EDUCATION SYSTEM OF INDIA

The present day education system in India has come a long way and the age old traditions have undergone a makeover to produce an ecosystem that is evolving every single day. Initiatives like the Right to Education Act have provided an impetus to growth and progress by laying special emphasis on elementary education in India. Combined with policy changes like making child labor illegal the being government is working ensure that the seeds of education are planted in both the rural and less privileged sub-urban areas of the country though there are a number of pressing challenges at hand that hamper the proliferation.

Key Challenges for the Indian Education System

Only 7% of the population that goes to school managed to graduate and only 15% of those who enroll manage to make it to high school and achieve a place in the higher education system. A few reasons why education in India is given less importance in some areas are as follows:

• 80% of schools are managed by the government. Private schools are expensive and out of reach of the poor.
• More hands to earn remains the mentality amongst many families and therefore little kids are set out to fend for the family over going to school, in the most literal sense of the word.
• Infrastructure facilities at schools across rural areas and in slums dispense very poor quality of education.
• The teachers are not well qualified and therefore not well paid and therefore are not willing to work hard enough. This has been a classical Catch-22 problem that the government has been trying hard to fight against.

While there are a number of drawbacks of the education system in India, a number of efforts are being made to create awareness and action for education in India. Efforts like the Sarva Shisksha Abhiyan aim at making education and good quality of life for today’s children possible by providing community owned school systems. Another indicator of a brighter tomorrow is the Right of Children to free and compulsory education. Large investments in the education system truly make us believe that the children of India will get off the streets and start making education their mainstay for a successful life. Like with most things we are exposed to today, there are two sides to the education system in India – both good & bad which has made it a subject of many essays and a lot many discourses.

                   

                                                                                                               -TEHZEEN MOOSA