Report Card

A poster of Indian leaders in the classroom with no teachers (classroom pic below)

This classroom has no benches and right now no one introducing these students to the alphabets. There is one teacher. She runs from one classroom to another, taking two classes simultaneously

It is more than learning your name, and going by an all India Educational Survey conducted by Union Ministry of Human Resources Development these children are at the lowest rung of the education ladder. According to the survey, out of nearly 3 lakh school teachers in Northeast, only 45 % teachers are qualified to teach. The India average is 87 %. In this school in Assam with nearly 300 students there is only one qualified teacher out of a staff of four.
Our Education Minister, Harvard-educated Kapil Sibal wants a uniform syllabus across India, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has directed state education department to include computer science as a compulsory subject. But with schools and classrooms like this, it will require more than computers and a syllabus, for these prayers to be heard.

Our filming began with a retake of the school prayers.

This is my favourite photograph

In this blog all Photo@Arijit Sen-All rights reserved/unless mentioned

ADDENDUM: This is a link to Shailendra Pandey's essay Too Tired To Teach: They travel long hours---On Foot, Carts And Cycles, Leaving Home And Kids. Photographer Shailendra Pandey Tracks The Lives Of Women Teaching In Government Schools in Uttar Pradesh ( View the Slideshow also)

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main43.asp?filename=cr270210too_tired.asp

Manipur

In Manipur, education is under lock and key. Not one single official class has been held in this Indian state for the last 4 months. Schools, colleges and universities have been shut officially. Watch VIDEO.

Student bodies want justice in the alleged fake encounter killings that took place on July 23 in Imphal and the Chief Minister to resign.(post on encounter) Hence the call for boycott. Such is the law and order breakdown in the state, parents are afraid to send students to schools. Schools are apprehensive of attacks by boycott supporters. The state government is not able to provide security, probably couldn't care less. Most ministers have their sons, daughters studying in expensive boarding schools in other states. The Indian education minister has not issued a single statement. He would probably say that this problem does not fall under his jurisdiction. The Indian Home Minister is mostly busy in meetings and talking to TV reporters (trying to bring law and order under control). The photograph was taken in Manipur this August.