Mains 2016: What is ailing India’s Education System?

Archives

Problems in Education sector:

1. The focus area in policy making has been higher education since independence itself. IITs, NITs, IIMs etc were opened but primary education didn’t get required attention.
2. Poor quality of education. It results into poor learning outcomes, low employability of graduates, low productivity, and consequent low wages.
3. Large section of population is still poor, more than 300 million. In such poverty, the instance of child labor increases which further deprives the children of much needed education at that age.
4. Poor quality of teaching and course content, especially at Primary level. Classroom infrastructure is poor, teaching methods are poor and most of the times teachers remain absent from the school.
5. Secondary level education suffers from a lack of adequate choice in terms of schools, courses, and content, which contribute to the high dropout levels.
6. Although enrollment is high at primary level but it drastically comes down when reaching towards upper stages. High drop-outs are the reason for it and that is due to: Secondary and Higher education sector lack the incentive that is present at primary level. Long distance (from home to school), No Mid Day Meal, little choice in courses, no immediate benefits of education(in terms of employment) etc
7. For majority of population, the motive of education is sustenance of livelihood and not learning. Government hasn’t provided proper incentives and ecosystem for research and development. It results into a deteriorating research environment.

Solutions:

1. At Primary level, the partnership among the state, parents, and community is required to plan, monitor and enforce the delivery of quality education.

• The system of school inspection needs to be revamped and revitalized, with a greater role for local stakeholders and greater transparency in the system.
• Community and parental control over primary schools by Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) and gram panchayat on an annual basis.
• PTA and gram panchayat can appoint new teachers out of their own funds if they so desire.
• They would have the power to design the curriculum for at least one study period of 40 minutes every day.
• More resources, more decentralization and more flexibility (in everything, from administration to financial allocation).
• Enabling and regulating mechanisms for private schools.
• There is need to move away from rote-learning to understanding concepts, developing good comprehension and communication skills and learning how to access knowledge independently.
• Use of ICT in teaching and learning methods.
• School students should be made familiar with college by annual meetings at college. And college students can also go to schools and teach for a fix number of days. This can be made a part of their curricula.
  

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2. At Secondary level,

• Large secondary schools need to be located in centralized locations, and facility of bus service should be provided to students.
• Due to bus service, the students would be in large number, so it would be possible to provide enough options in terms of courses and vocational training.
• Buses would eliminate the safety issue that adolescent girls currently face in getting to school.
• Large school also makes it easier to monitor teaching and the teachers, as that can be partly done by peers.
• For this to happen, there needs to be a multidimensional programme involving infrastructure creation in the form of large secondary schools, expansion and improvement in the quality of service (education) delivery, and a universal transport mechanism.
  

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3. At Tertiary level,

• An independent regulatory authority for higher education should be created that can function at arm’s length from the government.
• Collaborate with international institutions in higher educations.
  – To allow foreign educational institutions to enter into collaborations with Indian institutions on a large scale.
  – Collaboration in research and development area.
• A universal national rating mechanism should be created –
  – It would need to rate the courses and the institutions that are offering them.
  – For all tertiary education, including universities, colleges, vocational training institutes, and diploma and certificate granting institutions.
• Create many more universities- to enhance the gross enrollment ratios.
• Increase public spending and diversify sources of financing. This must necessarily come from both public and private sources.

Perspective:

There is another element that needs to be appreciated: most income opportunities in India have been in self employed, daily wage employment, and unorganized domains. None of these opportunities necessarily require formal learning as a precondition for entry. Productivity and wages would be higher among those workers who have greater understanding and experience in working with the tools of the trade. Merely having a school certificate without such abilities would, at best, have a marginal impact.

Conclusion:

India needs to have a vision for its children and youth. This vision needs to be enshrined properly in a synchronized design of oversight mechanism either through the community, through choice and markets, or through specialist regulatory institutions. Although the New Education Policy, 2016 is a welcome step by government to realize that vision, we need to overhaul the whole education system, from bottom to top..