India’s Constitution guarantees the right to education, but for the underprivileged child it still remains an uphill task to get decent schooling. While the enrollment rate at age 6 has reached 96.7%, the dropout rate by class 5 is also high at 26%; and at some places it’s a tightrope walk for children to cross a channel as at Dobra Jagir, 15 km from Bhopal, to go to school (Input and picture source: Hindustan Times, April 18, 2012).
As to the field of vision and eye care, although optometry was introduced in the country way back in 1958, and has progressed well to bloom into over 100 instituions across the country imparting education up to PhD level, no Government legislation has so far been introduced to regulate its practice into the hands of those qualified, leaving (i) the unsuspecting public vulnerable to receiving vision and eye care services also by those not institutionally-qualified and (ii) optometrists traversing the rough road at the end of which lies their goad in the form of the creation of the Indian Council of Optometry!
Dr. Narendra Kumar
Editor, Optometry Today
OptometryToday@gmail.com
