Education
Education is
one of the most important drivers of India's social and economic
development. Higher levels of literacy lead to greater economic
output, higher employment levels, better health, better social
structures, and higher marks along a number of other development
indicators. More specifically, the impact of educating girls and
women has been shown to result in rapid improvements in family
planning, nutrition, health, and income and is seen as one of
the best tools for promoting social and economic development.
The 1986
National Policy on Education (NPE) first emphasized
universalization of elementary education (UEE) as a national
priority. Yet, despite a huge expansion in India’s formal
education system in the last few decades, there are still
roughly 50-60 million children out of school in the age group
6-14 years, or nearly 25 percent of total child population in
the elementary age group. The key challenges to achieving UEE
are:
Access:
The reasons for children being out-of-school are to do with lack
of physical access as well as social access. In several parts of
the country, especially in small, remote habitations, children
still do not have access to schooling facilities and thus remain
out of school. Seasonal migration of families in search of work
for several months every year is another reason which deprives
children the chance to go to school. In addition, a sizeable
proportion of children live in villages and habitations where
formal schools exist, but due to social reasons such as caste
and gender they are either not allowed to go to school, or not
given the proper treatment in school.
Retention:
This is an issue of serious concern. According to statistics 53%
of children drop out of school before completing the elementary
level, or grade VIII. This high drop out is due to poor
functioning of schools, for example, dilapidated school
buildings, overcrowded classrooms, irregular attendance of
teachers and children, lack of teaching learning materials,
ineffective teaching, unintelligible language used by the
teachers and the discriminatory attitude of teachers towards
children of the marginalized sections of society.
Quality:
Many studies have shown that children who do complete primary
schooling attain abysmal learning levels. A majority of grade V
children are estimated to be at a level no higher than grade II
or III. The causes stem from the poorly functioning educational
system which are transmitted down to the schools.
Livelihood
Livelihoods
consists of both generation of income as well as the ownership
of assets that reduces the vulnerability of marginalized
communities. AIF is focusing on addressing two trends that are
keeping millions of people in poverty through its livelihood
grantmaking. First, a majority of the population is still
dependent upon the agricultural sector for their income and the
income derived from farming is too little to improve their
economic status. The rural poor often are unable to save and do
not have access to credit to invest in creating assets. As a
result, there is overexploitation of natural resources such as
water and forests in people’s attempts to increase inputs into
their agricultural production. Second, as rural people are
unable to live off their incomes in rural areas they migrate to
urban centers in search of employment that will sustain them.
Most of these people are unskilled and so find only low-paying
manual labor and they also lack the capital to establish
themselves in the cities.
AIF’s
livelihood grants program in India focuses on strategic
interventions to improve the quality of livelihood opportunities
currently available and to provide alternative livelihood
opportunities to ensure that poor people in rural and urban
areas have adequate resources to sustain themselves. The grants
focus on innovations and scaling-up of effective models of
improving livelihoods as well as building the capacity of NGOs
working on these issues through research and dissemination of
best practices information. AIF is particularly focused on the
empowerment of women as increasing their incomes and assets has
tremendous multiplier effects on the socio-economic indicators
of their families and communities.
Public Health
|
Population of India: 1.13 billion (national estimates
for March 2008) |
With nearly
one-third of its population under the age of 15, India has the
potential to benefit from a huge 'population dividend' for the
labor force of the future. However, this 'dividend' is at risk
because a majority of India's young people live in poverty, are
semi literate and unskilled, and are at risk to contract
preventable yet debilitating diseases and fatal infections. Poor
public health services further complicate the scenario as young
people do not have access to adequate health care.
Health
indicators show that women fare much worse than men in India.
Their health illiteracy and lack of rights in concert with poor
health services continues to fuel a vicious cycle of disease and
premature death. From fetal selection for son preference to
malnourishment and maternal mortality, female health indices are
emblematic of deep socio-cultural discrimination that perpetuate
inequitable health outcomes and impair their ability to live
healthy lives.
This situation
erodes India's productivity and economic gains because healthy
women are key to healthy families and healthy families are key
to a healthy economy.
India
spends only 1% of its GDP on health, translating into $35 per
capita. France spends 10.4% and Japan 8%.
A
significant portion of the population receives inadequate or no
health care, specifically 25.7% living below the poverty line
and those who have only the public health system to rely on.
National
Family Health Survey for 2005-06 estimates 453 deaths per
100,000 women; higher than Cambodia, Bolivia and Botswana
India
accounts for 20% of the world's maternal deaths, witha woman
dying every five minutes
20% of
deaths of children worldwide under the age of 5 occur in India |