Joining Hands for Education Equality with Pehchaan The Street School
“Education is one of the blessings of life — and one of its necessities.” — Malala Yousafzai. This is an absolutely true statement. Education is truly a blessing as it can significantly change your life and it is a necessity for the same reason. In fact, according to the Indian constitution, education is a fundamental right. Article 21a in the constitution of India says that every child which lies in the age group of 6 to 14 years must be provided free and compulsory education. This is called Right to Education. Now in an ideal world, education must have been provided to each child regardless of his or her gender, religion, socioeconomic background etc but we don't live in an ideal world, do we? There are thousands of children who do not get the opportunity to get educated or go to a school. This happens due to various unfortunate reasons. In this real world, there is no educational equity. Educational equity means that each child does not receive the amount of knowledge and skills they need to develop and reach their full academic and social potential. There are some students who receive education but the quality of education they receive is quite poor. They do not have trained professionals to teach them. Several times, the schools they attend do not have adequate funding or they do not have the ability to provide books and other learning material to their students. Many schools have still not updated themselves in this twenty first century, they do not have classes or courses introducing technology to the students. While on the other side, we have schools which have updated themselves and their curriculum as the time changes, they have the financial resources to operate their school smoothly and they have resources to provide their students with books, stationary and other material. Where some schools lack basic sanitation facilities and facilities for clean drinking water, there are some schools which even have their classrooms air conditioned.
This is the real world we live in, where some schools are well to do while some schools are struggling to provide their students a good learning experience. This demonstrates educational inequality. To understand this invisible gap, or rather a gap we choose to ignore and make it invisible, let us see some stats which demonstrate educational inequality at its peak. As of the 2011 census, the literacy rate in the urban areas is 85% but the literacy rate in the rural areas is 68.91%. A study by the Azim Premji Foundation in 2020 showed that 60% of children in rural areas did not have access to online learning due to lack of devices or connectivity. The Ministry of Education also published a report which demonstrated that 18% of schools in India did not have proper drinking water facilities and 23% did not even have functional toilets.
These poor facilities are one of the significant reasons why attendance at schools is low. Now, if a child does not acquire primary education, he or she will not be eligible to apply or acquire higher education. If the child does not have a passing certificate of 10th grade or 12th grade then the child might face problems when he or she applies for college. If this new adult does not have a proper education, he or she might not get a good job which provides him or her a good lifestyle. Thus the new adult needs to do minimum wage jobs to survive and is thus further pushed in the cycle of poverty. If the person is poor, high chances are that he or she cannot afford to send their children to good schools or even schools. This repeats the cycle of unemployment and poverty. Education seems the only way for them to get out of this vicious cycle. This also further increases the gap between rich and the poor. It fuels the division and social tensions in the society. This leads to social imbalance or instability. According to the World Bank, each additional year of schooling can increase that individual's income by 10%. If the person is not educated, it will not only affect the person but also their families. This population is an easy prey for corrupt officials.
Illiteracy not only affects an individual or a group of people or even a community, it affects the whole nation. Children who went to schools were always taught in schools that we should keep our surroundings and our nation clean. They have a sense of civic duty fostered in them from a very young age. This however is not the case with people who were deprived of the opportunity to go to school. Schools not only teach you the information in the textbooks, it fosters your whole personality and creativity and other many soft skills. If the population of uneducated people increases, it impacts the country's growth. A country's global competitiveness depends upon the skilled and educated population of people. Educational inequality has the ability to undermine a nation's ability to succeed. Educational inequality is a complicated issue that has an impact on both individuals' livelihoods and broader institutions in the society. Addressing this issue requires comprehensive policies and programs aimed at ensuring equal access to quality education for all members of society.
Apart from the government who actively creates policies which can address this serious issue, we have some individuals in our society who also work towards solving this problem as best as they can. These individuals who empathize with people's hardships, who acknowledge them, who do not make them invisible. They work together often forming NGOs. There are many NGOs which work for this cause.
One such NGO is Pehchaan The Street School. Pehchaan The Street School is situated in Delhi and has been working for more than nine years to provide underprivileged children free education. ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’, with this belief Pehchaan The Street School started their first class with ten students and five volunteers in the premises of a temple. Over the years with hard work and dedication, today we teach more than one thousand and five hundred students. We have more than a thousand volunteers who are dedicated towards this cause. Today we can proudly say that we teach in a proper classroom. We have more than four hundred volunteers who work on the ground. They work in scorching heat and the cold winters. They are adamant and the smiles of the children makes working in more than forty five degree celsius worth it. Here we do not conduct once in a month classes or are irregular. We have a systematic school with different grades and children studying in their respective grades. We regularly have our classes and tests as well. We often give our toppers prizes to encourage them and acknowledge their hard work.
We have ten centers across Delhi and our aim is to make education more accessible for children. We aim to contribute to increasing the population of educated and informed people. We usually have school on the weekends but during summer vacation, we have classes regularly throughout the week. At Pehchaan The Street School, we not only focus on the academic progress of the child, but we also aim at developing the child's personality and other soft skills which are necessary in today's world. We collaborate with other NGOs and different brands and different people to conduct workshops which are very diverse. We have conducted workshops on sensitive issues in the society like bullying and mental health. We also conducted a workshop where we taught our girls self defense and the importance of self defense and how they can defend themselves while also seeking help. We here at Pehchaan The Street School go beyond classrooms. We play, dance, draw and sing and do activities together. We try to make this learning experience fun for the children. We try to contribute to the child's personal, emotional, psychological and social development. We are proud and feel immense joy that our space can be children's safe space. A space where they do not have to worry about anything, where they can express themselves without any hesitation. This is their Sukoonghar. We look out for each other. We took some of our students to Geetanjali Salon. We celebrate festivals together like Holi, Diwali, Christmas, Independence Day, Women's Day and many more with great enthusiasm. Recently we also celebrated Father's Day together. We created beautiful cards to celebrate.
Do you also want to contribute to this cause? Well, what's stopping you? There are various ways in which you can help and contribute to provide education to underprivileged children. We have you covered!!!
There are various fields in which you can work and contribute. You can teach the children or be a part of the content writing group and create an impact with your words or you can be a part of the designing team and create appealing and beautiful designs and posters for our social media page. Other fields in which you can also work are PR and marketing, social media marketing HR and volunteer management, project management fundraising and event management. If you are someone with a work schedule that does not have any certain timings and you are worried that due to this you will miss out on this chance, then you are absolutely wrong! We offer volunteering at Pehchaan The Street School. In this you can work according to your availability. Volunteering doesn't come with any commitment. If you are someone who wants to work for a particular period of time, and can commit a few hours everyday then you'll be interested in interning at Pehchaan The Street School. By interning you can also get a certificate after completing your tenure. You can choose from the multiple work roles that we offer. If you are someone who wants to contribute but does not have time to do any work, well then the membership program is just for you! In this program, you will commit to a certain amount of donation every month. This money is further used for the student's convenience.
If you live outside Delhi, don't worry because we have you covered. You can work remotely in all the roles mentioned above. If you are a school student or retired professional or even someone who lives outside of India. We have a little something for everyone!!! So why wait any longer? Let's join hands together and work towards bringing educational equity in our society. For more information, click on the link below :-
https://pehchaanstreetschool.org/