“The current ‘Literacy Centric’ system within the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan has lowered the status of the teacher and therefore the worst qualified people have landed the most important jobs in the country ( i.e Training our children ). It needs to be understood that no amount of computerization can replace the teacher who provides us with our values. Only a good teacher and enlightened parents can inculcate the concept of man – woman equality in a child’s mind. India led the world for thousands of years because it had a ‘Teacher Centric’ system. So, if we provide excellent incentives for teachers, universal literacy will follow by itself”. – Ashish Puntambekar 5th Jan 2013.
In his article titled ‘Rising crime and the role of planning commission’, Ashish opines that overall crime rate in India is likely to rise by almost five times by 2018.
The rising unemployment and a skewed sex ratio in India will make our country an unsafe place for women. One of the measures proposed by him is to focus on building new secondary education capacity. He highlights a failing education system and the collapse of the secondary education system as the fundamental reasons for our failing values. He also points out that there is a shortage of over five lakh secondary schools in India, and that most children drop out of school after class 5……..simply because they don’t have schools that they can attend!