Group4_A | SDG 4 : "Quality Education"

Introduction

“Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward”- Soren Kierkegaard

It is tempting to say and believe that life must always be lived in the moment. To propose that we must all focus on the present and not frivolously waste our time worrying about the future. And for too long, homo sapiens as a species have been doing just that- caring only about the present generation, extracting all they can from this planet, without caring for either the other species that are co-habitants of the earth or even their progeny-the future generations of human beings. But now, it is evident that worrying about the future is a burden that humanity must take to ensure the perpetuation of the human race itself, ensure prosperity for our children, and sustain growth. And the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals are a step in the right direction- to move humanity to the path of a bright and sustainable future. And the first step in ensuring a prosperous future for the coming generations is to make sure that knowledge is passed down to them. Thus, one of the most important of the UN SDGs is to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all.”

Sitting in a renowned, prestigious institute, that too inside campus experiencing nearly the best possible education under the given circumstances, the authors of this blog are starkly aware of the privilege they hold. Even before the pandemic, in countries such as Niger and Mali, the percentage of people above the age of 14 capable of reading and writing ranged from 19%-33%. The advent of Covid-19 has wiped out decades’ worth of gains in education worldwide, leading to an additional 101 million students falling below minimum reading proficiency levels in 2020. Thus the goal of UN SDG-4 of ensuring quality education has become critical at this juncture to provide millions of children a chance to lift themselves and their families out of poverty and hunger and allow them to innovate and build- thus tackling some of the other goals mentioned in the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In many ways, this is the keystone goal- if achieved even partially, it can transform the lives of millions and achieve several of the UN SDGs.

Relevance to India

The history of Education in India is a diverse and storied one. From ancient learning centers such as the Takshashila to Gurukuls teaching astronomy, law, and theology, India has historically placed tremendous importance on education.

With the rich heritage of being the learning center of the world since the age of Rigveda and home of Nalanda and Takshashila, India currently ranks 59 among 64 countries in terms of education.[1] One might raise an eyebrow at this rank while looking at the weekly news of a new CEO of Indian origin taking up the reins of an MNC. The problem is not with the people. It never was. So, where is the gap?

India has 580 million of its population in the age group of 5 to 24. [2] With government initiatives like “Sarva Siksha Abhiyan,” India made a success story by getting the primary school enrolment rates to 99.9% in 2020. The government has also achieved a 100% enrolment rate for girls. The problem’s bottleneck now remains with the high dropout rates from primary to secondary education. Challenges like the quality of education, penetration of educational resources in rural parts, and lack of personal finances to continue higher education are persistent. Thus, many of the CSR initiatives in this sector focus on solving them.

[3]29% of the annual aggregate CSR spend is on the education sector[4]. With these 2669[5] Crores of infused cash, the issues mentioned above are tackled by partnering with an implementation organization. The most prevalent of these is providing infrastructure to schools, sponsoring resources, and providing scholarships for higher education for needy students. Schedule 6 also includes providing toilets to the school under educational CSR, which is getting highly popular under the “Clean India” mission.

The need of the today’s hour is to align the policymakers and CSR decision-makers by formulating a clear-cut action plan by keeping the 2030 SDG goals in sight.

Figure 1

Comparison of India with rest of the world in upper secondary completion rate

Figure 2

Business Implications

Improvement of education in India will be incredibly beneficial to businesses in India. Educated people will provide the company with a highly skilled pool of candidates to choose from for employment which will result in higher productivity and less training costs to the company. Not only that, a higher degree of education throughout the nation will present businesses with more rational customers who will be able to interpret the value better that a business or product will provide them. This will lead to lesser costs for the company in communication activities and a better foothold in the market. These are some of the few possible benefits a business will be able to obtain if the level of quality education in India increases.

Procter and Gamble’s (P&G) ’s flagship CSR program under the name P&G Shiksha works directly towards the UN SDG of quality education, providing education to underprivileged children. The initiative not only focuses on imparting knowledge but also improving the education infrastructure in underdeveloped areas and empowering marginalized girls through the power of literacy. P&G Shiksha has supported over 1400 schools and directly impacted over 1.4 million children in India since 2005. P&G not only works on Education through P&G Shiksha but also works towards gender equality via its campaign- ‘we see equal’ and many more.

Flipkart has taken its first official CSR initiative under ‘Flipkart Cares.’ Under this initiative, Flipkart employees work on various existing problems in the country, including fighting COVID-19, empowering women, and donating funds to various NGOs that work directly to improve the livelihood of the lower-class people. Flipkart works closely with ground-level NGOs to raise the living standard of the public and directly and indirectly improves health, education, and providing food and shelter. Flipkart also offers opportunities to young entrepreneurs by providing a platform to realize their ideas.

Pidilite believes that a progressive India is an educated India. The company supports various initiatives to promote quality education in India with this belief. Pidilite supports ‘Mahuva Education Trust,’ which provides education in different streams like arts, science, IT, and business management, and every year 1500 students got benefitted from it. Similar initiatives like ‘Shri Balvant Parekh science city’ and ‘Kalsar girls’ education,’ both founded in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, are helping the young minds to get the essential and exciting exposure to education so that it can help them in their future.

Citibank does not directly impact SDG 4 (Quality Education) as of now, but it does mention in its Global-ESG-Report-2019 that it has a role to play in it.[6] Citibank offers a wide range of financial, educational resources available online free of cost to help people understand and plan their finances. As part of its ESG policies, Citi group prohibits business with any company that interferes with a child’s education.[7] It also launched the “Citi Start Saving” program and campaigns like “e for Education” to promote savings for college education and raise awareness and funds for education-focused non-profit organizations. Citi has raised about $37 million since the campaign’s inception for this cause.⁶ Citi India has also worked indirectly to provide quality education by partnering with NGOs.[8]

Analysis

Analysis: Providing Quality Education isn’t the real challenge. Providing it equitably and inclusively for all is. Technology could be part of the solution.

It is fairly evident that access to education in India is extremely unequal. The divisions in society based on wealth, caste, and even gender have led to gnawing inequalities in education, thus perpetuating the cycle of the widening gap between the haves and have nots in India. Even though Indian parents place tremendous importance on education, the difference in resources has meant that only some children get the best education, while others languish, curtailed by the lack of resources and social standing. Similarly, girls are 17% less likely to receive English language education overall than boys.

The primary causes of lack of quality education in the world are as follows:

1. Poverty/Lack of resources: Class barriers lead to parents either not being able to afford a good education for their children, or perceiving greater value in putting children to work than to send them to school. Especially in the pandemic times, access to expensive electronic tools to enable online education became a severe barrier towards attending classes for several students

2. Political Conflicts: One of the first casualties in any political conflict is education. Students inevitably suffer whenever there is a regime change, or a war. A long ongoing civil war in South Sudan has led to literary rates in the country falling to 32%. Similar scenes are being witnessed in Ethiopia with the ongoing conflict in Tigray.

3. Lack of infrastructure and human resources: Access to quality teachers remains a challenge, which is especially pronounced in areas far off from the commercial centers of the country. This limits the spread of good quality education to a few concentrated geographical regions of any country.

4. Social norms: Societal norms in several regions of the world lead to the repressed sections of society not being allowed to receive quality education. The most recent example of this is the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, where the education of girl students was immediately ceased. Even in India, girls on average are less likely to get a good education than boys, especially beyond primary education.

Figure 3

Way Ahead

Acknowledging the gender disparity & steps to solve it – Multiple Government initiatives such as -

1. Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Abhiyan – This initiative is being implemented in 100 districts by the ‘Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD)’ along with The Department of School Education and Literacy

2. UDAAN – Under this initiative, the Central Board of Secondary Education will select 1000 girls every year from marginalized groups and provide them with resources to excel. This initiative is being implemented to reduce Gender disparity in Engineering & Secondary Education.

These, along with multiple other programs, are being implemented now. What remains is increased accountability in terms of how the funds are being utilized, transparency in terms of how the students are selected & finally, raising awareness among citizens of India. A better infrastructure that makes the system more approachable for the marginalized groups needs to be implemented soon.

National Education Policy – NEP aims to completely revamp the current 10+2 system and replace it with the 5+3+3+4 system. This is being done to change how Indian’s have been learning & bring a more holistic education system. The common issue seen in our education system is the lack of practical skills imparted to students, & this is the problem NEP aims at solving. NEP will also help us solve the quality of education provided in government schools.

Individual Level – We as individuals can sponsor the education of marginalized groups with as little as Rs. 1100 with NGOs such as Narayan Seva Sansthan. If monetary support is not possible, one can volunteer at NGOs to teach under-privileged students with programs such as BMLP, BELP, etc. Finally, we can help raise awareness through platforms accessible to us.

College Initiatives – Top MBA colleges such as NMIMS have made it mandatory for students to work for one trimester at local NGOs to help the underprivileged. Other top-tier postgraduate programs can take such initiative for education. It will help raise awareness among current students learning at top institutions who will work for corporates at senior management levels – this will help nurture & foster a culture focused on solving social issues. At the same time, looking at these students in top institutions will also provide a morale boost to the marginalized students who are being taught.

Corporate Initiatives – As mentioned previously, multiple corporates have started taking the initiative to solve the prevalent issues. External programs like Shiksha by P&G are necessary. Still, developing aware leaders in these corporates is equally essential. Additional programs need to run parallelly on an internal level to raise awareness & critical thinking to solve social issues like education in the future as well.

REFERENCES

https://vikaspedia.in/education/policies-and-schemes/national-education-policy-2020

https://vikaspedia.in/education/policies-and-schemes/new-initiatives-taken-by-the-ministry-of-hrd

https://www.cbgaindia.org/blog/education-corporate-social-responsibility-csr-hype-hope/#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20CSR%20in%20India,2016%2D17%5B2%5D.

https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/statistics-new/ESAG-2018.pdf

(Figure-1 & Figure 2 – Source-

https://in.one.un.org/page/sustainable-development-goals/quality-education-in-india-sdg-4/#:~:text=By%202030%2C%20ensure%20that%20all%20girls%20and%20boys%20have%20access,and%20tertiary%20education%2C%20including%20university )

(Figure 3 - Source-https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/mapping-education-inequalities/story-xhTIlYty7kF7MNqxnOyGtO.html)

https://ourworldindata.org/literacy

https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal4

[1] https://www.thehansindia.com/news/cities/bengaluru/bengaluru-engineering-student-ends-life-calls-for-overhaul-of-education-system-in-video-712614?infinitescroll=1

[2] https://www.ibef.org/industry/education-sector-india/infographic