We are moving towards a brief hiatus. Our recall of the kaam versus shram debate, which would begin a long silence on the issue of child labour, is a good place to mark a pause on this journey.  Will be back soon.... --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/baroqque/message

Making the argument, that children out of school are working, required the presentation of information to back the claim. These statistics, use a range of definitions, some more liberal than others. Reason and evidence, are used to support a claim. Reason and evidence can also be used to challenge an argument presented. When argument is challenged, not through evidence, but by the questioning of intention, a new battleground is created. The backstory of advocacy statistics.  --- Send in a...

When writing the story of education, it becomes impossible, to not address the issue of child labour. Just as when telling the story of child labour, it is not feasible, to not engage with the education system. The two tales are linked, one blends into the other, measuring one, provides the framework for success on another. This insight, would lead to the framing of the important public argument, All Children out of school are child labourers.  --- Send in a voice message:...

August 24, is one of those days, when the world changes, quietly.  In 1789, the French Assembly, proclaimed freedom of speech on August 24th.  And three days later on August 27th, the Assembly, finally accepted, the Lafayette version of the Rights of Man and Citizens.   In 1985, Gorbachev, began the process of recognizing the market as a civilisational entity. A shift from the Soviet understanding of the market as an invention of capitalism. On August 24, 1991, Gorbachev, after surviving a...

The replacement of the democratically elected government with a faith-led autocracy, in Afghanistan has been met with shock and awe. Mainstream media conversations have raised the possibility of the return to the dark days of the 20th century, when girls were denied access to education.  The reality is likely to be an expansion of what has been happening in the provinces, during the past decade, where the Taliban has been de facto control. In these places, the official educators,...

Here, we take a look at the last years of educational financing, with the integration of new private sector sources, through the lens of State responsibility.  Further Reading  Convergence Blog Post: Unlocking Financing for Investment into Education https://www.convergence.finance/news-and-events/news/2j6ZqZWOFCdDRLyI2bfOQm/view Arvind Panagriya (2004): India in the 1980s and 1990s: A triumph of Reforms. IMF Working Paper https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2004/wp0443.pdf (last...

Context is a powerful predictor of State Behaviour. What Context does not do however, is help us identify which areas, will receive more state attention.  Further Readings Keynes, J.M. (1919) The Economic Consequences of the Peace https://openlibrary.org/works/OL35914W (last accessed August 1, 2022) Thucydides History_of_the_Peloponnesian_War_done_into_English_by_Richard_Crawley (1914) http://openlibrary.org/books/OL22889422M/ (last accessed August 1,...

The National Family Health Survey began life in 1991. It would soon gain credibility and acceptance. What makes the NFHS particularly valuable, has been its ability to shed light on difficult to measure facets of state-society-family-individual interaction. One such area, is child labour.  Click on the chart below to get a better understanding of the narrative of progress. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/incidence-of-child-labour-in-india In 2000, the NSSO survey, had already shown...

Data collection and analysis, present facets of realities. Those facets, have the potential to spotlight both the success and the failures. They thus have the potential to hold accountable the powerful. On April 10th 2003, in their response to a starred question, government would attempt to duck accountability. It would be a hairpin bend, in the long road to achieve education for all.    Further Reading RS Starred Question No. 417, answered on April 10,...

The Census and NSSO are pillars of the Indian Statistical system. Though the system has colonial roots, the establishment of the National Sample Survey Organisation, in 1950 with strategic autonomy, coded into its DNA gave the professionals, the ability to develop and share with the public analytical reports without fear. In 1953, with the passing of the Indian Statistical Act, the process of democratisation, the importance of accountability to the people, was built into the system....

The census is a credible record of change and progress, a benchmark that allows trends to be highlighted, and correlations drawn. Only correlations, can be misunderstood as causation.   Documents mentioned in the podcast  Padmanabha, P. "Census of India, 1981: Salient Features." India International Centre Quarterly 8, no. 3/4 (1981): 207-18. Accessed July 3, 2021....

How do text books, present and re-present the darker side of a nation's past? The National Curriculum Framework, provides a guideline, " A (Text Book) guide to construct understanding through active engagement with text, ideas, things, environment and people, rather than transferring knowledge as finished product." Yet how does that guideline, translate through a process of decision-making, into text books, that present, both successes and failures.  Further reading  Yogendra Yadav's...

In 1976, India adopted Article 51 A(h), making the development of a scientific temper, a duty of every citizen. Inclusion of that Article, put India, into a club of one, the only country, which requires, of its citizens, the development of a scientific temper, a shorthand for temperament promoted by Jawaharlal Nehru. Like some other Emergency  period changes in the Constitution, those who opposed the abandonment of democracy, retained this provision, when they came to power.  That...

Krishna Kumar uses the metaphor of a long corridor to darkness, to explain the continuities,  he surfaces in the way colonials and nationalists, understood the value of education. Reading reviews of his book, in academic journals, demonstrates, that his ideas met with both scepticism and empathy, --- reviewers pointing out the long corridor of darkness, was in reality, part of a long and winding road, that stretches, beyond Macaulay, to Charles Grant at the least, and possibly into the...

The village of Sohagi, is at the heart of the Mirzapur-Badhoi Belt and the prime minister's visit, in 1975, was a significant signal of support to the carpet trade, and to the weaving industry. Her visit to launch, a programme for training of children to become weavers, would trigger, a series of events, that would lead Dr. Myron Weiner, to conclude, that Inda's children are not in school and learning, because the elites of the country want it to be so,  --- Send in a voice message:...

During the Emergency, education was moved from the State List, to the Concurrent List, through the omnibus 42nd Amendment. In discussions on the health of democracy, that one amendment to the Constitution, has been identified as the single most lethal blow to the civil liberties legacy of the struggle for Independence.  Post the elections in 1978, civil liberties were restored, and those parts of the amendment, reversed.  The shift of education, to the concurrent list, though, has remained,...

The extensive media coverage, of conflicts is not new. Yet in the course of one week, schools in places as disparate as Kabul, Kazan, in Russia,and Gaza, became the centre, of global attention as hatred and fear, turned schools into battlegrounds, and children, victims of hatred and fear, pawns in wars, they did not start.   https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/34-000-gazans-seek-refuge-at-unrwa-schools-amid-israeli-attacks/2244385#the story of...

Myron Weiner's work has profoundly affected, public policy discussion on education and child labour. Child and the State in India achieved cult status. In a country, known to be prickly, and wearing its nationalism as a badge of honour, his central thesis, that the reason, child labour is rampant and children are not in school, is because India’s elite want it like that is cited by everyone ---- those who want to change the system and equally by those who want to maintain the status...

In his analysis of In the post-independence period, Kumar would point to both dramatic changes, such as the inclusion of all children within schools, while also pointing to ways in which the changes, were accompanied by subtle continuities. It was in the second edition of the book, that his analysis of the past would be nuanced with what he was witnessing all around him. Where earlier, the struggle was access to school, now the struggle, was to somehow, manage, even mitigate the prejudices,...

The struggle to abolish child labour, is viewed as a good fight. But what if the work done by children is not considered labour?. What if children work, while also going to school? Can labour and school-going education co-exist, and if they do, what does it mean for the life experience of a child?  These questions have no easy answers.   Prof G K Lieten has studied the phenomenon of children, doing the work of adults, extensively had explained, the distinction, between child labour...

1991 is known and celebrated as the year when economic reforms, were introduced in India. Cloaked within the story of the 1991 economic reforms, is the story of decisions taken that would decisively transform the policy and programming landscape of education delivery in India.  From 1992, there is a visible shifting of gears, and a policy commitment to universalise education for every child.   The story of provision of education to every child, everywhere in India, is the story of State...

1991, is known in the public policy community, as the year, when India took a decisive turn right, on governance and especially economic policy-making. That same year two books were published, both by scholars, with a deep and abiding faith in the transformative, power of education in the lives of children and nations; both were to be successful, yet the two books could not be more different. This Tale of Two Books audio series will examine the interplay of ideas and interests that were...

In today's India, institutions are especially important. How should the story of an institution be told? In his wonderful chronicle  of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Dr. Batabyal chose to focus on the contest of ideas, and the change processes, which could be seen, and experienced within higher education. In this episode, he talks about the struggles, ideological and professional, in the backdrop of which the Jawaharlal Nehru University was set up as a centre for advanced research.  In a...

How did individuals, and organisations, respond when the first pandemic of the 21st century hit? What happens when an individual life-career pivot sends you on a career path you had not planned? Havovi Wadia, CEO of Save The Children India (STCI) shares what responding to the Covid 19 pandemic, meant, when government decisions and court orders, made lives more vulnerable, the everyday difficulties of ensuring children and women, are helped when they are most in need, has meant and how the...