Education in India- A pity indeed

50% of India still illiterate

Villages in India yet to see the light of literacy

India lacks an efficient education system

These headlines make you wonder whether it is the same India which was the hub of knowledge and education having Nalanda and Takshila universities a thousand years back?
And even in places where there is a respectable rate of literacy, there is unemployment.

All these should prompt us to ask ourselves a very important question – Is true education in India a reality? If yes, then why are we still unable to provide employment to the thousands of literate men and women?
Lets start from the primary level and move upwards to find an answer to this question.

Primary education- is supposedly “free” and “compulsory” in all villages, towns and cities. There are schemes like mid-day meals, free school uniforms and free textbooks in place to allure people to send their kids to school. Then why is the high rate of illiteracy still there? Why did this model fail? It failed because of the greed of that teacher who sold off the uniforms and textbooks to earn an extra buck! It failed because of the greed of that Babu who ate the teacher’s salary! It is imperative that those with early childhood education degrees understand how important it is to fix this system.

Moving on to secondary and higher secondary level, the Indian education system again fared badly. This time the fault is of the content- content which teaches how to pass exams and score more marks. It does NOT serve any practical purpose. It does not help that child in the village in getting employment. It does not help that poor man in finding a respectable earning. So, either children leave school, or go on mugging up things without understanding even a single word.

Ok, so.. we somehow survived the school. Now the big step- COLLEGE! Well, getting into a reputed college in India is as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack. And then surviving in college is another story of course! For example, for 10 lakh people who give the AIEEE exam each year, there are only about a lakh seats available. The reason for this disparity is given as the lack of funds and space for building first-rate educational institutions. But we Indians would rather build a mall that has no shoppers than build a university which will provide us with the future of our country.

Even college education is sparsely knowledge oriented. You mug up, study hard, get a job, end of story. No concept of knowledge or learning involved. You have to study everything. If you like it, understand it, good! If not, mug it up! Wow!

So we can finally decipher why India, the “Hub of Knowledge” plummeted to India, the “Centre of Illiteracy” in a matter of a couple of centuries.

In the end, I have a fervent plea. TO ALL THOSE WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

We need a serious revamp in our education system. We need to encourage new thinking, innovation, the power of ideas. We also need to ensure the proper execution of all those schemes meant for our benefit.

We NEED to seriously discourage mugging up. Children should be told to think in an inventive way, to let their thoughts fly. Teachers need to understand the importance of free thinking. Further, politicians HAVE to learn to rise above their petty greed and listen to their conscience and stop eating up funds meant for the education of children! Above all, we need to understand the importance of education as it is an essential, rather, THE ONLY way to secure a bright future for our nation.

Setting our priorities this way is the only path to salvaging our pride and becoming the “Knowledge Capital of the World”. So, let us all pledge to be the agents of change and bring about a revolution for the sake of our country and the future generations. Are you game for it?

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• women education in india
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• higher education in india
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• literacy in india
• education india

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