sanskrit instead of German bang in the middle of an academic year shows a complete lack of empathy towards students and is an abuse of power.
Irani’s fiat will impact about 70,000 students across India – mainly children of middle-class government officials. Students in classes 6 to 8 will have to throw their German books out of the window and start studying Sanskrit from scratch. If the Minister had any grouse against German, she could have waited for the few remaining months of the academic year to get over. But the move, it seems, is more to please the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh bosses in Nagpur than to help students.
The HRD minister should realize that in a globalized economy, an additional language skill is a very important asset and can provide more job opportunities to Indians compared to their peers from other countries. If given an option, very few students will opt for Sanskrit as it has failed to generate employment for them.
What is important to note that the imposition of Sanskrit will take the students back by years. Already, the students are bogged down by dozens of subjects at the school level and have to memorise hundreds of pages to pass with good grade.
The conditions of Indian government schools are pathetic in terms of teacher quality, equipment, school premises, and facilities. No one wants their children to study in a government school, which is why private schools are flooded with admission requests from politicians to drivers. The Indian elite already sends their kids to corporatised schools that charge often astronomical fees. Very few can afford a school that charges Rs 25,000 a month. Students in these high-cost schools are treated like royalty by the teachers and school administration. Then there are hundreds of middle-class convent/English schools where the majority of Indian students are enrolled and where admission is hard to get. Finally, we have the government run KVs and municipal students. There are also thousands of neighbourhood private schools that offer ‘English medium’ education but most of these are unaccredited so they can’t offer matriculation exams, and are therefore irrelevant for the purposes of this discussion.
Irani knows very well that she can’t touch the first two kinds of schools because that’s where the party’s donors and voters are. She is thus left with the children from Kendriya Vidyalayas to further her agenda. In a way, Irani is making sure that these kids remain at the bottom of pyramid.
The BJP came to power with lots of expectations from the people of India – rich and poor alike. So far, the performance of the HRD ministry has been average at best. One can make out that there are no big ticket ideas or reforms from Irani which would help students. Instead of lowering the burden of students, Irani has just increased it.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign promise of acche din (good days) will perhaps remain just that – a promise.
