On March 8, as a women’s day special the documentary ‘He named me Malala’ was aired in NatGeo channel as a tribute to all the wonderful ladies. Having read the book I waited eagerly to watch it. A wonderful documentary I must say in its making, the message it sends and obviously the cause for which it was made! But it did bring up certain thoughts in my head.

Well, at first I thought God! How lucky we all are..  for our society is not against education! Be it girl’s or boy’s. Instead we are going through a situation which is exact opposite. And I wonder which is worse. In countries like Pakistan and Syria mostly girls are not send to school while here right when a child is born parents would start thinking which school to send their kids to! And by the time the child is reaches two years of age they would have started the struggle to get him an admission in a high class school. Given the trouble that parents take to get their kids admitted to decent school its not surprising that these days schools ask for donation up to (or sometimes more than) around 1 lakh rupees! And for what ?? For Kindergarten admissions! Finally all the above average and rich students get into the high class schools.  And then the tution frenzy begins!!If ur about my age and above you’d think tutions start at around 8thgrade max. But that’s not the case now. Tutions begin at grade 1!

Fourteen years of schooling and the kid passes class 12 exams with flying colours. And what had they learned in all these years?? Whichever curriculum whichever board one thing is for definite , that they would have all learnt  of the number of religions, the sub classes, caste names and of course gender equality!(or should I say inequality). I’ve always wondered why do they teach of communities the minorities and castes.. It’s almost as if they are sowing the seeds of castes and communalism at a young age.  After grade 12 again the admission rush begins! A fight for medicine and engineering seats ensues later on! In any case, in around 3-5 years our country produce some lakhs of graduates. All is well till now. N then what happens??

You’d think all these years of education would have done enough good to build a good citizen in each of these graduates. Well, have it? If yes then how come there are so many communal riots? How come there are incidents like that in JNU? If yes, then why did Rohith Vemula, the Dalit research scholar end his life?  If yes, then how come a single newspaper report ignites so many religious emotions?  If yes then.. the list continues..

And then there are kids like Malala and the Syrian girls who were abducted and the other millions of kids who are deprived of right to education! I wonder which situation is worse; Raising educated idiots or raising uneducated kids who but then knows the true meaning of equality and humanity!

So where did we go wrong?? The problem is to be solved at the roots. I happened to see this video on Facebook where a group of science aspirants were asked to name some inventors. All of them answered immediately naming Einstein, Newton, Graham Bell and so many others! But none, not a single child were able to name a female inventor! Now how did that happen? Is it because there are no female inventors?? NO! Then how can it happen? When asked why so, the kids replied..” They didn’t teach us of any female inventors in textbook!” That’s a start.. is it not?? For a change, why don’t they quit teaching the different levels of castes; why don’t they quit teaching of major and minor religious communities? For a change why don’t they take out all those reservations!  I wonder how it would be if the next generation of students grew up without knowing all this stupid ideologies! Maybe then then they would end up seeing each and every one as another human, and not a member of any caste religion or gender. And who knows; maybe then there would even be no need to celebrate a day like women’s day! No one would be looked down nor would anyone be looked upon!  Only then the true meaning of our constitution could be achieved!! For only then, there could be unity in diversity!  
Categories: The Teenager

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