GS F243: CURRENT AFFAIRS

Nishant Poonia

Assignment-1
2014A3PS244

Education in India: Quantity and Quality

Since Independence education has been recognized as a major problem and its scarcity is
believed to be the cause of many present evils. Many activists, writers and leaders have raised
this issue time and again, citing it the biggest hurdle in Indias development. It would be wrong
to say that the government has not done anything. The Indian Government has taken many steps
like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Midday meal scheme and the latest entry Right to Education.
These measures have reduced the number of out-of-school children from 20 million in 2002 to
four million in 200809. We have the largest school system in the world with 1.6 million
schools and 97% of our children aged 614 are enrolled in them. But India in its mission to
universalize elementary education failed to arrest the dropout rate. Only 47 of the 100 children
enrolled in Class I reach Class VIII, putting the dropout rate in primary and elementary schools
at 52.79%. Also, what students learn in the schools is also a matter of concern. The problem is
the quality of education the systems 210-million students are receiving. Currently, half the
children in Grade 5 can only read at a Grade 2 level, and nearly two-thirds struggle with basic
arithmetic. And these numbers are only worsening.
We have an acute shortage of teachers, new data shows that Indias schools still fall short of 5.86
lakh primary-level teachers and 3.5 lakh upper primary level teachers. Teachers which are there
are also not up to the mark. Existing teachers have poor training, partly because teacher training
institutes have a shortage of faculty. In addition, teacher training institutes are concentrated in
urban areas. Thus, rural areas where literacy levels have traditionally been lower end up with
fewer trained teachers. Moreover, schools dont even have adequate infrastructure. Its true that
just having great school infrastructure is not sufficient to improve learning outcomes, but it is
certainly a necessary condition. 95% of schools dont comply with RTE standards of
infrastructure, one-fifth of the total primary schools in rural areas still do not have drinking water
facility, three out of 10 are without usable urinal facilities and about half do not have
playgrounds.
The other problem is Indian culture system. Traditionally in India education was the right of only
the elite class. Effects of this mentality can be observed even now. Students from lower
economic and social backgrounds have been found to have far lower test scores than their
wealthier counterparts. Aside from economic classification, in India, literacy among scheduled
castes and scheduled tribes, which make up 24.4 per cent of Indias population, is lower by a
margin of 1520 per cent than the national average.

The most important measure that should be taken to bring our education system back on track is
to focus on recruitment of trained and motivated teachers. It is a tough task to get good teachers
in our country. The overarching problem is the low status of the teaching profession. The
government should run an extensive program for teacher training and recruitment. Second thing
is that our system incentivizes memorizing over originality. Memorizing is no learning and it
should be replaced by innovation and creativity. Last thing, is the use of technology
infrastructure in the schools especially the rural ones. It is a big investment but it makes sense to
invest in it. It will make the knowledge more accessible and will help in growing virtues of
creativity and innovation in children.