Literacy
I appreciate your concern and cause. But we cannot blame the
children. We need to blame the collective psychology of the nation.
I cannot think of a day without reading. My parents
inculcated that habit in me. Adults need to do that because after all children
imitate initially the adults around them, their parents, sisters and brothers.
I used to get Rs.10 as pocket money in my college days i.e. 1979 [now Rs. 64 is
one dollar] for one full month for canteen and travel I used to save them and
get books from old book shop. The cheapest books were on Eastern and Western philosophy,
incidentally old books of Russell and Huxley were very cheap, I am great fan of
both of them because of that. I am from India.
There must be special discount coupons for toys, food items
etc for answering quiz on books by children. Parks must have a children books
reading corner.
I used to sit and read with my daughter when she was just
one year old in 1999 and now she is not only a voracious reader but the only
thing she likes to buy are books. So adults have to start that habit even if
they do not have. We also lack lot of
clarity about what is education meant for?
As you have rightly pointed out there are those unloving critics of
every activity who would say can literacy contribute to intelligence? Are all
literate people successful in life and all those types of tangential
irrelevance to divert from the issue? It would be better if we taught our
children to read than pray because then they would read everything and many
things. I would also like to share two of my blog posts
1. UN’s
WORLD BOOK and COPYRIGHT DAY 23rd April 2013-Why?
2. Formal
Education is a necessity http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/04/education-what-it-is.html
I would like to go a step further
and say those with able body and normal brain, above the age of 10, if they do
not contribute through either any skill or literacy or interest to learn
anything must be sent to either mental asylum or juvenile prison and both the
parents must be must be given some rigorous imprisonment for three months each,
even if they are divorced now.
Fortunately India is for better
in this aspect, despite the economic poverty and excessive population and
adverse media reports on this score.
Most employees in USA may end up
being educated youth from India, China, Philippines, and some Arab nations. The
mistake was in the collective national psyche which hero worshiped Bronze
medals than brains. In our country we respected only saints and sages who
imparted words of wisdom [a sign of literacy at least not miracle workers] and
we accepted only educated and intelligent persons as our leaders starting from
Gandhi, Ambedkar, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, P.V. Narasimha Rao to Modi.
Any activity to be sincerely
followed must be ingrained as a part of the value system of a culture,
tradition, probably religion as well.
In India, if a person is not
intelligent or educated or skilled at something to earn living or of any use to
the society in any capacity, he/she cannot get a spouse only by virtue of their
physical beauty or ancestral wealth and cannot live on social security scheme
either.
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