India is the world's biggest democracy, with 1.2 billion people representing around 17% of the global population. Almost 70% of Indians live in rural areas. Adult literacy rates are at 60%, with women and minorities faring much worse. In India, education is provided through government, government-aided, and private institutions, with the government accounting for about 40% of the total. With a population growth rate of 1.5%, the education system is under immense pressure to deliver quality education at a reasonable cost and to raise literacy rates. The following are the key difficulties in Indian education:
Quality:
Maintaining educational standards in over a million schools across the country, providing teacher training programmes, and maintaining a healthy balance with the global education system is a major task. Schools differ in size and finances, forcing them to make compromises in the overall development possibilities they must give to pupils.
Access:
With infrastructure limits and societal concerns, it becomes more difficult to make education available to all parts of society (women, minorities, and the poor).
Cost:
Even for those who can afford it, the expense of education is too expensive. For example, competitive pressures on kids and parents lead them to seek out private tuition and training to augment their school education.
Cultural & Social:
The ethnic variety in India makes it difficult to establish consistent schooling across the country. The country's more than 300 languages make it challenging to provide instruction suited to various socioeconomic segments. In certain countries, educating women is a major concern. Children from low-income homes are pushed to work and lose out on educational chances. Adults who are illiterate have few options for furthering their education later in life.
Now we are going to discuss the issues present in our education system
1. The Education System Encourages the Rat Race
Our educational system essentially encourages a rat race among our students. They must read and memorize the whole textbook without comprehending it. So a kid who gets 90 out of 100 and comes in first place is still a rat. Children lack the analytical skills that they must have need. It is past time to overhaul our educational system.
2. Education does not shape a child's personality.
Unfortunately, our educational system does not aid in the development of a child's identity. Remember that personality is more essential than intellectual credentials. As I previously stated, our system expects a youngster to perform well on a test in order to demonstrate his individuality. As a result, a youngster is not properly exposed to the outside world and may not be able to develop a personality. As a result, there is just another weakness in our educational system.
3. No critical thinking, simply following the rules:
Our youngsters are unable to do critical analyses of anything, including our history, culture, and religion. They follow the establishment's line or the opinions of the majority. They just cannot see things from their own point of view. If we want to make our society a lot better, we must cultivate a culture of critical thinking. We are just failing due to our educational system. Children must be taught to question our own culture as well as other accepted narratives.
4. Too Much Localism Rather Than A Global Perspective
Our schooling promotes much too much nationalism, which may instill a detrimental worldview in our children. It is healthy to love your nation, but blind love is harmful. Our schools do not provide students with a global perspective. It refers to how you consider yourself as a global citizen rather than a local or national citizen.
5. Teachers are not well-trained or efficient.
To make matters worse, our teachers lack the necessary training to teach children. They lack sufficient instruction on how to instill principles in youngsters who will shape the country's destiny. If they can be educated adequately, the government will not be able to pay their salaries. As a result, in order to strengthen our educational system, teachers must be better taught and, more significantly, better compensated.
6. The education provided is irrelevant to the job market.
This is undoubtedly the most visible failing of our educational system: students who have graduated from any field are unable to find work. It is simply because the abilities necessary in the job market do not exist in a recent graduate. For employment markets, whatever a student is taught during his or her school and college years is virtually redundant. They demand skills that are not taught in schools or universities. As a result, our educational system must be updated and structured in accordance with our economic principles. Students are not even taught how to file income tax which is a must for every person.
National Education Policy 2020 directs all government agencies (Schools, colleges, and education institutions) and nonprofit organizations to work together to revolutionize India's education system as per the 21st century's needs. So education must meet the employment needs of the country and provide job-secured employment opportunities in the market.
-Contributed by Chaitanya Bhandari, UPES
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