An Educated Bharat for a Viksit Bharat @2047

During a recent Parliament session, hon’ble PM Modi spoke about his dream of a Viksit Bharat.? He spoke of fulfilling the resolve of a developed India with full dedication.? “24/7 for 2047”, he said. ? It gave me goosebumps - How often does one get the opportunity to both witness and contribute to the arc of a nation from a developing to a developed nation within one lifetime!?

Very early on in my life, I saw a huge gap in our education system.? High-fee schools had access to resources while low-fee schools didn’t. Students in metros had awareness and opportunities while students in small towns and villages had neither. There are 260 million school-going students in India, spending 6-7 hours everyday in school. And yet, not more than 5 million are getting an education that will equip them to lead India towards a Viksit Bharat.? Schools are where foundational learning abilities are first established, and I deeply believe that school education, more than anything else, will be the lynchpin of this vision to become a developed nation by 2047.? But a vast majority of schools in India continue to struggle with meaningful and affordable solutions designed for their unique realities.

This is what inspired me and my co-founder, Smita to set up LEAD twelve years ago.? What began as a journey of deep learning with one school has today grown into a movement with 9000+ partner schools!? And as we continue to transform schools, I am incredibly excited about the impact of this transformation on Viksit Bharat @ 2047.?

Of course, significant reforms are already underway with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2023.? These policies are visionary and progressive, but their success hinges on effective implementation.? And the data continues to suggest significant learning gaps: nearly 25% of Indian teenagers between 14-18 struggle to read a text in their regional language at a second-grade level; and 42.7% have difficulty reading English sentences, per ASER.? The need for educational reform and systemic overhaul is thus both immediate and urgent.

With a ringside view of India’s schools, I believe that we need just five important shifts to truly transform India’s schools and prepare our country’s students for 21st-century careers:

• First is teachers. We need to urgently empower and equip our teachers to move from lecture-based, book-based teaching that promotes rote learning to a multi-modal form of teaching that delivers better learning. Traditional teacher trainings have failed to make an impact at scale. So, we must embrace guided lesson-plans developed by experts for use by teachers at scale.
• Second is school infrastructure. Our classrooms need to be upgraded from black-board and benches to multimedia-enabled learning rooms with at least a screen and teaching learning materials for multi-modal learning. Currently, among the 10 million classrooms in India, only half a million are at this level!
• Third is assessments. Rather than teaching to the test and testing only lower order, memory based questions, we need to upgrade assessments to check for higher order, application and competence based questions. And we need to have a far higher proportion of assessments FOR learning instead of assessments OF learning.
• Fourth is school technology. Schools must use data and technology to personalise learning and remedials so that every student can progress. Currently, every class has a normal distribution of above-average, average and below-average students. But students are not numbers to be segregated by scores. They are individuals who need to be guided from where they are, via their preferred path of learning, to get to their goal.?
• Fifth and perhaps the most important, is an enabling regulatory framework. Currently, we regulate schools on means and not outcomes. Fee regulation is rampant across states. Input regulation is rampant. School timings, days of operations, teacher salaries, uniforms, books - every input seems to be regulated. But student outcomes are not monitored or if they are monitored, we don’t have the state capacity to be able to do it with rigour. We need to hold schools accountable for outcomes - at Class 5, Class 8 and Class 10. And give them autonomy on the means to achieve these outcomes. This is the spirit of the NEP 2020 too.

India's school sector is ready for significant change and growth. By focusing on these five shifts, we can create a future-ready, inclusive, and globally competitive education system. And move towards the bold vision of Viksit Bharat 2047.?

What changes do you believe are most crucial for the future of education in India?

• Technology Integration in Schools
• Pedagogical Shifts in Classrooms
• Enhanced Teacher Training
• Others (tell us more!)