Exam Preparation

Essay - Is S*x-Education Necessary in School ?

Introducing s*x education in the schools of India is an important issue. Recommendations of the National Curriculum Framework 2000 focus on cultivating a proper understanding of issues like teenage pregnancies, drug addiction, adolescent education etc. Later in a report of 2007, Ministry of Women and Child Development study shows that over 50 per cent of children are s*xually abused and in half of these cases, they are abused by persons in positions of trust, thus majority of them do not report it due to fear.

S*x is still considered a taboo in India. Parents feel embarrassed to talk openly with their children in this regard. Due to ignorance, children fall victim to AIDS and other s*xually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies etc. So s*x education is necessary to be introduced in the school for the benefit of the youth of our country.

S*x education should be introduced in schools and colleges. S*x education lays the foundations for students by learning the correct names for part of the body, understanding principles of human reproduction, exploring family and interpersonal relationships, learning about safety and developing confidence. These can then be built upon gradually, in line with the age and development of a student.

S*x education comprises s*xual development, affection, body image and gender roles. In other words, it is about learning how we grow, reproduce and change over the years. It also includes a positive view of s*x and the safety involved on s*xuality.

If the youngsters learn about s*x objectively, they would be more careful before indulging in s*x secretly. S*x is a natural part of life, and when questions arise, they can be discussed in a matured way without condoning certain behaviour. Relying to that, we realise that s*x education is important to be taught a child.

S*x education can develop skills and self-esteem to help students who enter in adolescence. It helps them in knowing that the sudden few changes are okay and normal. It also encourages students to develop a coherent set of personal values based upon respecting themselves and others.

Students who understand and value themselves are better equipped to develop meaningful and respectful relationships. They are able to take a positive approach to manage their lives and develop the necessary skill to prepare them for current and future life challenges.

Usually parents in India are known to hide their love towards each other, in front of their children. The children grow up to believe that love is a taboo and it is improper to display one's affection in public. Parents must understand the psyche of their children. They must share with their children the love they share and behave like normal friends.

It will enhance the sense of security in their children and they realise the love as normal thing. Parents also discuss the problems of the child openly and make them understand their problems and play a positive role.

In a world, full of exploitation, children are the most vulnerable section in our society. So they need to be taught between good touch and bad touch in order to protect themselves from various forms of child abuse.

School life plays a significant role for the overall development of a child. Thus, along with the academic subjects, s*x education should be given equal importance. Trained teachers, counsellors, medical consultants should deal with this matter.

Today many NGOs have introduced training programmers on AIDS and HIV awareness. They should be encouraged and the school should cooperate with them to spread awareness.

There are many pros and cons of s*x education in schools. Pros of s*x education in school can be explained in the following ways

Studies show that many teenagers become s*xually active before the inclusion of educational classes. This education help students stay or to abstain or at least be responsible if they are active. Properly taught, s*xual education could give a regular and ongoing human anatomy and biology. Students can be taught the correct terms of the reproductive system and s*xually transmitted diseases.

Thus, myths related to s*x can be dispelled. This proper education can have an impact on the prevention of s*xual problems in adulthood also. Further if the classes of s*x-education are gender-exclusive, these save embarrassment among students and teach them only what they need to know based on their gender.

There are also some cons of s*x-education in schools. Teachers are not always adequately trained to teach s*xual education and may violate their own beliefs or morals on the subject rather than continuing with the facts. The attitudes of parents, educators and religious leaders in the community can make the stuff that vary from state to state or even school-to-school. Often, s*xual education can go against moral or religious beliefs of an individual. S*x education is often seen as a 'recreational' course and not a serious issue.

Most s*x education is taught as a brief interlude in physical education or health class. This is not enough time to relate effectively to serious material.

Awareness of s*x is the most significant factor necessary to lead a secure life. Usual educational practices are very simple to learn, but we cannot consider s*x education on the same line. It comprises of physiological, psychological and social issues, especially when we think of including it as a part of academic syllabus. As these complications occur, a question may arise in the mind of people about the need for s*x education providing to the children. While children reach teenage level, lack of s*x education may lead the way to their unusual behaviour. If not corrected at the exact time, it may generate problems of immature misbehaviour in these children's life.

Now it is high time for introducing s*x education in school. This will create a liberal thinking among the youth and give them a safer, healthier life style. Many psychologist argued that s*x education has the potential to liberate the young generation from socially organised s*xual oppression. It helps them to overcome feelings of guilt and shame and they start to see the world in a matured way. Thus, we can say the proper s*x-education can ensure a safer, healthier life style for the youth.

This is to ensure the students that are our future generations will be well prepared to stand up against all the unexpected obstacles in their future. After all, "Education does not hurt, but ignorant does".

Essay - Money is a Good Servant But Bad Master

Money is a Good Servant But Bad Master
The above proverb is by Francis Bacon. This proverb emphasises on the fact that money should not be given so much importance that it starts ruling one's life. One must be wise enough not to run after money at the cost of the other important things of his life. Money shall come and go but an individual should not lose the most valuable things of his life just because of money.

Money is an essential and in fact an indispensable component of today's life. Without money, it is

impossible to survive in this world as it is the money with which one can buy all the necessities and luxuries required to lead the life. If one has money, one can buy whatever one needs, wishes or desires. This is the reason that everyone is running after it and finding ways to increase their wealth. People want to fulfil their unfulfilled desires. This desperation has led to the rise of unethical practices and crime in many cases. Morals and ethics seem to be lost in the money- driven world.

Money has become very powerful. An individual's prestige, respect, and social status are directly linked to one's bank balance. Gone are times when an individual's character used to speak for him, now it is the bank balance which has become synonymous with one's identity. Money and muscle power have become the essential ingredients of success.

People have become the servants of money. They want to earn more and more by hook or crook and at any cost. In the world dominated by money, the relations have taken a back seat.

A person who is running after accumulating wealth at the cost of his relations and health is a slave to the money. In true sense, these people are not satisfied with their lives. They fail to experience the true happiness out of the small pleasures of lives. The ironical part is that they are not able to make the use of their money when it is required the most. These people tend to live the life of the king `Midas' who was blind after money and lost all his precious assets one day because of this blind love for money. An individual who makes use of money to fulfil his necessities, to acquire reasonable comforts and invest it in the welfare of people is in a real sense a 'wealthy and rich' person.

He is actually the master of money. It is the healthy body and a relaxed mind which makes one happy. The money should be invested in making one happy. One must remember that happiness and health are one's biggest assets.

What people tend to forget is that howsoever powerful the money is, but it cannot buy them internal satisfaction and mental peace. Nor they can purchase the lost time and happiness of life with the money. Cheating and fraud may bring momentary joys but lead to blind ends. Nothing can substitute hard work.

All said and done, one should control the money instead of being controlled by it. Truly quoted 'Money is a good servant but bad master'.

Essay - Caste System in India

Indian caste system is among the oldest forms of social stratification surviving in the world. The origin of caste system traces its roots to the coming of the white A***n race in India. The white race successfully conquered the dark coloured races present at that time in India. The A***n race considered itself as the preferred and superior caste to the other dark coloured castes. This laid down the foundation of the caste system on the basis of the colour in our country.

However, with time the needs of the feudal society gave way to an occupational division of labour in the society. The system divided Hindus into rigid hierarchical groups namely the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and the Shudras.

The Brahmins were at the top of the pyramids and were considered as intellectuals. They were followed by Kshatriyas who were the warriors and the rulers. The third in the order were the Vaishyas or the traders. At the bottom of the pyramid were the Shudras. There is a belief that these groups originated from the body of the Hindu God Brahma. Brahmins are considered to originate from the head of Brahma, warriors from his arms, Vaishyas were created from his thighs and Shudras were created from his feet.

The Brahmins were considered as the intellects who were the middle men between God and men. Kshatriyas were the ones who were to protect the people and fight wars. Vaishyas lent the money, cultivate land and indulged in trade activities.

Shudras were expected to serve the other castes and indulge in menial activities. Chandalas were the lowest among the Shudras. Besides the main castes, there were many castes and sub castes prevalent in the system. Under this system, the people from different castes used to live separately in segregated colonies.

The lower caste people were not allowed to share the same public utilities such as schools, wells etc with the upper caste. The upper castes were endowed with a large number of benefits and lower castes were subjected to repressive and unjust behaviour. The caste system is not restricted to the Hindu religion. Castes also exist among the Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and other religious communities.

From time to time, many social reformers such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jyotirao Phule, Swami Vivekananda and Dr BR Ambedkar had strongly opposed the widely prevalent caste system in the country. Social distance is one of the major reasons of prevalence of casteism in India.

All the Indian castes are closed groups and they prefer to be restricted within their castes for marriage, social interactions, etc. People are not willing to look beyond their so-called boundaries and accept the people from other communities.

This attitude, in turn, strengthens the castes making it difficult to do away with the mental barriers of the people. Illiteracy and lack of education also contribute to the same. People still want to stick to their old traditions, norms and customs. This is the reason inter-caste marriages are strongly opposed in certain sections of the society. People who try to break away these barriers are subjected to different atrocities.

There has been a rampant increase in the cases of honour killing across the country. Feeling of casteism is so strong that people are willing to take the law and order in their hands. In fact, the relations also take a back seat in such cases.

In order to uplift the backward classes, the government announced quotas for lower caste people in the government jobs and educational institutions. This was done to do away with the historical injustices and prejudices associated with the Indian caste system. The government wanted to provide equal opportunities to the backward castes and bring them at par with the upper castes.

The modern caste system has Scheduled Class, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, and Physically Handicapped Quota. There are certain other quotas such as Defence, Kashmiri Migrant Quotas, Single Girl Child quota etc. At present, India offers 49.5% reservation across the different domains. However, the modern social stratification instead of abolishing the differences has strengthened the roots of the caste system in our country.

Casteism has become a major hindrance to India's socio-economic development. The nation seems to be divided into a large number of groups and subgroups.

This is a serious threat to the nationalism of the country. The politicians of our country have been exploiting these differences to create their vote banks. This further leads to the disintegration of the society.

Casteism has an important role to play in the increasing corruption in vf 1.0 our country. The politicians, bureaucrats, and other important leaders are inclined towards providing benefits to their own people.

Sadly, as a result of the reservation system many professionally competent people are left out and many undeserving candidates are offered jobs and promotions. This has a direct impact on the quality and efficiency of the system. In a way, this also promotes the feeling of hatred among the people from different castes.

As Kaka Kalekar says, "Casteism is an overriding blind and supreme group loyalty that ignores the health, social standard of justice, fair play, equality and universal brotherhood". Our endeavour should be to rise above the narrow minded casteism and work towards the betterment of society and self.

In the independent India, the Constitution of our country banned the discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, and religion. But this wasn't sufficient to change the mentality of the people. India still has a long way to go to free itself from the clutches of casteism. The government needs to do away with all the reservations and instead of lending a dole should lend support to the people of the country. The education system must lay down strong foundations of nationalism and secularism in among the youth of the country.

Education can go a long way in enlightening the youth and breaking away with the mental barriers. In the time of globalisation and liberalisation, it is important for the Indians to break away their social and mental barriers. This will play an important role in helping India to achieve its social-economic goals in the long run.

To sum up, casteism can be removed through spread of education, creation of economic and cultural equality, ban on political groups or parties who try to thrive on casteism.

Role of media, and the cinema can be vital towards the creation of new attitudes and new thinking in the people's minds. Public opinion and propaganda should be relentlessly directed against casteism through radio, television, press and educational institutions so that evil of caste system could be completely rooted out.

Essay - Poverty in India : Steps to Eradicate it

It indicates a condition in which a person fails to maintain a living standard adequate for a comfortable lifestyle. Though India boasts of a high economic growth, it is shameful that there is still large scale poverty in India. Poverty in India can be defined as a situation when a certain section of people are unable to fulfill their basic needs.

India has the world's largest number of poor people living in a single country. Out of its total population of more than 1 billion, 350 to 400 million people are living below the poverty line. According to world bank estimate, 21.3% of India's population falls below the International poverty line of US $ 1.90 a day.

Many committees were established in India to estimate poverty in the country. These includes National Planning Committee (1938), YK Alagh Committee (1979), Lakdawala Committee (2011) and Suresh Tendulkar Committee (2005). The current estimations of poverty are based upon the recommendation of Suresh Tendulkar Committee. This committee recommended to shift away from the calorie based model and made the poverty line somewhat broad based by considering monthly spending on education, health, electricity and transport also.

There are large number of causes of poverty in India which are as follows
Fast growing population has reduced the per capita income of India. Hence, the standard of living has also fallen considerably. If the country is overpopulated a large part of the income is spent on consumption and very little is saved for development activities.
Unemployment is one of the important reason for poverty in India, Many people do not have job to sustain themselves and their families.
60% of population depends on agriculture in India. But the condition of agriculture sector is bad. Farmers are poor and uneducated. They have no good facilities of irrigation. They do not get seeds and fertilizers in time, all this leads to poor yield.
The widening gap between the rich and the poor is also responsible for poverty in India. The rich are growing richer, the poor are growing poorer.
Inflation also leads to poverty because income earned by poor people is not sufficient to buy basic necessities of life. A rise in price of a commodity forces them to remain in poverty.
Poverty also has adverse consequences on the country to a large extent. It is the leading cause of insufficient diet and inadequate nutrition. The resources of poor people are very limited and its effect can be seen in their diet. Poverty is often characterised with income disparity and unequal distribution of national wealth between the rich and the poor.
Apart from this women are the worst victims of poverty as it effects greater number of women then men. The total of poor women out numbers the total population of poor men. They are deprived of proper-diet, medicines and health treatment. Poverty is one of the strong reasons for increasing child labour in India. Due to low income of parents, their children are forced to indulge in various jobs which leads to child labour.

In order to combat the issue of poverty, the Government of India has launched various poverty alleviation programmes. Some of them worth mentioning are
Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana, 1999, to provide sustainable income to the poorest people living in rural and urban areas of the country.
Employment Assurance Scheme, 1993, to create additional wage employment opportunities during the period of acute shortage of wage employment through manual work for the rural poor living below the poverty line.
Food for Work Programme, 2004, to generate supplementary wage employment.
Integrated Watershed Management Programme to restore the ecological balance by harnessing, conserving and developing degraded natural resources.
Prime Minister Rozgar Yojana, to provide employment to the educated youth who are not having a job.
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005, to enhance livelihood security by providing at least 100 days of guranteed ways employment in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
Apart from these government initiatives, several steps can be taken to stop or eradicate poverty in India.

To control the increasing poverty,' the rate of growth of production of food grains as a whole has barely kept ahead of population growth. An increase in per capita food production would ensure steady supply and stable price. Poverty can be eliminated if the poor people are given the jobs according to their needs and talents. Self employment can also be provided to them. Much of the problem of poverty can be solved if the population of the country can be reduced to an average level.

Resources of the country should be utilised properly so that we can have the benefits of those free gifts of nature.

Government should take steps to spread awareness for education so that the people do not have to depend on others for their income. Agriculture is the backbone of our country. It provides income to vast number of people. Hence, there must be upliftinent of agriculture. Inflation tends to make poor poorer and rich richer. There should be a stability in the price level of the country. Government should develop cottage, handicrafts and other small scale industries in the backward regions of the country moreover this will transfer resources from the areas of surplus to the deficit areas solving the problem of urbanisation.

Therefore, one has to keep a thing in the mind that poverty is a menace and need to be checked. The above steps would be helpful to stop poverty in India. It is a national problem and hence must be solved on a war footing. Eradication of poverty would ensure a sustainable and inclusive growth of economy and society.

Even though India is about to achieve its millennium development goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger to halve between 1990 and 2015, steps needed to be taken to achieve the goal as soon as possible. We all should do everything possible and within our limits to help alleviate poverty from our country.

Essay - Importance of Private Universities in the Field of Higher Education

The impact of globalisation and India's policy of liberalisation in its wake is visible everywhere, including education. The education sector is enjoying autonomy of sorts. The private players are
en-caching the students' hunger for higher education and establishing private colleges in every Indian state. With the regular increase in the number of students, the seats in colleges and universities are falling short. The crucial question to be asked in this regard is, should we allow private universities in such large numbers? The answer in a sense is yes because the present state-run universities are incapable of providing enough seats for the willing and serious students who intend to pursue higher studies. Such void can be filled only by private universities.

All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) was set-up in November 1945 as a national level Apex Advisory body. Its responsibility is to conduct a survey on the facilities on technical education and to promote development in the country in a coordinated and integrated manner. But the inadequacy of educational institution in the higher level forced the government to pass the Private Universities Establishment and Regulation Bill in 1995 to encourage the establishment of private universities. Private universities in India are regulated under the UGC Regulation 2003. Also per this regulation, the UGC sends committees to inspect the private universities and publish their inspection report. The UGC list of private universities as on 5th July, 2016 lists 239 private universities. Besides these, other types of universities controlled by UGC are Central Universities (47), State Universities (350) and Deemed Universities (123).

There are some major differences between the government universities and private universities. The private universities invite the students and paint the rosy pictures of higher education but without any guarantee of job after completion of degree or diploma. The guarantee is only for a certificate, at a price. The same parents objecting to rise in government college fee will be prepared to pay any price for a good alternative because, here, the question is about the quality. The Ministry of HRD set up a core group of six members, from the private sector, who gave their valuable views and recommendation with regard to the standard maintained by the private universities.

Private universities not only have to survive a tough competition but also develop and maintain a high standard of education in each stream and build infrastructure like adequate building premises, libraries, laboratories, engage qualified and capable faculty and create the system of conducting exams, assessing the answer sheets and awarding degrees. They also need to orient the syllabi according to the demands of various types of industries, business and services, bringing necessary changes off and on as per changing technologies.

Private universities should ensure that they do not become mere machines for producing graduates and postgraduates. The efforts and time of the students and the money of their parents should not go in vain. It has been experienced that the government universities can survive even if they do not meet the expectations of the students and the parents, but the same cannot be said about the private universities. Some private universities, which are collaborated with foreign institutions not only fulfil the dream of the students, but also place the students on par with their foreign counterparts.

Here, the students can get the opportunity to become competent and skilled like the students studying in reputated universities abroad. These universities have invested heavily in courses which have contemporary importance. Some private universities are more like business houses than educational centres. They run on the fee of the students. The expenditure of running the university is quite high-including high cost of building infrastructure, salaries of highly qualified teachers and other staff and day-to-day expenses and payment of electricity, telephone, water bills and taxes. It is, therefore, absolutely necessary for them to keep their courses so attractive that there is great lure among the students to seek admission in them.

Although the government has proposed several initiatives in the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) in the areas of expansion, excellence and funding, there are several systemic barriers that restrict entry of private higher education providers. The government intends to achieve enrolment of 35.9 million students in higher education institutions, with a Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of 25.2 per cent, by the end of the 12th Plan period through the co-existence of multiple types of institutions including research-centric, teaching and vocation-focused ones.

"The private sector can be expected to play an instrumental role in the achievement of these outcomes through the creation of knowledge 44 networks, research and innovation centres, corporate-backed institutions and support for faculty development," said the report, 'Indian Higher Education: The Twelfth Plan and Beyond'. Most private institutions do not receive aid from the government, whereas 52 per cent of the grants of the University Grants Commission (UGC) go to central universities, catering to less than one lakh students. The top higher educational institutions in the country, such as the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Management, among others, cater to 1 per cent of the population, making them highly elitist, whereas in several countries in Europe such as France and Germany, the elite institutions in various fields cater to 10 per cent of their much smaller populations.

Earlier, private sector participation in higher education has been in highly specialised areas such as engineering, management and medicine were restricted. However, the government's inability to invest heavily in higher education to take care of growing needs has left the field wide open to the participation of private players in this arena. In the future, we are likely to see a significant rise in the number of private universities in India, as universities, under one umbrella, can provide general undergraduate courses, as also specialised courses such as engineering, management, journalism, law, and art and design, among others.

In recent past, a large number of private universities have been set up in most of the states of one country. The increasing higher educational needs are met only by these private universities. To attract more students these universities offer modern and need based programmes. These universities not only help the students but also boost economic growth as a country's socio-economic development is directly linked with is educational system.

In India too, the government spends a significant amount per student for IITs and IIMs. Commercial private players often do not have the same infrastructure and therefore cannot pursue quality higher education actively. However, with rapid economic growth, the private sector has reacted to the needs of our workforce and set up a large number of professional colleges, especially in engineering and management. Recently, we have seen an emergence of philanthropic universities such as Azim Premji University and Shiv Nadar University that are offering quality education.

Private universities in higher education are also breaking conventional paradigms in education. They focus on developing 21st century skills, critical thinking, communication and leadership. Some such universities in India have invested heavily in courses which are of contemporary significance. Our government should encourage good private universities to grow and expand which will produce highly professional and qualified manpower. These new breed of private institutions can complement elite public institutions and establish international standards of excellence in the field of higher education in India.