Ahmedabad :

Shri Dilipsinh Gohil, President of the Gujarat State Primary Teacher’s Federation; Shri Chandulal Joshi, General Secretary of the Federation; other eminent personalities on the dais; and my dear teachers,

I thank the office-bearers of the Gujarat State Primary Teacher’s Federation for inviting me to this conference. The New Year has just begun. At the outset, let me wish all of you a Happy, Prosperous and Fulfilling 2009. 

In my New Year message on 31st December, I had said that 2008 was a particularly difficult year for India. It is my wish ¾ I am sure it is your wish too ¾ that we will be able to dispel the atmosphere of despair and usher in hope in 2009. 

I had attended in your conference ten years ago, in April 1999. It is heartening to note the progress your federation has made in this past decade.  

I have been a teacher myself 

Friends, I have participated in numerous functions of other professionals such doctors, lawyers, engineers, chartered accountants, business executives, etc. These are not professions with which I have any personal association by way of academic qualification or experience. Being in politics gives a person this peculiar privilege of being invited by diverse sections of society. 

But when I am in the midst of teachers, I feel quite at home. I feel that I belong to my own community. This is because I too have worked as a teacher early in my life.  

I spent the first twenty years of my life, from 1927 to 1947, in Karachi. One person who had the deepest influence on my life during this formative phase of my life was Rajpalji Puri, who was the main organizers of the RSS in Sindh. It was my association with the RSS and the influence of Rajpalji Puri which motivated me to become a teacher.  

The Sangh had taught me that students should imbibe the ideals of patriotism, develop good character, enrich their knowledge base and acquire a natural readiness to serve society. As a swayamsevak, I desired that more and more youngsters should join the shakha and receive the samskaras of the Sangh. Rajpalji told me that a teacher’s profession was best suited to achieve both ends.  

Thus, when I was seventeen, I took up the first professional ‘job’ of my life ― as a teacher at the Model High School in Karachi. I taught English, history, mathematics and science to students of the fifth and sixth standards. In those days, it was not necessary to have a diploma or bachelor’s degree in education to become a teacher. Since I was quite young, many of my students were nearly my age. I am very proud of the short period in Karachi when I worked as a teacher. 

It is said: “Once a teacher, always a teacher”. Many of colleagues tell me that even in politics, I display a certain academic orientation. This is because what I learnt from my teachers, and also due to my own brief stint as a teacher. 

Nobility of the teaching profession  

India, the Land of Knowledge, has always placed teaching and learning on a higher pedestal. Teachers in our country were called ‘Acharyas’. They were held in high esteem, as can be seen from the aphorism – Acharya Devo Bhava (Treat the Teacher as God). 

The nobility of your profession has not diminished, and cannot diminish, with the progress in technology and material prosperity that may have made certain other professions more lucrative. Even today, ask any person ¾ be it a politician, businessmen, scientist or artist ¾ who are the persons they remember the most from their childhood, or the persons who shaped their life the most in childhood, and they will most probably name, apart from their parents, the teachers who taught them in school. 

In my case, it is Father Modestine, who was the Principal of St. Patricks High School in Karachi, where I studied. 

Therefore, teachers should so conduct themselves that they remain fondly and respectfully remembered by their students all their lives. 

‘Good Teacher’: Highest reward

A teacher changes the world, one life at a time. A good teacher is like a good sculptor. A sculpture is never made in a day. Teaching is a creative process that is carried out each day, laboriously and with great dedication ¾ in the classroom, in the library, in the playground, and when children go to teachers’ homes or teachers’ go to children homes. It is a process that involves not only teaching the 3 Rs, but also teaching values through self-example.

And because this is a slow process, a teacher’s contribution is not always visible. But it is undeniably there. When parents talk about their successful children, about their jobs, their social, political, and economic status and about their many degrees, they may not talk about the teachers who have placed the bricks, one upon one, to make their children what they are today. But good parents know that good teachers have played as much of a role as their own ¾ and oftentimes a bigger role ¾ in the development of their children’s lives.

Hence, the greatest reward a teacher should aspire for at the end of his or her working career is to be remembered by their students as “A GOOD TEACHER”. 

Prathamikata to Prathamik Shiksha 

Dear teachers, I have sometimes wondered why primary education in India is called Prathamik Shiksha. The reason, perhaps, is that it should be given prathamikata (priority) in the nation-building process. 

Unfortunately, for most parts of the six decades of our Independence, education in general, and primary education in particular, have not become a matter of high national priority. 

I am appalled by the statistics: at current dropout rate at the elementary school level, only 50% of the students complete eight years of schooling. Only 40% complete 10th standard. And further, only 9% of those in the age group of 18 to 24 years make it to the tertiary or higher education system, which is only about half the average for Asia. 

There is also a serious social and gender dimension to this educational deprivation. For every 100 boys, only 90 girls enroll in primary schools, 70 in secondary schools and less than 50 in college education.

Deprivation is still very high among children belonging to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes, and certain minority communities.

This deprivation becomes a matter of greater concern if we look at the quality of education that the poor have access to. There is an alarming trend in our society today that quality education is becoming increasingly the preserve of the rich.

The teacher pupil ratio in primary schools in India is 1:46. Ideally, it should be around 1:20 or 1:30. This means that there is a need to recruit at least as many primary teachers in our country as are already teaching. 

Good work in Gujarat

Esteemed teachers, I have always believed that primary education and primary healthcare must receive the highest attention of the governments at the Centre and in States. I am extremely happy that the Government of Gujarat, under the leadership of Shri Narendra Modi, has indeed shown this commitment. The successes of Gujarat in promoting girls’ education, in reducing the school dropout rate among tribals, and in improving the infrastructure of rural and urban schools have been outstanding. Gujarat is indeed a role model to other states in this matter, as also in so many other areas of socio-economic development.

Here I must compliment the Gujarat State Primary Teachers Federation for its Ten-Point Programme to further promote the cause of quality education in the state. I am particularly impressed with the plan of ‘Saraswati Sadhna Abhyaan’, which aims at making Gujarat fully literate by 2010 by making one literate person teach five illiterate people in the society. Similarly, the Village Sanitation programme, the campaign for health check-up of all school children, ‘A library in every school’ programme, the tree plantation campaign, and the effort to improve the standards of ethical conduct of teachers  – all these are highly commendable. All these are in line with the perennially relevant educational philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, who inspired many great educationists in Gujarat and elsewhere in the country.

The NDA Government at the Centre, under the leadership of Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had shown its commitment to primary education by launching ‘Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan’. It was, and is even today, the largest educational programme since Independence.

My Five-point Assurance on Education

However, the sad reality is that what we have achieved so far is not enough. The expectations of our people are rapidly increasing ¾ indeed, they are galloping. Even a poor family wants a good education for their children. This is because people belonging to all castes and communities, and people in rural as well as in urban areas, have realized the importance of education much more than in the past. And theirs is a perfectly legitimate expectation. But the resources, programmes, partnerships, bureaucratic commitment and the political will to fulfill these expectations are woefully falling short.

This mismatch between expectations and performance cannot be allowed to continue.

The India of the 21^st century cannot and will not accept this mismatch.

Speaking for myself, I cannot and will not accept this mismatch because I have always said that we have to make the 21^st Century India’s Century. India has shown a glimpse of its potential to fulfill this dream through the achievements of a small section of our population that has had the privilege of getting good education. But imagine what India can achieve when all our children and youth receive high-quality education.

My Party’s commitment, the commitment of the National Democratic Alliance, and my own personal commitment, is: QUALITY EDUCATION FOR EVERY YOUNG INDIAN.

Our manifesto for the coming Lok Sabha elections will fully reflect this commitment. Nevertheless, I would like to use the opportunity of today’s function to make a Five-Point Assurance on Education.

1:       A future NDA Government shall more than double the Central budget for education and healthcare.

2:       In addition to accelerating universalisation of primary education, our new motto will be: Universal Secondary Education.

3:       In order to achieve the goal of 100% school enrolment, and also to improve the current teacher-student ratio, the Central Government would assist the States to recruit at least ten lakh more teachers.

4:       We shall ensure that not a single school in India is without basic minimum infrastructure, including the infrastructure for IT-enabled education, which has revolutionary potential to enrich the quality and enhance the impact of education. Public-Private Partnerships will be promoted massively to achieve this end.

5:       Teacher training, teacher welfare and social security for teachers will receive never-seen-before commitment. All-out efforts would be made to attract the best talent for teaching profession. In particular, we shall launch a Shikshak Aawas Yojana to ensure that every teacher in India has his or her own house. 

I shall end my remarks by reading out a highly moving poem that underscores the imperative need to take care of our children. It is written by a poet from Chile, Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957)), who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945.

             His Name is Today

             We are guilty of many errors and many faults,

             But our worst crime is abandoning the children,

             Neglecting the fountain of life.

             Many of the things we need can wait.

             The child cannot.

             Right now is the time his bones are being formed,

             His blood is being made,

             And his senses are being developed.

             To him we cannot answer 'Tomorrow'.

             His name is 'Today'. 

The human sentiments and thoughts in this poem should guide all our efforts ¾ the efforts of teachers, teachers’ organizations, parents, voluntary organizations, and governments ¾ for improving the condition of our children, who are our greatest asset.

With these words, I again thank the organizers of this conference for inviting me to participate in it.  My best wishes for the success of all the activities undertaken by the Gujarat State Primary Teacher’s Federation, both to promote teachers’ welfare and the cause of education in Gujarat. 

Thank you.