EDUCATION IN INDIA: A STRUCTURE THAT NEEDS REFORM

 From rushing for the school bus at 8:00 am in the morning to eagerly anticipating lunch breaks and finally feeling ‘liberated’ with the 3’0 clock bell, an array of school routines is nothing but a distant memory, the millions of students yearn to get back. With over 1.5 million schools closed and hundreds of thousands of students completely left out of online education, the raging pandemic seems to have provided us with more than just an unprecedented vacation. A number of learned research papers and newspaper articles have been published in the last eight months revealing the flaws in our education system. While the prospect of online education can be seen as an unscrupulous and callous attempt of the government as it would do no better than adding to the 6 million students who were already out of school, one has to try and understand the larger problems they represent. While the limitations of providing distant education stand as the prime concern, we should not overlook the requirement to critically analyze our education policy and make timely amends to it. 

Even though a scroll through Wikipedia is capable of providing a brief idea about the history of India’s education policy, popularly known as the National Education Policy (NEP), it will be useful to start with its significance. When India attained independence in 1947 a large majority of its population was in abject poverty. Partly because of this, and recognizing the importance of education on the overall development of an individual and therefore the nation, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, the first education minister of India, stressed upon the need for central control on education throughout the country. The first NEP was introduced in 1968, during the regime of Indira Gandhi, and the second during the tenure of Rajiv Gandhi in 1986. The latest NEP (2020) has been introduced by the Narendra Modi government. This does not seem appreciable as it stands against more than seven decades of democratic rule accompanied with unparalleled changes in the social scenario with particular reference to education and employment patterns. Even though policy documents stress upon the provision of competency and outcome-based education, the reality is quite the opposite. Rising unemployment, underemployment and voluntary unemployment corroborate the fact that it’s high time we think about pragmatic ways of restructuring our education policy. 

 Children across the country follow the same curriculum throughout their academic life despite the diversity prevailing here. There is therefore requirement to give equal importance to regional studies as well. Even when they learn about various national and international movements and revolutions, and the topography of different parts of the world, they remain oblivious about their own regional history and geography. Our education system fails to equip students with the requirements of current times. 

Although a significant number of school-going population is prevalent in our country, only a minuscule amount (18%) of them forms the regular salaried group. The limitations of our current educational structure are reflecting in different parts of the society and economy. Studies reveal that almost 57% of our engineering graduates are not employable and that there is a major mismatch between what is taught in schools and colleges and what the marketplace requires. One need not dive into scholarly papers to state that there is a relative dearth of innovation in India. Subject grades as a method of determining the intelligence of students has made education an unsavoury experience for a large majority of our students. Even though grades are necessary as a matter of fact, their role as a determining factor of one’s mental abilities is nothing but a fictitious attempt to attract a larger number of students to coaching centres. If India is to make progress globally and otherwise, it has to restructure its educational framework.

India spends about 3% of its GDP on education. Considering the areas that we are yet to make a progress in, this number is far less than satisfactory. Also, more than just a mention of outcome-based education; it has to be given overriding importance as one of the fundamental credos of our education policy.  Pre-primary and primary education has to introduce students to a wide variety of subjects so that they will be able to discover and evolve their areas of interest over time. What is required is uniformity, not standardisation. The National Education Policy 2020 seeks to address a lot of these concerns and promises fresh initiatives and reforms in the field of competency and outcome-based learning. Even though the challenges we are faced with are complex, concerted efforts can definitely yield results in the near future.

Jiddu Krishnamurty, who is known for his profound views on education, said that the function of education is to create “human beings who are integrated and therefore intelligent”. Great intelligence is required to discover what is true. “Intelligence...is not book knowledge...You may read many philosophies and yet not know the bliss of thinking that can exist only when the mind and heart begin to free themselves from conflict through constant awareness. Then only is there the ecstasy of that which is true.” Education therefore, has to lay emphasis on educating and not teaching, learning, and not mere studying.