Aspirations of Children in India's Slums

Guest: Gunjan Sharma, MEd, Education Researcher, Ambedkar University, Delhi; Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Scholar, BYU The world’s largest democracy is facing an education crisis. Only half of India’s school age children actually attend school on a consistent basis. If India is to become a real global power, it needs much higher rates of literacy and school participation. Its gigantic population is the most important resource India has to offer the global economy. There are more children living in India than there are people living in the entire United States.  The government of India is working to improve the quality of its public schools, including overhauling teacher training programs and offering meals at school. There’s also a huge network of nonprofit organizations the government supports that work with parents and provide health services – anything to remove the barriers that might be keeping kids at home instead of at school. But, education researcher Gunjan Sharma says, the current school system in India fails in a fundamental way to appeal to India’s poorest children.