Bengaluru: Mr Inder Iqbal Singh Atwal, national working president of the Forum of SC and ST Legislators and Parliamentarians strongly feels that the upliftment of SC, ST and other deprived classes can happen only through education and advocates a ‘One Nation-One Syllabus theory” to achieve this.
A former MLA, Mr Atwal who had come down all the way from Punjab to discuss various issues associated with SC and ST communities with Chief Minister, B. S. Yediyurappa last week, told this newspaper that he firmly believes in the three ‘E’ principle -Educate, Entrepreneur and Economic Development.
Mr Atwal who is also director general of the Dr Ambedkar Chamber of Commerce - DACC, which acts like a nodal agency to identify and develop new entrepreneurs from SC and ST communities across the country, stated that the biggest problem is lack of equal opportunities from the very early stages. "If we really want to fight and root out discrimination, then it should start from schools. We have so many boards, why should we have so many boards in the first place. Let this country have a single board, which will monitor education from a very early stage. Except a few education boards like the CBSE, most other boards including state boards introduce English from class 4 or class 5. This is where the root of the problem lies," he pointed out.
According to him, had the country practised `One Nation One Syllabus,` then it would have provided equal opportunities to all be it rural or urban or rich or poor. "This does not mean that I am depriving our kids of the learning of the mother tongue. Let the education be in Punjabi or in Kannada or in Tamil but English should be taught from a very early stage. This will boost the child's morale from the beginning.
The biggest impediment for any rural student is that they lack English skills. English has become a link language," he explained.
The former Akali Dal MLA added that lack of basic communication skills among rural students is preventing them from pursuing higher studies.
