Right To Education Right Education & Right Way of Education- Dr.Pratik Mungekar

I am Dr. Pratik and today I am presenting an insightful and impactful speech on the right to education. The right to education is a fundamental human right that is a powerful tool for socially and economically marginalized children and adults to use to help them get out of the vicious cycle of poverty. It also includes the right to free education. Freedom of education refers to the right granted to humans to pursue the education of their choice without restriction.

There was a discussion on what is possibly the most powerful equation that was ever developed by scientists. Someone said that it was the equation describing Newton’s second law, giving the relationship between force (F), mass (m) and acceleration (a), namely, F = ma. Someone else said that it is Einstein’s equation linking Energy (E) to mass (m) and the velocity of light (c), namely, E = mc2. The others came out with some other suggestions.

Then they asked Dr.Mashelkar as to what he thought. He said neither Newton nor Einstein. The most powerful equation is E = F. Here E is Education and F is Future! This means education is equal to the future. This equation is universal and eternal. If there is no education, there is no future. No future for the individual, no future for the nation.

“In addition to the numbers, it is important to promote quality in education. Keeping in view the national policy that each state should have a high quality institution of learning,

These are very interesting times for education system as a whole in India. First, the Indian system of education is undergoing a sudden massive expansion. The role of private sector in education is being redefined because of the additional need for massive resources that will be required to fulfil the aspirations.

Second, the liberalization of education sector in India. On 24 July 1991, the new industrial policy was announced. That gave us the second freedom, the freedom to compete. Although the trade and industry was liberalized on this day, the process of liberating India’s education and agriculture sector has not still been completed.

Third, the globalization of education. As regards globalization of technology it has manifested itself in India. Practically all the leading multinational companies have set up their R&D Centres in India (almost 800 of them now employing about 200,000 Indian scientists, engineers and technologists). But what about globalization of Indian education? Indian companies are acquiring companies abroad. In fact, Ratan Tata, an Indian, is today the biggest employer of British in Britain with the acquisition of Corus, Jaguar Land Rover, and so on. What about Indian universities setting up campuses abroad? What about Indian universities hiring foreign academics as faculty? What about foreign students making a bee line for our universities?

Fourth, the issue of moving from ‘right to education’ to ‘right education’, to ‘education for all’. It translates itself into an all-round inclusion of `have nots’, where this section of the excluded society gets an access to high quality education, that is “affordable and accessible”. The justifiable quest for `inclusion’ is also accompanied by the challenge of balancing `expansion, inclusion and excellence’.

For teaming young Indians, the issue of `growth’ translates into `job led growth’. And therefore, education and skills that Indian education systems impact must lead to tens of millions of jobs. And the news is not good on this front. Reportedly, we are producing over three million first degree holders annually and less than 20% of these are employable!

Fifth, innovation in education. Among other things, it involves the creative use of the fascinating advances in technology to do away with the old style classroom teaching, which is going to be a history.

Look at the dramatic changes that are happening around us due to advances in Information & Communication Technology. Digitisation, virtualisation, mobilization and personalization are the four new megatrends. All these will lead to game changing cocreative, self-organising, self correcting, borderless, globally distributed, asynchronous, dynamic and open systems. Data, voice and video will be delivered with the already existing 3G and the imminent arrival of 4G in India. The processes of self-learning, interactive learning and lifelong learning will undergo a sea change with all these paradigm shifts.

Dr.Mashelkar suggest the following five points:

– We will make a transition from being a weak and hesitant private sector partner to a strong practitioner of privately managed non-profit institutions of higher education.

– We will do away from being a tentative destination for occasional foreign students to be a preferred global destination for foreign students.

– We will move from minor follower and a player in research and innovation to a global leader and a giant in research and innovation.

– We will be a confident and competitive intellectual property promoter rather than being protective and restrictive intellectual property practitioner.

– Instead of being copier of ‘best’ practices in education and research, we will become the creator of ‘next’ practices in education and research.

And it is these paradigm shifts in our attitudes and in our actions that will make the dream of creating India into a leading developed innovation nation come true, and that too sooner rather than later.

As quoted by Nelson Mandela “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” and I fully agree with him because education changes human nature in a desirable way as the changes brought about by education are boundless and positive in nature. Education helps to surpass irrational restrictions, promoting equality, systematic functioning of a diverse country like India. Education reduces unemployment and improves the standard of living of people. Education increases people’s productivity and creativity. It encourages entrepreneurship and technological advancement. It plays a crucial role in ensuring economic, social progress and improving income distribution.

Education aids in the transmission of knowledge required to comprehend and process new information and to implement new technologies. Innovation is a direct consequence of imparting quality education to people. Education is vital for the economic growth and prosperity of a country.

As a result of the Right to Education, Right Education & Right Way of Education the literacy rate will increase and the unemployment rate in the country will decrease, which will automatically facilitate the economic growth of the country. With an increase in economic growth, there will be an equitable income distribution among people and it will also help in establishing an egalitarian society as education helps people think and act in an objective and broad manner. The right to education is a fundamental right of every citizen that should not be snatched from them because education gives meaning to life and replaces an empty mind with an open one.