If we look at the "education system" in India, we have a perfect "apartheid" system. Millions upon millions of children are condemned at birth to a severely bounded life. And that is even if they make it to school and also complete schooling. (Read Adil Najam's essay on educational apartheid in Pakistan here.)
Quantity and quality are both factors. And basically, there is total apathy from the top to the bottom of the machinery of governance to the cause of "education for all", and "equal opportunity". The educated, privileged, empowered citizenry too is largely apathetic.
The second issue is about schools as they currently exist, including the so-called "good" schools. Our understanding today of the human being and of the world -renders these schools irrelevant, redundant and harmful to the cause of a just and humane society. Besides, economic and cultural globalisation (in the positive senses), information and communication technology, changing mores - all consign existing schools, curricula, teaching, textbooks etc to irrelevance.
The "good schools" as they now exist, notwithstanding all the "progressive" changes they are making; and the attitudes and world-views of the parents who send their children there - are unlikely to undergo any fundamental changes for quite some time. Current socio-economic disparities are also only going to grow.
So actually, ironically, other than being consigned to darkness and powerlessness, those deprived of the "good schools" are actually deprived of a non-thing. So they are not really so badly off. The thing that empowers the powerful is a non-thing. It is only a means for power in a distorted society. It does not have instrinsic value in itself. Sadly, even after forming a child negatively, or rather for that very reason, it continues to exist and be looked up to and aspired for. But this also means that the deprived have now to be empowered with something new , which can begin to exist and grow from them. What currently exists - schools - can be entirely bypassed, and a new alternative provided / realised by the deprived. All the traditional barriers to learning can be bypassed. And the most deprived and dismpowered can very soon be the most empowered.
Education, schooling, schools, curricula, teaching etc have to be radically redefined. We have to begin from first principles as it were, and think out anew: what needs to be learnt, why, how?
We have the traditional 3 Rs, reading writing, 'rithmetic (numeracy). Patrick Geddes, had spoken of the 3 Hs - head, hand, heart. And Ramachandra Gandhi spoke of the 3 Es: ethics, ecology, enlightenment. One could surely come up with many more 3s
The primary aim of the "school" must be to bring the child to self-learning capability in a life and profession of one's choice, with the help of learning counsellers, and computers and the internet. This could be boiled down to a very small amount of time. The rest of the time being devoted to the child's physical, mental, sensory, emotional, lingusitic, social, cognitive, intellectual growth and self-awareness.
Generating "teachers" i.e. learning counsellors is as important an objective as providing education. For without teachers, there cannot be education. But today's "teachers" are a far cry from what people really need.
Someone has to take the responsibility to imagine today's schools, education system, teachers - don't exist. And take the responsibility to conceive, envision, define, detail and demonstrate an alternative. Beginning with the limited core of "formal education".
This requires a large team of people, from different experience streams, backgrounds, disciplies, professions. So here is our plea to all who might be interested - to come forward to take up this challenge!
Meanwhile - here's the classic "Another Brick in the Wall" by Pink Floyd, from the film The Wall.
