Draft addendum to manifesto (education)

["Dr. Sanjeev Sabhlok" <sanjeev@sabhlokcity.com>]

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Umesh said:

>As for the fear of imprisonment hanging over the poor, I think you have
>taken my proposal of enforcement out of context and selectively applied
>towards poor people, even though I have clearly proposed safeguards, which I
>am repeating here :
>In my original proposal, I said :
>- A: Ensuring that every child gets enrolled in a school.
>   ...
>  2. Such an annual report must be presented to the city council, andthen
>the council decides on issues such as : 
>	(i) Non availability of the school infrastructure.
> 	(ii) Inability of a significant number of citizens to pay even the
>minimum fee ...
>	(This at least partially covers poverty)
>  3. For the unresolved cases, where the village clerk and the respected
>ward member make a determination ....
>   (Please remember, here the ward member, who gets voted by none other then
>the parents and their neighbors, makes the determination, while being
>assisted by the village clerk who has all the facts in front of him/her,
>whether or not the case requires making parents answerable for their
>probable failure.)
> 	Even this step does not directly make a case for legal action, and
>there is one more step of hearing at the office of the village attorney, who
>can be expected to understand the genuine reasons for the parent's failure
>to enroll the kids for the reasons that may or may not be related to their
>poverty. 
>	One can't imagine how much good can come out of such exercises. If
>just the information goes out from the office of the village attorney or the
>village council that a certain number of parents could not enroll their
>children to the school due to their poverty, you can see lot of generous
>citizens who are well off, volunteering to make donations or support such
>parents, etc.

Existing para sought to be modified:
------------------------------------

(a) 	6% of the Gross Domestic Product would be targeted for being spent on
education by the nation. As far as possible, parents shall bear the
responsibility of educating their children. Various forms of support will
be made available to those unable to afford education of their meritorious
but poor children, such as need-based loans to attend institutions of
higher  learning.

New para proposed:
------------------

(a) 	6% of the Gross Domestic Product would be targeted for being spent on
education by the nation. As far as possible, parents shall bear the
responsibility of educating their children. Various forms of support will
be made available to those unable to afford education. These will include
the following:

	(i) Panchayats or Management Committees of schools will be provided a copy
of the births and deaths register pertaining to the villages concerned.
They will cause an annual social audit of parents who do not send or are
not regular in sending their children to school, and deal with the alleged
economic hardship in ways deemed appropriate by the Panchayat. Apart from
the negative income tax proposed elsewhere, some funds would be
additionally allocated to Panchayats to assist in resolving such cases. If
this does not work over the course of time, while other reforms are also in
progress, reasonable penal measures on parents deliberately defaulting in
sending their children to school upto Class V, despite their economic
causes being attended to by the Panchayats, may have to be considered.

	(ii) Need-based loans would be caused to be made available to the
meritorious poor for attending institutions of higher earning.

----
That's the max I am willing to go to: "reasonable penal measures on parents
deliberately defaulting in sending their children to school despite their
economic causes being attended to by the Panchayats, may have to be
considered." I do not believe that the latter contingency will arise. Hence
I leave it at that. No compulsion needed. Instead, 'incentivise, persuade.'
Alternatively, put your own money on the block, and set up your own
schools. Do not use tax payer's money to threaten your fellow-citizens who
are acting the way they do from compulsions generated by our ridiculous
system.

Please approve now.

SS

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