Revamping education in India

Education in India has a history stretching back to the ancient urban centres of learning at Nalanda and Taxila. Western education became a part of it with the establishment of British Rule. The independent India constitutionally recognized the need to revitalize education. It is kept under the control of both state and central governments with state given the primary responsibility. There is a recent trend of increasing role being played by central govt. through its various centrally sponsored flagship programs. Notably India’s total spending on education has increased from 1.5% of GDP in 1950s to about 3.5%.
Education not only creates economic opportunities but also increases productivity, develops social and national unity, modernizes the country, consolidates democracy, removes gender disparity and develops social and spiritual values. Thus it’s a backbone for all round growth of a country. But a growth which is not ‘inclusive’ won’t lead to the development. Inclusiveness should be the hallmark of education system. It’s really sad that even after spending so much of time and resources we were unable to bridge gaps created by gender disparities, castism, rich- poor divide etc. though our absolute literacy rate has increased from mere 18% to 64%.
It doesn’t really matter how many universities we have, how many colleges we open until we built a firm structure for universalizing primary education. A step ahead could be the quick enactment of proposed Right to Education Act. We have to make sure it doesn’t become a mere piece of paper. Its fair implementation is must. Another issue is the abysmal Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education which stood at meager 11%. This may be sufficient to meet the needs of graduates now but for India with its big dream of becoming a superpower, certainly signs are not encouraging.
It’s good to talk about the reforms in secondary exams, creation of NCHER, creation of new IIT’s etc. but all would be in vain if we can’t include the deprived sections of society. Also it will be useless if we fail to create the productive manpower we need. Moreover there is no practical relationship between theory being taught and industrial requirements. Thus what we are producing are the piles of young unemployable graduates. There is an urgent need to revitalize Vocational Education in India. The demand for vocational skill is large and its growing yet vocational sector is small and has not grown fast enough due to its poor image. Even professionals due to lack of vocational training sometimes have unidimensional outlook. Only a unified educational and training sector can respond to the changing job markets.
Gender disparity has always remained the integral part of our education system. Despite the various governmental incentives and schemes like Mahila Samakhya, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan etc. gender literacy gap still stood at 21% with only 54% literacy rate among females compare to 75% that of males. A literate woman not only contributes to the economic productivity but also helps in reducing maternal mortality rate, infant mortality rate, fighting HIV/AIDS, arising environmental awareness etc. A new model can be tried by combining the health and education sector schemes. Imagine ASHA (Accredited social health activists) taking classes for pregnant women in Primary Health Centers.
Another roadblock is the quality of teachers available. No compromise should be made. Reforms like giving them additional incentives to live in remote places, hiring them on contract basis, recruiting from local people etc. should be realized on ground level. Reservation for teachers in higher educational institutional should not be given a serious thought.
We are also lagging behind in creating the infrastructural and institutional requirements. China and other developing countries are far ahead of us. Indianised Public Private Partnership Model can be used to fulfill the infrastructural needs of the sector.
While there is lot that government needs to do to provide quality education to its people, responsibility also lies on the society. There are growing numbers of NGOs and more young people are joining them then anytime before. This social consciousness needs to be encouraged and amplified. We are in the process of building a knowledge society. The time has surely come when we should march ahead hand in hand towards achieving the global Millennium Development Goals. Shouldn’t We???