Does Indian Education System Need a Complete Overhaul : Disrupting Education By Policy And Technology!

Education sector of India needs radical changes as the current scenario is not enthusiastic to meet demand of growing population of the country. While in developed nations, people move on sabbatical leaves to upgrade their knowledge base, to enhance their capabilities, to augment their employment prospects; our Supreme Court has to intervene to decide for admissions into nursery classes in private schools of Delhi.

We are made to believe that taxes we are paying are necessary for government to build schools, hospitals, roads and to administer justice to its citizens and to protect nation from enemy’s intentions to encroach upon its soil, peace & harmony. Schools & colleges are the foremost need of any nation to build society & infrastructures. Education gives power to its recipients to think & generate prospects in various sectors to develop employment opportunities.

Narender Modi, as PM of India, said that he would like to skill people so that they can earn sufficient enough to eliminate all kind of subsidy & grants, for development of country. He understands well the vicious cycle of strengthening of education system of country.

Where the problem is when prime minister himself is promoting thought of reinforcing education sector? Is there any financial constraint? Do we have shortage of teachers? Whether Policy on education & skilling itself is refraining country to achieve its objective? Let’s discuss the issues and find a workable solution which can be implemented in time bound manner.

List-3 i.e. the concurrent list of the Constitution of India includes the subject “Education, including the technical education” whereas List 1 i.e. the Union list contains institution of paramount importance and matter related to technical education. When eighteen states are governed by BJP there is absolutely no chance that will of Prime Minister Modi could be delayed or wished away to be implemented. If it’s not done, the only reason could be lack of coordination between ministers and officers of various states & Union government. The onus is upon Prakash Javedkar, Union HRD Minister to push reforms & policies through its Secretary & officers among all the states.

The technology has yielded wonderful results in healthcare and banking, finance & insurance industry by providing solution to masses at their doorstep and at affordable prices. People even in villages have adopted technologies with smart mobiles to avail services which are now at almost 10-20% cost. With technology, need to build physical infrastructure has gone away. This could have been possible with tweaking of policies in the sectors.

Literacy and Education

There are few policy steps which must be taken by Union Ministry of HRD to make India educated & skilled and not only literate as exhibited in degrees disbursed by universities & colleges upon completion of examination by students. Education need to be learning based & not dependent upon attendants in classes at schools. Children with bags of 50% of their weight are developing more of ailments than mind. Thought processes of students need to be fermented by education, queries of mind need to be settled with answers, to make strong right side of mind by judging their capabilities. Albert Einstein said “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

Competitive Exams Vs Mandatory Qualification

We need to develop alternative thinking in education sector for rechristening policies. Do we really need class room studies in big school establishments? If Kota can provide alternative study centres for lakhs of students preparing for engineering, medical & other professional courses, why they need to block seats in CBSE/ state board affiliated schools where wrong practices are adopted to provide 75% attendances for appearing board exams. If they are able to crack professional course exams without going to school, they are able to pass board exams too. Why these study centres can’t be given accreditation to qualify for board exams which will reduce cost to parents as well as free up seats for many other students.

Remote Teaching Technology

In present system of schooling, courses are same for all students’ up to class 10th and limited variations for class 11 & 12th. Using technology, remote teachings can be made possible for students and providing opportunity for them to study atleast 2 subjects of their choice right from class 6th in line with their career prospects in future. One should not whisked away this proposal stating a student of class 6th does not know preferences and not aware of risk of choices as this is applicable for a student who has chosen IIT today as career prospects. Chetan Bhagat & Kumar Vishwas may be taken as an example for this among thousands successful personalities who have chosen a different field as career. In fact, now a days, it has become almost mandatory, to pursue alternative courses, by even most successful people after 10-15 years of their working in one industry.

There is an urgent need to spread choices to students by acknowledging various skill requirements of industry & society, as once said by Modi in 2013 at Delhi University during election campaign. According to him, he got prepared a list, in 2012, of 1200 skill sets needed by society & industry. We must not forget we are a country of 125 Crore people and even crowd management at dinner counters at family marriage functions is a missing skill sets leading to disappointments of guests including those whose fancy party wear clothes become victim of curry in someone else’s plate.

Lack of Teaching Staff and Lakhs of Skilled Unemployed People

Yes there is scarcity of qualified teachers in country but at same time there is no utilization of lakhs of skilled people. Why CSR points can’t be rewarded to people in corporates & in government jobs who commit their times to impart education & skills to students, with such performance be acknowledged in terms of certificates to both such part-time trainers and to students. Lakhs of educated females are at home forced to spoil their knowledge as they have to look after their infants. Why can’t they be allowed to impart trainings & education at centres having shortage of teachers? We are a society where old people after retirement are living in distress & alone who could be utilized in much more productive ways to supervise projects on health, education & skill India. Even we need to imbibe civic senses & adhering to law of land for which students from colleges need to be taken on board by providing opportunities on small government / corporate aided projects for upliftment of society. We would get resources at low cost at one hand to educate our future & make life of such housewives & retired people full of enjoyment.

FDI in Education

We need to open doors to foreign money in education sector to upgrade existing institutions and to bring technology to prevent foreign exchange spend by lacs of students going abroad for quality education. As per a rough estimate, India need around US $ 100 Billion to upgrade primary education and approximately another US $ 100 Billion to enhance secondary education.

Clearly as a country India has no means to fund such a big amount and need to be dependent upon financial models to arrange money to rejuvenate education system of country. We need to reduce travel time of students either by bringing school to remotest villages / small colonies or to construct schools with hostels; the choice would be in favour of earlier proposal.

In conclusion policy change is imperative in terms of accrediting coaching centres, to done away attendance for examinations, to improve upon examination process to test learning & creativity instead of remembering of content of subjects, to provide multiple choices of subjects right from class 6th , to make mandatory utilization of services of educated housewives & retired people on projects, to provide On-The-Job training to students of colleges by deploying them on minor society related projects, using technologies in the field of education including Virtual Class Rooms & “Lecture Studios”. Corporates & FDI must be attracted by providing concessions and inspector raj need to be removed from education sector by establishing a regulatory authority both at Central Level and at state levels. We have many problems in the sector but change of policies can provide billions of opportunities using disruptive technologies.