Education system of India - A picture of contradictions.
The landmark passing of the Right to Free And Compulsory Education to Children Act 2009, to provide free education to children between age group 6-14 is a historic moment for the children of India.
India’s education system has made a significant progress over the last few decades, if we go by stats, in the last five years India has seen an unprecedented increase of about 13.7 percent in the primary school enrollment. This is even better in case of girls, as the increase has been measured to about 19.8 percent.
It is to be noted that there were an estimated 8 million 6-14 year age old in India, out of school till 2009. Even with our commendable efforts, 1 out of 4 children left school before reaching grade 5 and almost half before reaching grade 8. Here are some prominent issues associated with the Indian education system :
Though the number of out of school children has declined considerably from 25 million in 2003 to 7.8 million in 2010, the the percentage of children out of school in populated states like U.P., W. Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, remains a major cause of concern.
Children in India have the right to have at least one qualified and trained teacher for every 30 pupil but the current average stands quite different to it that is 1 teacher for 35 pupil, moreover in states like Jharkhand, M.P., W. Bengal, 1 teacher works with more than 60 students.That means approximately about 1.2 million teachers are still required to fill this gap.
One of the biggest problem the education system encounters is that 1 out of every 5 primary teachers do not have minimum required academic qualification. Flabbergasting !!
Drinking Water and Sanitation : At an average of 84 out of 100 school in India have drinking water facilities. But nearly half of the total school in North East, as in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya do not have. Also its worth noticing that at an average of only 65 out of 100 schools have got common toilet facilities.
Thus analyzing critically we come to know that the low quality of infrastructure, number of teachers, quality of teaching (inadequate pedagogic attention.) and quantity of schools are some blocks that are still not well placed in the walls.Here we need changes in both quality of education system and also in the quantity of it, thus the things those require acute attention are : availability of schools to children which is directly related to the access of education.
Another point that requires attention to ponder up on is the the ability of government schools to fetch good teachers, as the teachers do not show any considerable interest to join government school as the salaries are comparatively lesser to those of private.
Availability of resources is another thing that become primitive when we talk about government schools. the common picture is, though the government schools have an comprehensive and inclusive study syllabus on paper but in reality the the situation is nothing but ultimate paradox. for example, government schools do have computer studies in their syllabus but their is no computer to be seen in the school premises.
Considering all these factors it has become essential for government to take the initiative of training more than 1 million new teachers. My opinion says that families and communities have a large role to playto ensure child friendly education, investing in pre-school, reduction in gender disparity by motivating girl education are some of the steps that can provide boost to education condition in country.
I would like to sum up by adding the note that India’s past achievements in education indicates that its is possible to reach the goals set forth by RTE the quench is of taking a cooperative and progressive approach.
-Gaurav Saini
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