The Hindu : Opinion / Letters to the Editor : Basic education

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Monday, Dec 24, 2007
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Opinion - Letters to the Editor

Basic education

Amartya Sen has rightly observed that government intervention is vital for providing basic education to all. Cuba has ensured total literacy despite 60 years of economic sanctions, thanks to the state spending on education. In our country too, Kerala is the most literate State because of the patronage provided by successive governments to public schools.

But in the globalisation process, education has become a market commodity, as government spending has become abysmally low. This has resulted in education becoming a privilege of the affordable, rather than a right of all sections of society.

Syed Sultan Mohiddin,

Kadapa

* * *

If the right to equality should have any meaning, schools throughout the country should be nationalised. While the standard of education provided to children should be the same, it should be totally free for the poor. Unless education up to at least the secondary level is made uniform, compulsory and affordable to all, reservation for the backward communities in education and employment will continue to be a farce favouring only the rich in those communities.

S.P. Asokan,

Cuddalore

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