After delivering a child the only thing which perpetually springs to a mother’s mind is the question of better upbringing of her own blood. She pampers her/him a lot, tries to cater even their all trivial needs to make their present comfortable and memorable. But this is only education which enables them in leading their lives with dignity in this highly cut throat competitive era. It makes people humble, teaches them differentiating right and wrong responding t their inner voice, makes them rather logical in their approach, inculcates them with domestic values, broadens the sphere of their vision and eventually prepares them to combat the harsh uncertainty of future. Educating children does not mean only to produce youth capable enough to earn some bucks for leading a comfortable life but to harness their potential so that they become good contributor in the holy task of community development.
In a nation like India where the future of its governance depends more on quantity of voters rather than on their abilities, spreading education among general becomes the task of utmost importance by which they can elect good candidates and deepen roots of democracy.
The organisation strictly believes that apathy of layman towards education is the crux of a string of our socio-economic problems. But at the same time it also adopts ‘education and awareness generation’ as key strategy to struggle with the same.
Free and compulsory education to all children up to the age of 14 years is the Constitutional commitment in India. At the time of adoption of the Constitution in 1950, the aim was set to achieve ‘universalisation of elementary education’ within next 10 years, but in proportion to resources available at that time the goal was highly ambitious and in more appropriate words ‘out of the capacity of state body’.
The deadline to achieve this mammoth target was extended many times. Over the past several decades several gigantic, high budgeted, programmes/campaigns/schemes were launched to bring the goal closure to our reach, but as of today all children in schools is the thing of distant future. The challenge of quality elementary education for all the children in the age group of 6-14 years continues to elude India.
In spite of the remarkable expansion of the elementary education system in the last few decades, around 5.9 million children in Rajasthan in 6-14 age group continue to be out of school. Most of those who enrol in class I do not complete eight years of education. The growing needs of primary education have not been met by all the efforts made so far and there continues to be fairly large gaps in achievement levels.
Of all children enrolled at primary stage, a very high percentage drop out even before reaching class V. Here, the organisation strictly believes that apathy of layman towards education and lack of awareness are the principle contributing factor to this problem. Until the desired changes are brought in prevailing education patterns, empowering a community will remain a dream of distant far.
SWERA’s perspective plan also reflects its commitment towards children’s education by stating that “Educating people is the greatest need of the area to equip them with skills to lead a life with dignity and self respect”