*March For Education*
*SAVE EDUCATION, SAVE CONSTITUTION, SAVE INDIA.*
Mayukh Biswas
(General Secretary SFI)
Today, the students in India are facing a severe crisis in the education sector. The pandemic has set back education nationwide, worsening many issues, including the stark digital divide, gender gap in accessing online education, the lack of inclusivity regarding educational rights etc. The existing problems are accompanied by the wicked policies and unfair approaches of the BJP-led central government. The reduction of public funding, the forceful implementation of the new National Education Policy, and the discriminatory way of conducting national entrance exams like the *Common University Entrance Test (CUET) and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET)* are few among them. This raises the question of whether education is a right or a privilege.
*NEP promoted the online mode of education will create a digital divide and thereby lead to increased segregation of the poor and disadvantaged.* The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2021) reveals that most children from rural India could not continue online learning activities in their households. The difference in the statistics shows the disproportionate percentage of learning among school children, which significantly depends on the approach followed by the respective State governments.
While COVID-19 severely impacted the working-class populace in India because of the economic lockdown in the country followed by the recessionary phase. Students from marginalised sections have been severely affected due to internet restrictions and other data access issues. In general, across the country, economically and socially disadvantaged families witnessed a depleting source of income significantly impacting children’s learning. With the rise in poverty and inequalities existing, the social nets of the families were abysmally affected by the pandemic and the approach followed by the central government; the children faced neglect regarding achieving an education. The University Grants Commission (UGC) proposed a blended mode of education that oversees the difficulties that were deepened during the pandemic. The digital divide has caused a backlash for children with an increasing lack of access to resources and a holistic environment for learning, which led to students dropping out of school, thereby forcing them to do household labour, the online mode of learning further impacted many young girls and adolescence as they were forced into early child marriage.
The *gender gap* during the COVID-19 pandemic revealed that young boys had a high level of access to the use of the internet in comparison to girls. Women had 21% mobile internet access while men had 42% internet usage. The low usage of access to digital infrastructure widens gaps between the status of girls and boys as learners, as girls were forced to do the household chores as carers in their families.
The BJP-RSS nexus is also trying to *saffronise the educational sector* by changing history textbooks to promote the views propagated by Sangh Parivar and other Hindu outfits. The appointments of core right-wing disciples corrupt the central university recruitments. The Sangh Parivar-backed administrations have been systematically diluting universities’ reservation policies. The quality and affordable education as guaranteed by our constitution is therefore turning out to be an illusion.
Therefore, our time needs to join hands together to resist the attempt to undermine constitutional rights by privatising, commercialising, and communalising the education system. In this context, the Students’ Federation of India is building a nationwide movement to save the education and future of millions of youths in India. As a part of that, the Central Executive Committee of SFI is organising India Jatha named *‘March for Education’, starting from 1st August to 15th September 2022.* SFI is marching from five different corners of the country with the slogan *“Save education, save constitution, save India.”* SFI CEC calls upon the students and youth across the country to support the movement by participating in large numbers to defend our right to education and appeals for larger student unity.
On *1st August, 2022* , the All India Jatha will start from *Srinagar and Kanyakumari* simultaneously. Comrade Mayukh Biswas, General Secretary of SFI, will attend the flag off programme from Srinagar and comrade VP Sanu, All India President, will attend Flag off from Kanyakumari. The Southern Jatha will be lead by V P Sanu (President) and Nitheesh Narayanan, and the Northern Jatha will be lead by Dinit Denta (Joint Secretary, SFI). The Southern Jatha will end on 18th of August at Thiruvananthapuram and the Northern Jatha will end in Shimla. The North Eastern Jatha will start from Agartala on 12th August ,led by comrade Sangita Das and Eastern jatha will start from Patna, led by Mayukh Biswas on 13th September.Both Eastern and North Eastern jatha will conclude at Kolkata on 2nd September. The Western jatha will start from Mumbai on 1St September ,led by comrade Dipsita Dhar and will conclude at 15th September in Ahmedabad. Jatha will composed with huge rallies, bike-cycle rallies, huge student gathering in different places.
Appeal from SFI
The one and a half month long Student March/ Jatha will culminate towards building a broader platform and igniting the point for building movement against anti-student policies, NEP, privatisation, commercialization and saffronisation of education within the country. The education sector has been at the receiving end due to the RSS-BJP's continuous unscientific, irrational policies being imposed making it exclusive to the majority section of the student community within the country. The Jatha with the slogan 'Save Education, Save Constitution, Save India' will conclude with the motive to ensure that our slogan of affordable and accessible education, demand for jobs, reach to every campus, address the continuous drop out issues, gender and caste based discrimination and ensure that a rational, scientific thinking within the student community is built for the upcoming future to ensure that we collectively fight to save our country and the basis ethos of democracy, secularism and constitutional values enshrined in our constitution and move towards building an progressive society.
Sd/-
Mayukh Biswas (General Secretary)
VP Sanu (President)
