The Uttar Pradesh government’s decision to distribute laptops to students, may on the face of it appear to be a progressive move, but is this a classic case of putting the cart before the horse?
The cost of the laptops to be distributed among 15 lakh students who have passed Plus 2, comes to a whopping Rs 2,858 crore. But in a State where the literacy level is 69.7 per cent as against the national average of 74.04 per cent, would it not have made more sense to expend these funds on basic education?
Though the literacy rate in India grew from 12 per cent in 1947 at the end of British rule to 74 per cent during the 2011 census, 40 per cent of the students, mostly girls continue to drop out every year. The literacy rate in the country is ten per cent lower than the world average of 84 per cent. Today, the country has the highest number of illiterates in the world, and by 2020, India will have 50 per cent of the globe’s illiterates.
The biggest bane of the country is the low literacy rate, particularly among females. Unless this is tackled on a war-footing, the future appears bleak. Deploying funds to frills like laptops instead of first concentrating on basic education is clearly a case of misplaced priority.
(Picture sourced from: http://blog.prudentialct.com/putting-the-cart-before-the-horse/)
2 comments:
Very true sir, agree your view, govt should think on what is its spending, is it worth doing the same!!!
Very true sir, agree your view here
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