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Articles by Sadhna SaxenaSubscribe to Sadhna Saxena

Is Equality an Outdated Concern in Education?

Vol. 47, Issue No. 49, 08 Dec, 2012
Sadhna Saxena

The central government policy of setting up residential schools for the dropout girls in educationally backward blocks through the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya scheme has generally been hailed by educationists. This paper critically examines the scheme and its implementation from the equality and justice perspectives. It argues that the equal educational opportunity doctrine, a state commitment in the 1960s, was abandoned with the National Policy on Education 1986, which resulted in a multilayered, inegalitarian school system for subordinate communities. Are schemes like the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya, which tend to privilege a minuscule number of school dropouts, a subversion of the equality principle, privileging a few over the majority?

Looking beyond the Smokescreen

Vol. 36, Issue No. 07, 17 Feb, 2001
Krishna Kumar, Manisha Priyam, Sadhna Saxena

The system of primary education in India has yet to be analysed critically - a critique that would seek to probe the linkages between education and social change. This study seeks to initiate that process by looking at the District Primary Education Programme (DPED) that was subscribed to by most World Bank borrowers, including India, as a social safety net against the social and economic turmoil that followed any structural adjustment processes. In India, the reach of DPEP extended to 240 districts across 16 states, within the first six years of its existence. Despite this, surveys showed a decline in growth at the primary enrolment stage in most Indian states. More disturbing was the increasing presence of the 'para teacher' and the consequent labelling of the full-time teacher as an impediment to the system's further development.

Language and the Nationality Question

Vol. 32, Issue No. 6, 08 Feb, 1997
Sadhna Saxena

Language and the Nationality Question Sadhna Saxena Categorisation of some languages as 'standard' and others as backward, crude, inferior or corrupt forms of standard languages is more a political construct than a linguistic fact. Dialects which do not have script and lack state patronage to develop literature in print get impoverished. Education is one such vital area where this language hierarchy is strengthened in name of preserving national integration.

Education and Women-On the Beijing Agenda

Vol. 30, Issue No. 47, 25 Nov, 1995
Sadhna Saxena

Although education was not among the most important issues on the agenda at Beijing, the several workshops and discussions in the NGO Forum drew attention to how structural adjustment programme and related state actions, often repressive, have a direct impact on the quality and the reach of initiatives in the field.

Politics of Language

Vol. 28, Issue No. 45, 06 Nov, 1993
Kamal Mahendroo, Sadhna Saxena

Sadhna Saxena Kamal Mahendroo Two decades of experience in voluntary sector work involving non-formal and formal education and development-related programmes brought home to the authors the many insidious ways in which language and literacy are political LANGUAGE and literacy are political in more insidious ways than the newspapers and our politicians would lead us to believe. What we would like to say about this stems from our own two decades of experience in voluntary sector work, particularly in the eastern part of Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh. We have no formal grounding in linguistics, sociology or other social science discipline. However, we are encroaching upon the territories of experts to share our deep concern and uneasiness. Our work involved non-formal and formal (middle school science) education and development- related programmes with various sections of the rural and district town population. Our voluntary group and institution (Kishore Bharati) looked upon education as a tool for conscientisation, with a professed aim of helping the rural poor organise and stand up for their rights.

Limits and Consequences of Literacy Programmes

Vol. 28, Issue No. 8-9, 20 Feb, 1993
Sadhna Saxena

Limits and Consequences of Literacy Programmes Sadhna Saxena There is a big difference between what literacy means to the instructors and participants of the government's literacy programmes and the literacy which was the concern of the Andhra Mahasabha activists of the 1940s in Telengana or of the Naxalite activists in Bastar today. And increasingly it is clear that literacy programmes are sustainable only in societies which are undergoing transformations.

Myth of Total Literacy in Narsinghpur

Vol. 27, Issue No. 45, 07 Nov, 1992
Sadhna Saxena

woman criticises her drinking husband add exposes the economic problems due to liquor consumption.
STATE RESPONSE The state and the ruling parties do not seem to be interested in what is happening at the family and the village level Of course, many 'big' leaders stand disturbed by the fact that the women were prepared to face the goondas sent by Baiitddy Rajashekhar Reddy at Bangla of Nandikotkur Mandal. When the goondas planned to attack the campaigners they were ready with chilli powder and lathis to retaliate The 'problem', according to them, is going far beyond liquor

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