Comments 4

Um mundo de alunas

Dec 13, 2012 Shashi Tharoor

NOVA DELI – Uma das perguntas mais difíceis que me fizeram quando era subsecretário-geral das Nações Unidas, especialmente quando me dirigia ao público em geral, foi: “Qual é a coisa mais importante que se pode fazer para melhorar o mundo?”

É o tipo de questão que tem tendência a revelar o lado burocrata, até mesmo no comunicador mais directo, como se nos sentíssemos obrigados a explicar a complexidade dos desafios que a humanidade enfrenta: como é que algo não imperativo pode ser distinguido acima de outros objectivos; como é que a luta pela paz, a luta contra a pobreza e a batalha para erradicar as doenças devem ser travadas lado a lado; e assim por diante - de um modo estupidificado.

Nessa altura eu aprendi a dar as respostas, que estas perguntas praticamente impossíveis requerem, com prudência e ousadia. Se eu tivesse de escolher algo que devemos fazer acima de tudo, neste momento propunha uma mantra com duas palavras: “educar raparigas”.

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Shashi Tharoor

Writing for PS since 2002
119 Commentaries

Shashi Tharoor, a former UN under-secretary-general and former Indian Minister of State for Human Resource Development and Minister of State for External Affairs, is currently an MP for the Indian National Congress and Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs. He is the author of Pax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century.

0 Comments on this paragraph, 4 in all 4 Comments on this article

Susie Mehta Mar 14, 2013

Yes Shashi a wonderful idea but a bogus undertaking defined by low or no quality, filthy schools, no female teachers, abuse..the list goes on. We all know what the education budget and education cess tax actually funds, not education for all and certainly not girls. Provide all girls with quality education that teaches them skills and knowledge to make age appropriate decisions is a better statement. If a girl drops out at 8th grade, married underage and has babies does she still fit your dream of "educate girls"??? 65 years on there are far more of these girls than any other. Perhaps in your current role you can fix this?
srinivasan gopalan Mar 9, 2013

Whether a world of schoolgirls will supervene to give a real impetus to the empowerment of the women in our midst, the Indian experiment in educating both girls and boys has become a veritable school for scandal! Coming from a matriarchal society, Mr Tharoor's own State Kerala boasting of high literacy among the rest of the country is a salutary illustration of what basic education would do to improve the lot. Among the Indians, people from Kerala had been the most mobile always migrating to the other parts of India or other parts of the world in quest of betterment of life. Most of them did succeed phenomenally as Mr Tharoor. Now that he is a junior minister in the central government looking after a crucial Human Resources Development Ministry under which education comes, he should devote his time and personal charm to get round his colleagues to set aside higher outlays on primary education to get a qualitatively better outcome in terms of imparting fundamental knowledge to the vast army of illiterate Indians, most of whom lack both a formal education and a vocational skill to eke out a livelihood in these hard times. No amount of citing global studies or talking about India's contribution to the world in the form of a humanist economist like Amartya Sen would do proud to India if its focus on primary education remains pathetically low as it is today. It is still a paradox that India is cruising on the information superhighway when its primary education position is precarious. It is time the government both at the Centre and at the sub-national level in States pulled up the socks to rise to the challenges in this important and all the more beneficial domain so that the posterity in general and the extant generation in particular would feel immensely happy in being a part and parcel of the resurgent motherland.
G.Srinivasan, Journalist, New Dehi
donna jorgo Dec 22, 2012

is not exacte how you write..
education women /girl have to do with the socity they live ..mentality and religion they have
AND for your bad coiqidence ..girl allways in family is with fathers..not with mothers ..in contact spiritual and moral ..with mother is spiritual servise..
thank you
Nahusha Nagaraja Dec 14, 2012

This in one of the best mantras.
However, educating girls and improving the living standards is on one side but on the other its the matter of unemployment.
To simplify- Employment follows education and the ideology behind the education explained in this article is appropriate. But, the values are missing. Keeping education as an agenda if we incorporate Values in it, then it shall be more effective is what I believe.

http://prosyn.org/o3e7Eyc/pt;

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Um mundo de alunas

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