Buddha's Smile School

States such as Maharshtra, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi and Bihar spend less than two per cent of their Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), he said.

The performance by the kids on Sunday was awesome! The kids were so thrilled to be dressed up and performing on stage, and once they were done, were just BEAMING with pride.

Various studies have revealed that poverty can be reduced by sending children from India’s disadvantaged groups to schools instead of sending them to work. If a child is in school, adults of his/her family will get work from where the child used to work. When the child of family goes for work then, adults of that family generally sit idle and the wages earned by the children are ill spent by their family. The employers prefer to engage children on work rather than adults so that they have to pay less wages to children. In this way children are exploited.

Fifty years into Independence, India’s children have little to celebrate: 6.3 crore (63 million) of them are still out of school. This despite the constitutional directive urging all states to provide “free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of 14 years”. The Constitution envisaged fulfilling this promise by 1960. Yet, if present trends continue, India is still 50 years away from reaching the goal.

In a recent example of India’s horrific caste system, a 16-year-old Dalit school boy died after he was thrashed almost unconscious in front of other students by an upper caste teacher for writing a poem to an upper caste girl. He was also beaten by family members of the girl the next day, found semi-conscious and taken to hospital where he later died. Local leaders have sought an inquiry into the incident as the police appear to be siding with the upper caste girl’s family and the teacher. ->> MeriNews | Read the Full Story