School Education -Challenges in India

India is the largest democracy with remarkable diversity among its population of 1.2 billion which makes up about 17% of the world’s population. Almost 70% of Indian population is rural. The adult literacy rate stands at about 60% and this is significantly lower in women and minorities. Education in India comprises of government, government aided and private institutions of which nearly 40% are government. With the population growth rate of 1.5%, there is tremendous pressure on the education system to provide quality education at affordable price and improve the literacy rate.

Education in India faces following primary challenges:

Innovations required

The challenge of educating millions of young people implies that we need to scale up our educational efforts multi-fold despite having the largest number of higher education institutes in the world. Scaling up is not possible unless the students become successful, create value in the society and contribute back to their better still new institutes of global standards themselves.

The curriculum of some of the colleges/universities is more or less obsolete and do not equip students with the necessary skills or impart latest knowledge. If a student passes out of a chosen course, he or she should be employable as a work force. Unfortunately, given the phenomenal share of lack of technical knowledge in the courses of education, students are found wanting in the desired skills and technical soundness. To address this issue, we may think of strengthening the vocational streams in schools/colleges. It is urged to the universities/schools/colleges to regularly revisit their curriculum by involving experts from different fields so that the curriculum can lead to knowledge development. Further, why can we not use the available infrastructure more intensely? For instance, why cannot a second stream of courses, say vocational, be run in the evening/night so that the available /created infrastructure is better utilized.

Ethics in Education

As education has to be made affordable to all deserving and poor students, there is a strong need for educational institutions not to over-commercialize education but to uphold ethics in the business of education as well. It is not anyone’s case that the business has to be run unprofitably but the business must be carried out with ethical values for sustenance of educational institutions. Over exploitation should be avoided. Profit cannot be the sole motive for undertaking this business. It must be driven by an unflinching commitment to society which in turn will benefit the business in the long run.

Teachers are the most important factors for any innovative society because teachers’ knowledge and skills not only enhance quality and efficacy of education, but also improve the potential for research and innovation. Given the higher level of GER to be achieved by 2020, a large number of teachers would be required to educate the growing young population. Maybe, students could be used as teachers, especially good students coming from lower income groups so that they can be partly be compensated. Further, barring some leading schools/universities/autonomous educational institutions, many of the teachers of colleges/universities need to hone their skills/talent. There is a need to encourage teachers to participate by presenting research papers in seminars/workshops/conferences and receive periodic trainings for updation of knowledge/skills. It is equally important that a feedback mechanism from students is introduced in universities/colleges to assess and evaluate teachers’ role in the institutional developmental process.

Quality of education

Given that we need to compete globally in the 21st century, our education system should adopt certain benchmarking techniques for improving instruction models and administrative procedures in universities/colleges to move forward. It is suggested that we need a thorough study and evaluation of models implemented elsewhere and work out strategies to adopt such models in our system. Benchmarking in my opinion would provide benefits to our education system in terms of reengineering, setting right objectives, etc.

The country is showing consistency in economic growth pattern, leading the world in terms of information and technology, modernization various economic activities and pushing for higher share of industries and services sectors of the economy but there is one area which needs reform is “education system”. While it is true that some investments are taking place in the country’s higher education system, we are yet to establish world class research facilities, recruiting profound academicians in universities/colleges/research institutions, etc.

Therefore, it is imperative that our educational institutions are equipped with the desired quality and standards which are essentials for transforming the younger workforce into productive ones. Needless to reiterate that in the higher education system focus on use of technology for effective learning by students also need to be encouraged to have cutting edge over our competitors .

Making education affordable

In India, if education has to reach all deserving students, it should be made affordable. The fee structure in Government owned/sponsored institutions is inexpensive in India. However, in some private sector institutions, which have the freedom to prescribe fee structure and despite broad guidelines from certain state governments, fees are beyond the capacity of poor and deserving students. Ideally, the fee structure should vary for such economically weaker students. It is urged to the educators to keep in mind that education should not become prohibitively expensive and ensure that no deserving candidate is denied admission just for the fact that he or she does not possess the necessary financial resources.

Quality

Maintaining standard of education in more than a million schools nationwide, offering training programs to teachers, and keeping good balance with education system worldwide is a big challenge. Schools vary in size and resources and are forced compromise in the all round development opportunities they must provide to students.

Access

Having infrastructural constraints and social issues, it becomes harder to make education accessible to all segments of the society (women, minorities, poor).

Cost

The cost of education is very high even for the people and places where it is accessible. E.g. the competitive pressure on students & parents forces them to opt for private tuitions & trainings to supplement the school education.

Social & Cultural

The ethnic diversity in India poses challenges to implement consistent education nationwide. There are more than 300 languages spoken in the country and makes it difficult to offer education tailored to specific social segment. Educating women in some societies is a big issue. Children of poor families are forced to work and miss out the learning opportunities. Illiterate adults have very limited opportunities to get educated at later age in their live

The main issues and challenges of contemporary Indian education are as follow. The fore most issue is the unsatisfaction of youth. Teachers are unable to satisfy the youth by their knowledge and methods of teaching their knowledge level and education system is not providing the satisfaction and due to this the youth stands against the teachers and system.

Another reason is discipline in schools and colleges. This reason is given of our so called leaders and social contractors. Who instigates the youth time to time for their own benefits.

There is the issue of  problem of unemployment. Some of our educators think that now this problem is an issue for education system but when a youth looks his or her brother or sister unemployed even after getting bachelor or post graduate degree , they are unemployed, this give the birth to a revolt.

Our education is  not for knowledge our education guides students to get good marks not to get knowledge our teachers emphasis on the marks or how they will complete their syllabus not on providing new knowledge to students. Next should come the policy of state and central government about the education. Education is a subject on which state band central government both can make rules and regulation, in some matters state government says that it is the work of central government and central government says it is the work of state government and between these two authorities our education suffers.

Poverty can be next issue or a challenge to which our education system is facing. Nowadays the cost of getting education is very high so poor of our society find themselves lost in getting education.

Political unwillingness is also a great challenge for our education system. Politicians think that they got five years to fulfill their wishes. Matters of education are just kept in pending.

Casteism creates a wall between lower class and upper class. Once I was in another college there I saw a teacher taking fee from the students (you will say what is surprising in this in most of the schools teacher takes fee from the students). But when a student came to give fee, the teacher asked to put the amount on the table. That boy put the amount on the table and went. When I asked about the matter, the teacher replied I was busy in some other work so I could not take the amount in hand. But reality was different, that boy belonged to SC category and that was untouchable for the teacher… This happens in our schools and in colleges.

Dearness is another challenge for the education system. Fee of colleges and schools is rising day by day with public schools raising their fee structure in every session but the wages of laborer is not increasing at the same speed. So poor people find themselves unable in admitting their children in those schools. And government schools do not compete with the public schools or CBSE schools.

The next challenge is our corruption which has become the right of all government officers and whole system. In many schools it is found that the fund which was sending to the school disappeared on the way.

Privatization of education is great issue. Some learned people say that government officials take higher salaries but not work according to that. But in private institutes teachers remains in very critical conditions which is not good for the education system.

Next issue can be the issue of unawareness of teachers about the methods and techniques of teaching. Even they are not interested in these. Teaching is the profession in which a teacher needs to polish his /her knowledge day by day. And because it is the profession daily updating of methods and techniques is compulsory. I think this is the demand of the profession but our teachers are so rigid that they don’t want to change themselves.

Next can be according to me, the issue of character of teachers. Our teacher’s character is going downwards. A teacher is the only person who can change the direction of the society. He is the person who is the center point of any education system. This influences much our society than any other part of the society. This effects much our education than all the above points. But nowadays news in different form can be read in newspapers that a teacher kidnapped his /her students or a teacher raped his student. And due to this many students left their schooling on the mid way.

All these issues and challenges did not rise in a day they took a long period. If we look back in time, ancient time India was on the top in education and knowledge. This was the country in which students used to come from all over the world to acquire the knowledge and education. No country of the world was even near to it. Then what happened to our great country?

Private college owners sell the degrees and marks on high rates or bids. This happened due to the mentality of college owners because most of the college owners came in this field belong to the business families or people who had some useless land and little money to invest, they came in this sector due to high profit and not to serve the society, which is natural. Then how we can think that those people will serve the country and society, because such people think treats with school as a factory, principals/HOD as a managers and teachers as workers.