9 sombre drawbacks in the Indian Education System

9 sombre drawbacks in the Indian Education System

 There are several facets to see what education can offer to individuals. Of course, the offerings should be lucrative to encourage learners. But there are several cracks in the structure and understanding of the broader equation of education, particularly from the educators’ side. These cracks are primarily about the wide of the mark metrics chosen to describe and decide what matters in the long run. Let us say the end goal of a 5 year old child is to become a singer. There are several obvious questions that should come to the mind of the educator.

·         How many singers are required in the country and internationally and what number of singers are applicants?

·         What are the growth opportunities of singers?

·         What are the required skill sets of a singer?

·         Which genres of songs are more commercially viable?

·        What are the gaps in skill sets of the industry requirements and the actual skill sets available?

·         Is there a different path to be followed to being a singer from the beginning?

·         What are the category-wise success paths of a singer?

·    What are the current available opportunities to build a career in singing and what are the drawbacks there?

I hope there is a lot of indistinctness among the readers right now. The relevance of these questions with the drawbacks of the Indian Education System seems to be dubious.

Simply put, the justification to the above question comes with the purpose of education. In due course, the primary goal of education is to decide, what a pupil accomplishes in life. Having set the primary objective of education, the very obviously following arguments that arise are based on preferences, capabilities, interests and orientation towards a job.

Tracing back to the questions, we see that the flow is very logical. Now let us try to figure out the cracks we were talking about, with more clarity towards the same. Unquestionably, the following 9 drawbacks need serious considerations:

1.      No focus on creativity, passion and innovation: What was the entire movie of 3 Idiots about? To follow your passion. Our education system by no means encourages that. We see more and more of Silencers produced and promoted. Nearly all Engineers in this country manage to cram through “previous years’ questions” and pass their entire 8 semesters. A painful truth about our educators is that they recompense memorizing on top of creativity. And hence, there are no Zuckerbergs or Sergey Brins creating fabulous breakthrough inventions like facebook or google.

2.      “Regulatory Policies”: It is ridiculous to note that the only “body” that controls the system of Business Schools is AICTE! There are two immediate concerns. Why should there be any governing body for education? A free market system works better, that decides the best automatically for all. The more serious concern is about the credibility of AICTE. While it no longer controls Business Schools, it does control 90% of the private Engineering colleges that bother about “affiliations” and there is no doubt about the fact that these engineering colleges produce more and more of “silencers of 3 Idiots” only. There are nascent engineering colleges who bribe the AICTE to get affiliation but neither have laboratories, nor even proper classrooms! This vicious cycle of colleges starting and shutting down overnight will keep on happening, unless the AICTE is completely shut down and the sole discretion of letting an institution run or not is purely on the consumers.

3.      Quality of the educators. Another problem is the discriminating dearth of competent people in the educational field. Brain drain, better opportunities in other sectors keep the best away from the most dignified profession of teaching. Some of the quandaries in education are: remoteness, lack of infrastructure, fervent but “scholastically scrawny” learners.

4.      Harmonized education: We are still stuck with the concept of 2 billion hands to work and not 1 billion brains to transfigure. Harmonized education is based on “equal treatment to students”. This is a grave concern. The requirements of students vary from individual to individual. These prerequisites are inevitable. But cheers to our “one size fits all” system of education.

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It should not be surprising to recall that no high schools, universities, Engineering colleges, Business Schools from India rank in the top 100 of the world. It feels really silly to talk about Takshashila or Nalanda Universities. Flaunting about history only creates complacency.

5.      Drivel Teaching Methodologies: This Dragon has a lot to enlighten to the Elephant. Give a man a fish and you feed him one day, teach him how to catch fishes and you feed him for a lifetime. This simple Chinese proverb sufficiently explains the position of our education system. In fact, we are taught the entire classification of Agnatha, Chondrichthyes, Placodermi and other fishes, but the tools of catching fish or at least the basics of fishing are never taught.

6.      Lack of basic infrastructure: While this point has more to do with Government Schools and Colleges and their constraints with the money allocated, it is important to note that efficiency in such organizations are also appallingly low. I wonder why productivity is so horrible for majority of educational institutions. There are no schemes for incentives to the teachers. Instead of cribbing about how to implement such a system, simply offer a 30% Salary hike to the responsible teacher for a threshold percentage of students performing well(obviously not on grades, but let’s say research papers, vocational activity certificates). Sounds simple right? Believe me; it is really as simple as it sounds.

7.      Incorrect Benchmarking: The Indian education system somehow manages to encourage run-of-the-mill or second-class students. Is it a challenge to the entire grading system in India? Yes, of course it is. The grading system of India is not only decrepit, but also discouraging. So much of emphasis is given to passing marks. A CBSE student needs to score simply 33-40% to pass his entire 12 years of education. Shockingly, most schools never fail students in the primary years (up to the 5^th standard). What is the learning from those entire 12-15 years? Is the student equipped to face the world? A simple solution to this benchmarking system would be relative grading. Students who perform better in terms of merit (merit involves practical understanding, implementation capabilities, sharpness and innovation). Corporate Models in the IT can work better in education. The frame of mind of incompetency has so deeply penetrated in each one of us that we are only subject to be called by adjectives like “Indian crab”. We need to encourage more entrepreneurship and free market.

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8.       Educational Myopia: At the cost of real learning. India’s education system looks at commercial gains only and students are trained to look at their monetary future. These lines are stated by the chairman of Aravind Eye Care hospitals P. NALPERUMALSAMY in an interview published in the Outlook. The apprehension is that the purpose of education and if you remember the questions we framed. The broader equation of education seems to be unclear to the educators and the visionaries. Short term gain, especially in the university level education appears to be the only emphasis. This is quite apparent in our culture and society. We are badly driven by the paltry opportunities available in select areas only. While this is partly true, ask yourself this question. Are you not driven by showing off your profession to the society?  

9.   All knowledge and no skill makes Jack a Jackass: There is a very informative article on Economic Times in the form of slides about the precise differences between skills and knowledge. The conservative Indian Education system makes it extra thorny for the students to get trained with the practicality of the boring theories taught. The reason why institutes based on skill development or employability training are earning colossal cash is because of the same reason. Some findings of a report on employability by Aspiring Minds are alarming beyond doubt:

·      47% graduates not employable in any sector of the knowledge economy

·       Education system promoting rote learning in place of actual application of concepts

·      Not more than 25% of the graduating students could apply concepts to solve a real-world problem in the domain of Finance and Accounting. On the other hand, on average, 50% graduates are able to answer definition-based/theoretical questions based on the same concept.

·  English and Computer Skills dampening smaller town employability prospects significantly

Overall, the Indian Education system needs tremendous amount of reforms. We are moving towards jeopardy unless something phenomenally ground-breaking happens. Let’s hope for a better educated India soon.