What is the issue?
- There is growing trend towards reliance on private schools.
- But the government schools ought to be the drivers of change to create real impact.
What are the challenges for India in providing education?
- Majority of children in each class in India have educational attainments much lower than the one they are in.
- Only half of all students who enter primary school make it to the upper primary level.
- Less than half that around 25 million get into the 9-12 class cycle.
- The number of secondary schools is less than 150,000 for a country of 1.3 billion, and even this comes down to just 100,000 at the higher secondary level.
- While there are around five million primary school teachers, at the secondary level the number is just 1.5 million.
- The inexorable shift to private school education along with the Right to Education Act represents a failure of the public-school system.
What needs to be done?
- India needs to view school education as a critical strategic investment and give it the status of a vital infrastructure project.
- This should be carried out with the help of countries that have an amazing record in providing quality school education.
- Indian public-school system must be swiftly and radically revamped.
- Government must invest more on Teacher training institutions as they constitute an important part, to turn out world-class teachers.
- To create the world’s largest pool of well-educated and highly trained workers India needs to introduce new policies at high economic backdrop.
Source: The Hindu
