The Navodaya Vidyalaya Samitis are training their students to be at par with their urban counterparts and eliminating unemployment from rural India
About a couple of years back, I was on a visit to Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh. I have been visiting Shahjahanpur, lakhimpur Keri, Sitapur and Hardoi since 1990. I met a friend there who is a Dalit and whom I’ve have known since 1990. I asked him what education his children were pursuing. I was somewhat disappointed to learn that his son didn’t do well. “He is in IIT Kanpur”, the friend was quick to answer.
I really felt proud of the Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS). My friend’s son had studied in the NVS of the district and cracked IIT-JEE to enter the prestigious IIT Kanpur. I had heard IIT as ITI at first because I was not prepared to learn that a Dalit from a village would be able to crack IIT-JEE.
The friend further explained as how no NVS student remains unemployed anymore. The NVS students can compete with any top rated public school in the country. I, along with my colleague and the DICCI Chairman Milind Kamble keep going to the IAS training institute at Mussoorie as Guest Faculty and we are given to understand that in each batch, there are recruits schooled in the countryside.
Conceived by the then Prime Minister, the late Rajiv Gandhi in 1986, each district — 600, has an NVS except in Tamil Nadu. I gather the impression from friends that NVS has magnificently impacted the rural students who are competing with children schooled in best of the public school system and Kendriya Vidyalayas.
The NVS is VI-XII class school system — residential and co-educational, where 75.0 seats are reserved for rural children and seats are reserved for SC/ST as well. It is a real great thinking that rural children are schooled with children born in cities.
The NVS Website says the following about its objective:
Objectives of Scheme
MISSION OF NAVODAYA VIDYAlAYAS
They are founded on the belief that education is intrinsic to human development. Fostering excellence with equity are the precepts through which Navodaya Vidyalaya seeks to fulfill a major objective of Independent India: Education on an equal footing to those denied access to quality education : girls, children of SC and ST communities and rural children.
Rural education is sought to be brought to the forefront.
National integration, integration with the immediate neighbourhood through pace-setting activities, integration with regions other than one’s own through school exchange programmes are some of the other goals on the charter
Development of leadership qualities, promotion of team spirit, understanding and appreciation of India’s composite culture and heritage, adventure, sports, NCC activities and computer education etc are sought to be fully integrated into the school’s activities
Socialist parties have had the enduring slogan of Bharat verses India. leaders and intellectuals have argued that cities are colonising the countryside and creating a conflict between villages and cities. Any futuristic vision would want entire Bharat turn into India. For that, Bharat should be competitive at par with India. If there is one institution that is making that happen, though symbolically, it is the NVS. Symbolically because, just one NVS in a district is not yet enough.
It is so wonderful that the Congress party manifesto promises. “Establishment of Navodaya Vidyalaya type schools for weaker sections in every block of the country”.
Remember, there are 5,800 rural blocks in the country that houses over 600,000 villages. Hope the BJP too embraces the above golden letters in it manifesto for the good of entire India.