Sightseeing in Mandu, Madhya Pradesh, last weekend I met 9 year old Arun. He helps a local flower vendor sell her wares to tourists in return for a share of the proceeds. The few rupees he earns each day are a welcome supplement to the family income. The family owns a small parcel of land on which they grow wheat, soya bean and corn. Arun is the youngest of five siblings and the only boy, a pattern all too common across India. He has just returned to school after two years of pandemic school closure. A student of Class 3, Arun says he can neither read nor write in Hindi, the only subject he is taught at school. His ambition is to join the police, a goal that he knows will require him to complete the 8 years of schooling available in his village as well as 4 more years at the district secondary school where two of his sisters currently study. 

Much has been written on the low learning outcomes in India’s school systems and on the learning losses caused by the prolonged school closures of the pandemic. None of Arun’s family had access to a device that might have helped them access learning over the 2 year period.

Contrasting Arun’s enterprise and ambition with the abysmal education we are providing him brought the issues to life for me. His winning smile and strong self-belief cry out for us to do better. Much better.