Ideas and Ideals-- The Tale of Two Books Continues

Myron Weiner's work has profoundly affected, public policy discussion on education and child labour. Child and the State in India achieved cult status. In a country, known to be prickly, and wearing its nationalism as a badge of honour, his central thesis, that the reason, child labour is rampant and children are not in school, is because India’s elite want it like that is cited by everyone ---- those who want to change the system and equally by those who want to maintain the status quo. 

Weiner advocated for compulsion on families to send children to school, a push for legislative action, with India following of the same path, as the east Asian countries. His ideas gained political and public attention. And yet, it was the ideal of education as a fundamental right, valued in and of itself, which would drive the inclusion of the Right to Education. The coercive element, was kept out. Years later, as schooling children became the norm not the exception, his thesis on the role of elites, continues to influence policy dialogues. The distance between ideas and ideals is shorter and at once longer, depending on which path one chooses to take.