It’s more than seven decade of India’s independence but we have not been able to set our education policy so far. No doubt, the education system needs reforms at the national level but not so frequently so that everyone may not fit in the system to continue up to the level of higher studies.
Pre and post partition, primary education was followed with higher education starting from FA, FSc, shifted to Prep, then to higher secondary and now Plus One and Plus Two to get entry into graduation. In view of huge number of pass-outs available in the market and population is increasing rapidly, now it is felt to introduce Plus Three to delay the pass out of graduates. Even there are chances of making the graduation of four years.
The National Policy on Education was framed in 1986 and modified in 1992. Since then several changes have taken place that calls for a revision of the Policy. The Government of India would like to bring out a National Education Policy to meet the changing dynamics of the population’s requirement with regards to quality education, innovation and research, aiming to make India a knowledge superpower by equipping its students with the necessary skills and knowledge and to eliminate the shortage of manpower in science, technology, academics and industry.
Indian education means only mugging up the subject just to secure more marks. Our education system has become spoon feeding to such an extent that everyone is concerned of scoring in the examination, rather than acquiring knowledge.
So far the higher education policies in India are good with availability of infrastructure but the root level education, which we call the primary education need to the strengthened.
It is felt that majority of our children – those outside the purview of the private schools – in government schools – up to the level of 5th class, even up to High Class 10th level – are not able to read and what to say of to write the English properly. With this standard, it becomes doubtful that such children could compete at the level of graduation even and it looks to be a dream at the global level to communicate, interact and grasp the higher studies through the global language – English.
It is pertinent to mention that India is described as a rare bright spot as compared to the other developed or developing countries. India’s long-term growth depends upon the state of our education.
We cannot treat the rural level education at par with the urban level students. The rural students are an asset for the parents to work with them in the fields. They are least bothered about the education which will not take their children to higher level education because of financial sources barring a fraction of students who could excel in their studies to continue for higher students to get a chance to get easy jobs in this competitive era at all levels.
Our education system has become very critical for a nation to build a skilled workforce which will help people improve their livelihoods as a country grows.
Nehru was a visionary on higher education, building premier institutes of higher learning and research, including the IISc, IITs and IIMs. However, he didn’t see primary education as a priority due to the limited resources early governments had, and his focus on science and research based industries. It was in 1986 that the Rajiv Gandhi government emphasized child-centric primary education in a serious way, with the National Policy on Education (NPE) focusing on universal access to and enrolment into schools.
I do appreciate the government interventions and initiatives like the Midday Meal Scheme over the last decade have got many more children into schools. Enrolments have crossed 90 per cent among 6-14 year olds. The network of schools has expanded deep into rural areas and villages across the country.
Nehru has even proposed to delink the degrees from the jobs. He was of the view that we should give the education to the children not as per the syllabus for all but as per the requirement of the market of skilled workers. A loaded bag with books which has no relevancy later on at the work place are meaningless.
I am not against making aware to the students of all the subjects but they should not be subject to test by cramming just to get the pass marks. These pass marks will be no use against the requirement of the society, industry or corporate houses for all the pass-outs but in the coming time, there would be a need of a skilled workers.
But the writing on the wall is very clear as to whether we have been able to achieve the purpose of these schools or not ? Going more closely, one could know that we are still moving around the dismal reality.
There are certain institutions like the government and private Industrial Training Institutes - ITIs -which have concentrated exclusively on skill training to start their own small business house at the rural level.
When I happen to go to the rural level schools for mass counseling, I could not see the hope that India would be able to compete with the countries like US, Canada.
On my asking one of the parents why the send their children to school, they say, the children get a hot meal. Thanks to the Midday Meal program which has put a check on drop-outs. But the road infrastructure in the rural is not that much developed as when it rains the children don’t go to school since they lack transportation and walk the distance barefoot, a journey that is difficult in bad weather. Not only this, one of the school head told, most of the children - both boys and girls – don’t come to the school whenever the season of sowing and harvesting is going on as the boys help them in sowing while the girls help in cooking and other household works at home.
One can well judge the imparting of bookish knowledge students from the survey conducted by non-profit ASER effort – Annual Status of Education Report – by Pratham of learning outcomes among children. It found that learning outcomes did not improve against the annual government spend per student rose. Say, only 29 per cent of students across India could do question that involved simple reasoning and only 22 per cent could solve math problems. Among the children in Standard V, half could not read at the Standard II level. We could say that absence of learning and low quality of teaching could be one of the reasons having its impact on the students. The Gross Enrollment Rate in our public schools by the time students hit standard XI falls from over 90 per cent to below 50 per cent.
Frankly speaking, I still hold good my view that difference in schools at the primary level makes all the difference between learning and not-learning.
In fact, theere is a need of the hour for reforms in our education system at the primary level as the progress of any country starts from foundational education.
We have to seriously think over bringing reforms in our education system with skill based knowledge so that they could get opportunities which we lacked for decades. In the resent scenario, it hardly makes a difference of passing in the board exams versus high scores to get advantage in admission for premier schools and colleges, when majority of the people can’t afford after-school tuitions for their children.
I don’t hesitate to say that the poor quality teachers in government schools are too a drawback in pipeline deteriorating the level of Indian education. Low salaries, inadequate facilities and improper infrastructure – especially at primary level - are unable to attract top quality teachers for government schools. In order to offer quality education, the government must spend more money from its treasury on education.
Our primary level education system needs major reforms by studying at the grass-root level while making the policies. The policy makers has to go down to the low level by coming out of the air-conditioned rooms to know the level of imparting education to the students from book knowledge or skill knowledge.
I doubt that if the effective measures are not taken in reforming the flaws in the quality of Indian education, we will remain stunted from basic capabilities. It is high time now to bring revolution in our education system.
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HARISH MONGA, Feature Writer
harishmongadido@gmail.com
Phone No. : 9815087107
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