Basic Education Key To Development: Amartya Sen
The Indian Chamber of Commerce has conferred its lifetime achievement award on Amartya Sen, Lamont Professor, Harvard University, at a function here yesterday.
India needs an integrated approach with rapid economic development coupled with spreading of basic education and removal of barriers to economic mobility. In states like Kerala, where social development is high, economic progress should be the priority, Sen said. Today India is in a better position than China to act against coercive government and make necessary amends.
Earlier in the day, speaking on Vision 2000 organised by the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce, Sen said the world would be more integrated by the turn of this century. But if globalisation displaces jobs, it will be a matter concern.
Indian economy can grow at the rate of six to seven per cent and even the growth rate can go up up to 8-9 per cent annually. But the shared glory of liberalisation will elude the masses as long as basic education is not provided, Sen said. Without education at the basic level, India would find it difficult to keep pace with liberalisation which would be unequal, Sen warned. If globalisation leads to displacement of jobs it is to be seen whether social security measures will be there to absorb the shock, he said.
Referring to the steady economic development of the east Asian countries and China, Sen said they had successfully tapped the resources of their vast pool of educated people. But for India, as it enters the 21 st century with
with half of its population illiterate and two-thirds of the women not knowing how to read and write, education will remain the central issue and a major obstacle in progress towards modernisation. But globalisation is inescapable and the issue of efficiency will come to the forefront.
In a wider context he viewed the world in the next century will be divided into different regions associated with the problems of globalisation. In East Asia, human rights are matter of concern where the basic civic rights are overlooked in the midst of tremendous growth on the economic fronts. China, for instance, is not exactly an authorititive state but a very populist state. But large number of executions take place there. There is definitely less tolerance in the east Asian countries.
Europe faces the problem of incredible level of unemployment. This has reached the level of 12 per cent at present. Social security is making a big dent into the national resources of these countries. The younger generation faces a bleak prospect and self-help culture cannot be the answer to this problem.
In the US, the failure of the Clinton administration is to provide the medical succour to the people. As many as 37 million of the population have no medical insurance.
Regarding how these regions can overcome their problems in the next century, Sen feels that mutual learning can go a long way to tackling the problems as globalisation picks up.
While social security may be emulated by the Americans from Europe the Europeans should understand that the level of unemployment as experienced by them would have been intolerable in the US.
While India has attained a level of tolerance which should be a good lesson for the East Asian countries the Indians should take a hard look as to why education cannot be ignored if they have to prosper.