Primary education is the foundation for the ideals written into the Preamble: democracy; social justice; liberty; equality of status and opportunity; fraternity, assuring the dignity of the individual; even secularism.

There was no drive to put children in school. The emphasis was on technical and professional education, an important but not a sufficient condition for national progress. Primary education, like social development more generally, became a victim of the trickle-down theory. Reservation, rather than education and the self-esteem, skills and the income-generating potential it generates, still remains the preferred political path to social emancipation... Reservation, like affirmative action, has its place. But long use of a crutch does not make a man whole. The under class among the scheduled castes and other backward classes tend to remain excluded in the absence of a rational exist policy...