The whole idea of this blog is to make you walk through the overall education system and level of impact, it is making for the growth of the country. This entry is not just to blame the system, but also to introduce you to few NGOs or any organization which is working on improvising the quality of the Education System.
In ancient time, India was the land of Education, we had Takshila, Nalanda universities which was rated as one of the top universities in the whole world and basically, it used to be a hub for education.
My recent experience in understanding system, made me to think from different lines and forced me to write this blog entry. Coming from a lower middle class family, my parents have tried their best to provide access to a better education system. I'm calling this as a better education system - the major reason being the way schools function; especially Government schools, I'm down with it.
Pre-independence era or to be precise, ancient era, education in India was mainly restricted to so-called "Higher class of the society". Basically, the evolved caste system had proved to be a major threat to access to Education system. So, since 1947, Government in India is striving hard to break-through this making elementary education compulsory. This forced the Government to take necessary steps - Abolish Child labour, Mid-day meals programme and of such kind. However, shortage of resources, and poor pupil-teacher ratio has resulted the system to be PATHETIC. In a Government school in Bangalore, I was astonished by the state it is being in, I could hardly imagine the functioning of Government schools in the rural part of India. Making Elementary education compulsory has forced the Government to establish lot many primary schools. 3 teachers from pre-kg to 5th standard is what is granted. How would this run? - Worst part is teachers are trained to adapt to such situation making the system more worse. Children from different standards are made to sit together. I'm seriously surprised by seeing the level of IQ of government school students in Bangalore when compared to any private school student. It is a way beyond. Major reason I suspect being the poor level of Teacher training. A study of 188 government-run primary schools found that 59% of the schools had no drinking water and 89% had no toilets.
As a part of CSR initiative in our company, we have adapted a Government school to support mid-day meals programme run by Akshaya Patra. It is one of the major initiative of the Government to reduce the drop out rates and has resulted in reduction to a reasonable extent.
Acc to 2001 census, the total literacy rate in India is 65.38%. The female literacy rate is only 54.16%. The gap between rural and urban literacy rate is also very much significant. This is evident from the fact that only 59.4% of rural population are literate as against 80. 3% urban population.
Ultimately, you might be thinking, what is the end result of this blog - ??? Is it one more blog to blame the Government which is failing to provide quality education??? What I'm trying to figure out and what is evident from the above fact is that we need to implement ways to improvise the existing system.
Below statement from the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh reveals the massive fact that even Education system's disparity is due to politicising of the system and evident corruption in teacher appointments. - "Our university system is, in many parts, in a state of disrepair…In almost half the districts in the country, higher education enrollments are abysmally low, almost two-third of our universities and 90 per cent of our colleges are rated as below average on quality parameters… I am concerned that in many states university appointments, including that of vice-chancellors, have been politicised and have become subject to caste and communal considerations, there are complaints of favouritism and corruption."
Recent Initiative of Karnataka Government - "Nali Kali" is one initiative to improve this system. This is basically a activity-based learning system wherein all text books have been replaced by set of cards.
I recently came across idiscoveri which i suppose is one such implementation to improve the quality of education in India. XSEED (http://xseed.idiscoveri.com/) is the name of the programme which bridges teacher-student and parents-children gap.
I would suggest Government must plan more of community development programmes comprising agriculture, animal husbandry, cooperation, rural industries, rural engineering (consisting primarily of minor irrigation), health and sanitation including family welfare, family planning, women welfare, child care and nutrition, education including adult education, social education and literacy, youth welfare and community organisation. In each of these areas of development there are several programmes, schemes and activities which are additive, expanding and tapering off covering the total community, some segments, or specific target populations such as small farmers, artisans, women and in general people below the poverty line. There is a pressing need to address the life of people below poverty line and improve their quality of life by providing easy access to quality education system and such community programmes.
In India, we have large number of early literates - By this I mean, those who have gone to school at very early ages and have lost the touch of reading. Planet read(http://www.planetread.org/home.php) is one programme to improve the readability of such early literates which is based on the principle of Same Language Subtitling(SLS).
Sarva shiksha Abhiyan(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarva_Shiksha_Abhiyan) taken up by visionary - Atal Bihari Vajapayee is one another major initiative by Government to improve the literacy rate aims at -
- All in school by 2005.
- Complete 5 years of primary education by 2005 and 8 years of schooling by 2010.
- Satisfactory Quality with emphasis on education for life.
- Bridge all gender and social gaps at primary level by 2007 and elementary level by 2010.
- Universal retention by 2010.
But, I'm not sure, how much this programme is successful eventhough the framework seems to cover almost all aspects of the system. Is it the huge population alone is the root cause of all these problems??? Nope. I would take it on to politicians and bureaucrats who ultimately end up eating all the public money and fail to deliver the things. Despite all the efforts to develop the education system in India, access, equity and quality of education in India continue to haunt the policy makers till this date.
In near future or so, I would definitely look forward to build up a system wherein the quality of the education system is improved and there is improved accessibility to economically less privileged strata of the society. (Something like idiscoveri where in the system is self-sustainable) and any NGO (or any social sector organization) must not stand on donations is what I've learnt from my brother. He made me aware of this very clearly.
I enjoy studying more about this sector and will update you all on this once I get to know more. Ofcourse, knowledge is to share :)Labels: better Education system in India, child education, Indian Education System, Literacy, literacy in India