Is our Education System in India Declining?

In the era of globalization when knowledge and technology are considered the basis for excellence and superiority, India is still facing the paradox of advancement in technology but lacking in social sectors. This has put a question on our education system, which needs a review in historical, politico-economic, and socio-cultural context to check if its declining or evolving.

Human is considered resource only if he/she is healthy and educated. in India, education has always been given priority. In ancient times, India has been education center with a well-evolved system in Magadh, Takshashila, and later in Nalanda. Advancement in the education system can be validated with the presence of great mathematicians, Astrologers, Doctors, etc like Aryabhatta, Charak, Chanakya to name a few.

Later in the 18th century, a sharp decline in our education system was seen due to the colonization of India by Britishers. The current education system evolved from the famous wood's dispatch of the 1830s, which developed an education system to create Indian Babu's ( Cleark) for Britisher's gain.

Post Independence, the dream of Gandhiji and many socialist leaders were taken into consideration, and based on the Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan Committee recommendation, the current education system evolved from the existing system then.

The new system which has evolved from then played a much-needed role in national integration, social awareness, and spreading the basis of our constitutional values among the masses. In the process, much advancement in terms of literacy which was less than 20 % in 1947 has gone up to 73% in 2011.

We have become leaders in the field of information technology, space technology. we also got our own green revolution & became almost self-sustained in food grains. Our Democracy is considered one of the most successful due to our awareness & participation due to the spread of education. Our panchayat Raj system is getting appreciation everywhere.

Today one-third of doctors and engineers in the UK are from India and we are leading in pharmaceutical production and medicine development. But our education system which in terms of data, program, and plan gives a rosy picture, is not so in reality.

The current education system with its rigidity is becoming a hindrance to creativity and hence to the culture of innovation. The education system in India has become mechanical, moving from school to college to university to Job. Stress/focus is more on materialistic gain and less on learning.

Our data shows more than 80% children below 6 years of age are enrolled in school, but in reality lack of infrastructure like school building, board, etc combined with vacant teacher's post & unavailability of books are not only questioning but giving a harsh reality on the ground.

For Children aged 6-14 years, the Right to Education Act has been passed but on ground, we are still struggling to implement it.

In Higher education, the highly expensive and non-availability of books in our language becomes another hindrance. with approximately 30% poverty ( 2010 data) and approximately 60% still residing in the rural area with 70% poor in the rural area, it becomes difficult for them to efford higher education.

If we consider, quality of education, our system at every level lags behind the world average, a good example is the fact that no Indian institute gets considered as the top 10 institutes of the world. Also, the number of educated unemployed is increasing every year because degree holders are non-employable in Industry as the employment-skill gap is huge and resulting in huge unemployment despite having jobs available in industry.

In Terms of Women education, there are some encouraging results, as it ha reached to 64% with Gender literacy gap of 10-12%. .But still there is a need for further encouragement for women education.

In Industrial sector still more than 90% are in unorganised sector, which can be considered as failure of our education system. The current system has helped in reducing the class divide and social mobility has increased, but at the same time it has created another form of divide like digital divide, educated-uneducated divide etc. It is because of non-inclusive and non-comprehensive spread of education. It is also adding to disparity in society.

Regional disparity in education which might be due to regional need and aspiration, but education has also played important role to it. Northern state had shown lesser education.literacy compare to south Indian state, reflecting also in eocio-economic gap among them. It also reflects in women status in society which increases with education.

Overall, urban centre are still better with private investment on education sector whereas rural area has no such option. Its creating further Urban-Rural divide & Gap. It is leading to issue of outmigration from villages and increasing issue of slum and congestion combined with other infrastructural pressure on cities.

Also, such growth of cities economy leading to spread of it toward village and hence creating various farmers unrest and lanacquisition related issue. All these are halting overall economic growth.

If we focus back to quality of education system, rise of coaching institution in country is an indication of failure of education system. It is making/concentrating higher education, in particular , in the hands of few wealthy.

Our Current education is focusing more on western concept of development but not on inclusive development. In persuation of global need and education demand we are forgetting our local aspiration. We are focusing on western world whereas western world are focusing on our traditional education, like of Sanskrit as language, Vedas etc. Need is to identify our own knowledge source before venturing for the world.

Another Issue of prevalence of " Babas" and various social evils like Sati, Preference of male child, Infanticide etc and many superstitions in society. It shows that our education system has failed to spread logic and scientific temperament in our society with time, we are seeing increase in these superstitions, reflecting declining education system.

Government has tried by various programs, but implementation never happened effectively in education field. Also, government spending on our education is also very less compare to world average spending on education.

Recently, many efforts have been taken to revive our education system. We have done tie-up with many countries for opening foreign University in India. Open Univeristy ( e,g IGNOU) and online University are few to count . Easier Visa Norms and higher incentive for people coming back from foreign university are also there. Recent Science policy and National innovation center are few other initiative which is helping in developing research in India.

For Improving our education system Credit based education system, addition of more vocational courses, more collaboration and Interaction between educational institution and Industries, Orivate investment to be encouraged. Also our future need to be kept in mind while planning vision document for our education system and training program.

Thus, we can say that our education system which has brought our country on the verge of becoming super power based on its Technological development and Economical Power still lagging behind and continuously declining currently, as social indicators particularly HDI has shown continuous decline. Need is to plan, with a vision of inclusive development, people participation and a newer evolved education system which will take us to prosperity in future.

#Education #Literacy, #Clobalisation, #Children #Women