A reality check by consultant Abhijit Dutta into the Indian education system
THE INDIAN education industry is a $90bn opportunity. The government’s outlay is the third largest on education after US and China. We have more than 2lakh recognized middle and senior basic schools and more than 650,000 primary and junior basic schools in India. The allocation per child has increased from $390 in 2010 to $800 in 2012, leapfrogging by almost 213%. In any spectrum, this is impressive enough to make India one of the most successful school ecosystems. Why then, is the actual scenario so offbeat?
The reason for education inching towards the abyss is much more intrinsic. There are a lot of faults with the system (for the lack of a better word) that do not let our necessity for better education translate into a great market place with excellent education services.
One of the greatest infections that we have is the widespread practice of rote learning. Students study only to score more marks in exams, and sometimes to crack exams like IIT JEE, AIPMT or CLAT. This makes the students victimised participants of an unrealistic, mindless, rat race. This not only crushes creative spirits and individuality of millions, but also drives a lot of otherwise capable students to commit suicide because they find themselves unable to cope. Knowledge lasts only as long as the semester. Our entire system has been modeled to test acquired knowledge rather than skill. More often than not, especially in higher education, students do not understand what is being taught in the class. Their only concern is “what is the weightage of the topics being taught in the next relevant examination.
Never does a student get accolades according to what he deserves. Out-of-the-box thinking is never encouraged. Curiosity is laughed at. This is the most fundamental flaw in our education system. We prefer memorizing over rationale. Memorizing is not learning. It never was, and it never will be. Assembly line education only produces assembly line workers. We have the most number of engineering graduates in the world; we boast of harboring few of the best technical colleges but not one of them have produced even a single Nobel Laureate for Science. We are too busy running call centres. We need to create entrepreneurs, innovators, artists, scientists, thinkers, and writers who can establish the foundation of a knowledge-based economy, rather than the low-quality service provider nation we are turning into.
Another major issue that hangs in dire need of rectification is the state of teachers in our country. For far too long, teaching has been the sanctuary of the incompetent. Teaching jobs are considered safe, well-paying, low pressure and risk-free jobs. This ruins the integrity of the profession and dilutes the expectations out of it. According to the Sixth Pay Commission scales Indian teachers get paid five to six times the amount of money that an average Indian makes. Public education is a system for the teachers, by the teachers and in the interest of the teachers. They do not try to step into the shoes of the student and figure out whether the child is actually gaining something from the lesson or not. The examination system has been polluted. According to them, what the books say is gospel. A large proportion of these teachers are untrained or trained through en masse correspondence courses. They themselves lack in-depth knowledge of their subject of specialization; hence it is futile to expect the student to attain anything but pseudo education. Teachers are primarily responsible for dissemination of the knowledge that is generated. They are the ones responsible for enlightening kids today who will shape our nation tomorrow. It’s fatal to give this sort of responsibility to someone who will not or is not capable to take it seriously.
The Right to Education Act which came into force as on 1 April 2010, prescribes a pupil teacher ratio of 30:1.This has become very difficult for state governments to fulfill; given that following the Sixth Pay Commission is a very expensive proposition, and hiring untrained, contract teachers is illegal. Also, the bigger trouble is that the Right to Education allows automatic promotion from one class to the next. Board examinations are not allowed till Class 8. There are a lot of children in middle school who still can’t read. They learn subjects like Social Studies and Science without actually learning anything. It is like watching a foreign movie without subtitles.
Dropout rates in rural schools have sky-rocketed because of this. If they actually find the courage to not dropout, they still are sent for slaughter in the Board Examinations because they are not accustomed to the atmosphere in an examination hall. The final outcome is acceptance of below average academic output and thousands of potential students being tagged meritless. The only people who gain through no exams are the teachers. I have never heard of a school being closed down or salaries being slashed because the students did badly in the board exams. Job security indeed! Add to that the fact that there is very less supervision of what is really going on in the classroom, and you get an inkling of the bottomless pit the system has been digging for itself.
The biggest paradox in existence when it comes to education is privatization. Unlike other sectors, the little privatization that has happened in higher education seems to have delivered opposite results. The government-run institutions seem to run better than private initiatives. For institute to be run privately in India, it has to operate on a no-profit basis. That is what the regulations dictate. This is very discouraging for entrepreneurs and innovators who could have worked in this sector. How can one expect the education sector to grow if the people managing it are old headmasters and deans who know nothing about the service industry and business management?
There are two major things that can be done to help improve the scenario. First, the process of recruiting teachers must be made much more stringent. Teachers should be appointed on the basis of the teaching skills they have, not on the number of degrees the hold. The teachers must know how to channel whatever they know and offer it to their students in a palatable way. They should be passionate about teaching. None of them should take up teaching as a profession just because they did not have any other option. It is high time to breed rockstar teachers. Ones who can motivate even the laziest kid to work hard not by force but by the sheer aura of their dynamic personality. Only then can we expect the situation to straighten up a little.
The second thing that needs to be done is that the rule about no-profit operations of private institutions should be retracted. Our private institutions do not aim to craft great individuals. As a result, the student does not pass out with any real education. The recruiters have no choice but to hire whatever talent is available, which in most cases is next to nothing, and hire them at their own cost. If the aforementioned rule is lifted, entrepreneurs and innovators will start investing in education. Big companies know how disappointing the recruitments are in most colleges. A certain Reliance or Infosys or TATA will definitely run a better college than any “mithai wala” or “desi seth”. So if they open an institution, they will know exactly what voids need to be filled. ([email protected])