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Education and Its Role In a Healthy Future For India's Kids- forwarded by: Balbir Singh Sooch-Sikh Vichar Manch


Sisodia bags 'Finest Education Minister' Award: IANS
 

Deputy chief minister and education minister Manish Sisodia seeks weekly reports on education projects: NEW DELHI: Deputy chief minister and education minister Manish Sisodia has ordered weekly status reports on important proposals or projects of the education department, along with the progress made and the timeline expected.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/sisodia-seeks-weekly-reports-on-edu-projects/articleshow/63035372.cms

1. Low Income Homes In India Do Not Have Access To Toilets

2. Denying access to sanitation is denying basic human rights.

3. The simple flush toilet is often taken for granted in higher income homes, but a lot of low income homes in India don’t have access to toilets.

4. Denying access to sanitation is denying basic human rights.

5. Hand washing is another aspect where deeply ingrained belief systems stop people from adopting a healthy habit. Using soaps to wash hands is not considered essential in most of rural India.

6. This is the spirit and idea behind focussing on increasing access to sanitation as part of the Swachri Bharat Abhiyan.

7. Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on October 2nd, 2014.

8. As of February 2018, we are nearing 80 per cent of the Swachh Bharat target in construction of toilets in rural India with more than 6.25 crores of toilets constructed.

9. No country in world history has ever built so many toilets at one stretch and provided access to sanitation to its people at this scale. It is an achievement that every Indian can be proud of. According to the Union budget, the Swachh Bharat Mission has made tremendous progress; sanitation coverage has gone up from 42 per cent in October 2013 to 60 per cent now.

10. But while infrastructure solves a part of the problem, it cannot completely solve another-behaviour change.

11. Open defecation in India is not just about toilet coverage, it is also about deeply inbuilt cultural practices. In a lot of homes in India's heartland, a toilet in the front yard of the home- an area earmarked for the holy tulsi plant- is considered an unholy idea and so, is detested. Toilets are considered impure and a reason for that can be found in India's millennia-old caste system.

12. According to Diane Coffey and Dean Sears, authors of Where India Goes, the reason for this aversion to toilets comes from the tact that manual scavenging was traditionally the job of the oppressed castes. Even with many people in positions of power and responsibility-ministers and bureaucrats-showing the way by emptying toilet pits themselves, this hostility toward toilets remains in rural India.

13. Deep-seated ideas about hygiene are not limited to just toilets. There is a very strong belief in the idea that water that looks clean is fit enough to drink. Water filters or boiling water is not considered to be a necessity. It may have been truer centuries ago when water sources were not polluted, but post industrialisation and population explosion, groundwater and other sources are polluted almost everywhere.

14. Hand washing is another aspect where deeply ingrained belief systems stop people from adopting a healthy habit. Using soaps to wash hands is not considered essential in most of rural India. We are losing out as a nation because of these unscientific but deeply held beliefs. While the rest of the world is moving towards a healthier future, India may lose out. For the demographic dividend to be an asset, we need healthier young people, not unhealthy individuals.

15. First generation school goers are more likely to ignore caste boundaries: To change millennium-old beliefs, we need to look at creating lasting change in the minds of people. And behaviour change works best when it is done early. If you are a keen observer, you’ll notice an interesting change taking place in many villages in rural India. First generation school goers are more likely to ignore caste boundaries.

16. Education holds the key to long-term change in sanitation behaviour change. The next generation must learn about the need for hygiene and sanitation at the place where they learn the other important lessons of life-school.

17. The schools have changed them for good. The old rules that prohibit inter-mingling and inter-dining do not hold up in schools where friendships extend beyond artificial boundaries like caste.

18. Education holds the key to long-term change in sanitation behaviour change. The next generation must learn about the need for hygiene and sanitation at the place where they learn the other important lessons of life-school. We need to build a generation that doesn’t hold on to mistaken beliefs on sanitation, but understands the need for toilets, clean water, hygiene, cleanliness etc. Hygiene is as important, if not more important than arithmetic, reading and writing.

19. “Deputy chief minister and education minister Manish Sisodia seeks weekly reports on education projects: NEW DELHI: Deputy chief minister and education minister Manish Sisodia has ordered weekly status reports on important proposals or projects of the education department, along with the progress made and the timeline expected”. TOI

Education and its role in a healthy future for India's kids
Posted on Mar 31, 18 | 6:21 am

 
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