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Journalism of Courage
The best news Mumbai has heard in a long time is that corporate houses are committed to giving every child in the city a headstart in life. It is an ambitious plan but there is no reason to suppose it cannot succeed. It involves providing every single city child with a pre-school education. At present it is estimated that a lakh of children from poor and slum households enter primary school completely innocent of any formal learning.
That amounts to a double handicap: a background of impoverishment compounded by the lack of pre-primary opportunities. Small wonder that the children experience all kinds of difficulties once they go into municipal schools and many are not inclined to go to school at all given their initial disadvantages. A pre-school education is what all these kids need desperately.
Things like managerial skills, public relations and publicity will all be very useful in a project as ambitious as this. What is particularly promising about Pratham is the way it goes about its job. It does not look at the problem of pre-schooling narrowly but concerns itself with the health of the kids as well. A sickly, malnourished child is unlikely to benefit from the best teaching aids in the world. So a holistic view is essential and Pratham has just such a view.
It can be said confidently, therefore, that the corporates have chosen well to associate themselves with this NGO even though many others are also doing their bit for Mumbai8217;s kids in their own small and big ways. If the plan to open 4,000 new kindergartens in the city next year succeeds, it will make the difference between a life ofbackwardness and a life of new opportunity for thousands of kids. It will open new vistas, give them new confidence and their parents hope for the future. Welcome Operation Headstart!
