Dr. V.K. Maheshwari, Former Principal
K.L.D.A.V(P.G) College, Roorkee, India
Rural is rural, Urban is urban-Never the twain shall meet, seemsto be the right maxim. In India, Education for the rural masses has been an afterthought here. The government, educational planners and institutions often clamour for oft-beaten courses suited to urban needs. The same courses are forced down the throat of the few motivated rural folks who venture and aspire for the fewer educational opportunities available to them.
There is a factual saying that India lives in villages..The present scenario of the rural education in India can at best be described as bizarre. There are colleges in rural blocks teaching Topology in Mathematics, C –programming in computer science, Theory of relativity in physics and Robotics in Electronics. At the same time, there are tens of thousands of villages without any school or having poorly equipped primary schools. Obviously, education occupies the last priority in the minds of the rural folks when caught between these two extremes. This situation is alarming and needs to be corrected.
The anomaly is present in spite of the commendable efforts by government and voluntary agencies through numerous development programmes. The imbalance in the rural development is not due to lack of programmes but it is more due to highly incompatible and inadequate educational facilities. Hence , the core of the problem is improper education. It is rightly said that development does not start with goods, it starts with people and their education, organisation and discipline.
Proper education means the right type of education providing the exact type of skill and knowledge which will address the day to day problems and the immediate future aspirations of the rural folks. The case in point is the advisability of starting hi-tech engineering colleges conducting advanced courses in electronics and computer sciences in rural areas. The ventures of this kind again satisfy the insatiable amditions of wealthy urbanites or wards of rich landlords who study in private rural colleges for the sake of degrees. Does it really benefit the impoverished rural folks ? Hence the necessity arises to identify the real needs of the rural India and structure the courses accordingly.
Generally, the educationists and the politicians provide lip service for strengthening the primary educational facilities in rural areas. In reality, very little has been done so far. The main focus of the efforts of government, voluntary agencies and industries in rural areas should be channelizing adequate funds for primary and secondary education in rural areas. The need for better equipment, staff, building, textbooks and commitment for promoting quality education at the primary and secondary levels in rural areas is long overdue. The schools of this type alone can act as catalysts to eradicate illiteracy in true sense in the long run. The other gimmicks and kneejerk programmes may at best serve only the propaganda machinery of the promoters. After schooling, the rural literates will need technical schools, agricultural polytechnics, rural medical institutes of very good quality and not necessarily too much hi-tech ones. The better performers of such institutes can be encourage to go for high-tech institutes situated in urban areas on priority basis. The present trend seems to be exactly the opposite. At present, the education up to high school level or higher demands the same amount of expertise from rural as well as urban people though the rural folks have been a great disadvantage in every respect. The stringent, though not related to real life , curriculum forced on the villagers leads to high dropouts and failures among them. The ultimate effect is that more and more rural population resign to their fate with agriculture as the sole occupation. Hence we have more mouths to feed with lesser and lesser compatibles skills to their credit.
Impact of Educational Gap
The widening of gap between urban and rural educational requirements has its own side-effects; The medical education is a prerogative of urban elite has left the rural folks at the mercy of fate as far as basic medical facilities are concerned. Even the government directive asking trained doctors to serve in the rural areas has drawn flak. Majority of doctors complete the assignments as a ritual rather than as a commitment.
Another aspect to note is the consternation with courses that are connected even remotely with the word “rural”. Hence the courses in agriculture, rural management, dairy management, etc occupy very low priority in status though they offer better employment opportunities if pursued seriously. These courses need to be elevated to a level where they will enjoy prestige and privilege comparable to engineering, medical and general management courses.
A great gap also exists in the language used for learning and teaching in rural and urban areas.While English is actively promoted in urban educational system, rural areas reel under the onslaught of English for higher education and local languages for school level education. Thus the rural masses are not only subjected to alien courses for learning but also an alien language. Hence, when it comes to competition for any white collar post or for that matter any decent post, they always stand in a ‘no win’ position. With fifteen different languages and hundreds of dialects in india, the solution seems to be evasive one. The only way seems to be train the rural masses in local language and emphasize strongly on English as a compulsory course right from primary level. The greatest emphasis on English right from the beginning as a major component of rural education can only help to acquire better exposure with global environment. It can also help to assimilate newer techniques for rural development in agriculture, fishery, rural crafts and to provide better economic infrastructure from within.
Integrated Rural Development and Rural Education
The two concepts of rural development and rural education are intertwined with each other to such an extent that it become impossible to talk of one without the other. Many include rural education as a part of rural development. This approach relegates rural education to the last priority as it involves money and the results will not be immediately visible.
Rural development, infect consists of strategies, policies, and programmes for the development of rural areas and the promotion of activities carried out in such areas as agriculture, forestry, fishery, rural crafts and industries, the building of the social and economic infrastructure.
Further, the following areas have been of special importance for the programmes of integrated rural development,
A-Harnessing local human resources
B-Decentralisation of manufacturing industries
C-Cooperative or group action on the part of rural poor
D-Economic and social infrastructure
E-Diversification of agriculture
F-Functional literacy
The ills in rural development lie not in lack of programmes, but in neglecting the most fundamental input called proper rural education. The word functional literacy is vague and serve no purpose except making many to read a few lines. The real need is to equip the rural masses for rational and scientific thinking and apply the education for their own betterment.