Education in India: The Big Picture

[NOTE: A version of this article was published in Fair Observer magazine on 19th April 2013.]

School Education

India’s school system has witnessed a huge expansion since 1950 when the country began to develop a mass education system, which was earlier elite oriented during the times of British colonial rulers. The basic education system, which consisted of around 200,000 schools in 1950, has expanded to more than 1.1 million in 2010.

The growth has been particularly impressive since 1990. During this period, enrolment increased from mere 22.3 million (Govinda, & Josephine, 2004) to more than 193 million in 2010-11 (Mehta, 2012). According to an estimate – “95% of the rural population has a primary school within 1 km and about 85% population have an upper primary school within 3 km” (Govinda & Josephine, 2004).

             Though the enrolment rates are close to universal in the current scenario, the quality of education is a big concern. Education Initiatives (2010) conducted a large scale study across 18 Indian states (N=160000). Students of class 4, 6 and 8 were sampled from 2399 government schools  and  were  tested  in  language  and  mathematics  through  common-test  papers  in  13 language  versions.  In  their  executive  summary,  researchers  reported  –“learning  levels  are extremely low”. Many other large studies on nationally representative sample have suggested similar conclusions (for e.g., ASER 2005-12; and NCERT, 2008). Such results point out at the fact that Indian policy makers have failed to look beyond the enrolment-rates and the literacy-rate, which stands at just above 74% as per India Census 2011. Fortunately, there is some recognition of this poor quality of education among the policymakers and politicians. In his address to the teachers and educators on the Teacher’s Day, the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh said (News track India, 2012) –

“… as we move ahead, we need a clear shift in our strategy from a focus on inputs, access and enrolment to what goes on in the classroom and the school.

We need to set up transparent and reliable systems for tracking attendance of children in a truly  meaningful  way.  At  the  same  time,  we  need  to  put  in  place  a  system  of  continuous assessment of the benefit our children are getting from their education. Participation of the community and parents would be essential in this process, so that they can be satisfied with the quality of teaching."

Though there is a lot of rhetoric on “all round development of children” in policy discussions, Indian policymakers have remained reluctant in expanding their definition of schooling (i.e., enrolment and literacy rates as described above). Even today, the mass-education system gives hardly any encouragement to inquiry and higher order learning; classroom participation and discussions; sports, music and other art forms.

Furthermore, there has been little attention paid to the children with special needs. Overall, most educational boards across Indian states define disability as blindness, hearing and/or speech impairment, mental retardation and physical disability.

  

There is no consideration of the entire gamut of psychological conditions in children (for e.g., learning-disability, emotional disturbance, autism spectrum, schizophrenia, anxiety and depressive symptoms etc.). As a result, concept of school psychology and access to psychological services have mostly remained absent from the educational policies and India’s educational infrastructure.

  

Higher Education

Like basic school education, the higher education system has undergone a rapid expansion in past six decades. When India got Independence, there were only 20 universities and 496 colleges across the nation (UGC, 2008). But, as of 2012, there are nearly 621 universities and 27468 colleges in India (MHRD, 2012). However, the access to higher education has a very narrow base, as only 12.4 % of students (MHRD, 2011) go for it as compared to nearly 18% in China (Young, 2012) and 41% in the US (The Washington Post, 2011).

  

In order to increase that figure of 12.4% to 30%, India would require another 800 - 1000 universities and over 40,000 colleges by the next decade (Gupta & Gupta, 2012). It is worth mentioning that the vocational education track is extremely underdeveloped in India, unlike Germany or Finland. According to the Ministry of Human Resource Development report, only about 5% of students opt for vocational education route.

In addition to the problem of access, there is a deep crisis of the quality of higher education. Let alone the mass higher education institutions, a few of the “premier” institutions (e.g., IIMs & IITs) that the policymakers usually boast of rarely ever appear on the list of world’s top five hundred institutions. Agarwal (2006) summarizes this crisis aptly in his abstract as follows:

  

“The standards of academic research are low and declining. Some of the problems of the Indian higher education, such as – the unwieldy affiliating system, inflexible academic structure, uneven capacity across various subjects, eroding autonomy of academic institutions, and the low level of public funding are well known.

Many other concerns relating to the dysfunctional regulatory environment, the accreditation system that has low coverage and no consequences, absence of incentives for performing well, and the unjust public funding policies are not well recognised. Driven by populism and in the absence of good data, there is little informed public debate on higher education in India” (p.g. IV).

India, having a median age of 27years, is a nation of young people. It has 672 million people in the age-group 15 to 59 years, which is often considered the “working age population”. It is also being predicted that the dependency ratio (i.e., proportion of non-working population to total population) will be on a decline over the next 30 years, which will constitute a major opportunity of ‘demographic dividend’ for India.

On the other hand, most of the developed countries are growing old and are likely to face increasing economic crunch as their dependency ratio is on the rise. If India can develop a skilled workforce through dramatic expansion of vocational and higher education system quantitatively as well as qualitatively, she will not just serve her self-interest but the interest of many other parts of the world. Whether India suffers “demographic disaster” with millions unskilled and unemployed or achieves “demographic dividend” by generating skilled human resource that take her to prosperity, only the time will tell that. Without a doubt, Indian educational policy makers have one of the toughest jobs of the 21st century.

 References

Agarwal, P. (2006). Higher education in India: The need for change. Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations; Retrieved from: http://www.icrier.org/pdf/icrier_wp180__higher_education_in_india_.pdf
ASER Centre (2005-12). Main Findings ASER 2005-11. New Delhi, India. Retrieved from:     http://www.asercentre.org/ngo-education-india.php?p=ASER+KEY+DOCUMENTS

Education  Initiatives.  (2009).  Student  learning  study:  An  India  report.  Retrieved  from: http://www.ei-india.com/student-learning-study-an-india-report/

Govinda, R, and Y Josephine. (2004). Para-Teachers in India: A Review, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi.

Gupta, D. and Gupta, N. (2012). Higher Education in India: Structure, Statistics and Challenges. Journal of Education and Practice, 3(2), 17-24.

Mehta, Arun C. (2012). Elementary Education in India: Progress towards UEE: Analytical Report 2010-11.NUEPA, New Delhi. Retrieved from (11/12/2012): http://www.dise.in/Downloads/Publications/Publications%202010-11/AR%202010-11/DISE-analytical-tables-provisional-2010-11.pdf

MHRD. (2012). Provisional report on All India Survey on Higher Education 2010-11. New Delhi. Retrieved from: http://mhrd.gov.in/statistics_data?tid_2=239

MHRD. (2011). Annual Report on Higher Education in India- 2009-2010. New Delhi. Retrieved from: http://mhrd.gov.in/statistics_data?tid_2=158

NCERT. (2008). Learning Achievement of Students at the end of Class V: Executive Summary. Sarva  Shiksha  Abhiyan.   Retrieved  from:  http://ssa.nic.in/quality-of-education/learning- achievement-of-students-at-the-end-of-class-v

News track India. (2012). PM Manmohan Singh emphasizes on need to improve education quality. Retrieved  from:  http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/2012/9/4/285-PM-Manmohan- Singh-emphasizes-on-need-to-improve-education-quality.html

The   Washington   Post.   (2011).   Playing   Catch   Up   with   the   College.   Retrieved   from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/playing-catch-up-in-college- completion/2011/09/12/gIQAegt6NK_graphic.html

UGC. (2008). Higher Education in India: Issues related to expansion, inclusiveness, quality and finance. New Delhi.

Young,    E.    (2012).    Global    education    shifts.    Inside    Higher    Ed.    Retrieved    from: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/07/12/china-and-india-producing-larger-share- global-college-graduates