Modi government needs to focus a lot more on children's welfare

There is no doubt that India has made tremendous progress in reducing the number of out-of-school children. But the concerns regarding the quality of elementary education and public spending on children in the country raise some unpleasant yet relevant questions on the approach of our governments towards children's issues. According to the 2014 Annual Status of Education Report, only a fourth of all children in standard three could read a standard two text fluently.

Such a pathetic situation has emerged as a result of the lack of vision of our education policy-makers. As an education journalist, I found it to be a disturbing trend for the world's largest democracy that's moving with an ambitious goal of becoming a superpower. When we discuss the development of a society, the core issue must be its children and their education. The more you invest in children the more you will secure the future of your country.

But it seems public expenditure is hardly being made on the poor children. To make it clear, let me cite some recent statistics which would give us room to question the Central government's spending on education.

According to IndiaSpend.org, the money allocated for key Centrally sponsored socio-educational schemes - Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA or universal education programme) and National Health Mission - has declined by ten per cent, 7.5 per cent, and 3.6 per cent respectively over two years. Education experts and organisations fighting for the children's cause view this as a pressing issue because the government is not supposed to be indifferent.

When I interacted with Puja Marwaha, chief executive officer of CRY (Children's Rights and You), recently, she said this trend was certainly not encouraging.

"The money allocated for ICDS, Indian government's flagship welfare programme which provides food, pre-school education, and primary healthcare to children under six years of age and their mothers, in 2016-'17 is Rs 14,862 crore, which is lower than last three years' budget allocation, which was Rs 16,400 crore, Rs 16,683 crore and Rs 15,584 crore in 2013-'14, 2014-'15 and 2015-'16 respectively," she said. CRY has been fighting for the cause of children's rights for many years now.

The decrease in the funding of socio-education welfare projects is part of the Modi government's devolution reforms which is aimed at giving states more money, with the Centre not imposing spending conditions. But experts like Marwaha argues that there is a lot of regional disparities and issues of inadequate personnel which need to be addressed in order to tackle grave issues like undernourishment.

Till the time states devise their own mechanism for allocating a greater percentage of their budgets for children, the Central government could play an important role in bridging regional and social disparities by investing more in the areas that are lagging behind.

"Within education budgets, amounts for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan have been retained, with a significant increase in allocations for Mid Day Meal Scheme (Rs 464 crore) and Kendriya Vidyalaya and Navodaya Vidyalayas receiving the bulk of the increased amounts. Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and Rashtiya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan has just seen increase of Rs 500 and 135 crore respectively.

Investing in children today means that a country such as India has a chance to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty, inadequacy, malnourishment, abuse and violence. If the significance of this is understood then I am sure it will be correct on our part to state that children and their issues are important issues that require urgent and equal attention," Puja told me.

Let us raise the issue of adequacy of budgets for children. At the same time, the government should pay adequate attention to filling up the vacant positions, check the fund flow, and prioritise timely utilisation of the disbursed budgets. No society can survive without empowering the marginalised children and showing indifference to them is the worst crime for any government. The priority of the Modi government should be to develop an education structure conducive for every child to thrive.