Schedule for the young Indians

We have heard enough about Indian institutes not considered in top ranking and related news in the recent time. What could be the reason for Indian education system to lag behind? Read on to find out...

Infrastructure is the most challenging issue that the education system in India is facing currently. According to statistics, Indian population will be filled with young people within a decade, compared to other big economies. The average age in India will be 29 in comparison with 37 in US and China. West Europe with 45 and Japan with 48. So by the looks of it there will be about 40-45 million students who will be college-ready by 2020. Another 1000 universities and 50,000 more colleges will be needed to accommodate these students as per the estimates by government.

Before we discuss about the colleges, let's have a look at the schools of India. We do not have enough number of schools to educate all of the students out there! A statistic suggests that another 200,000 more schools are needed for India. Going further, the existing schools lack facilities. This appears like The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) which was released by the NGO Pratham.

Teaching quality, and teacher's quality, curriculum, infrastructure and legislation delay are other hindrances in education system in India. What seems difficult to achieve is the 30% gross enrolment ratio by the year 2020 and having 500 million skilled people by 2020, as set by the government as goals.

Both private players and government must put in their efforts, working together to overcome these obstacles.

Funding:
GPD of 3-4% is what the government spends on education and this must be increased to 6%. Funding from private parties must come along as well.
2% out of the average net profit for the past 3 years must be invested by the companies of a specific size. Donations from benefactors like Azim Premji , Bill Gates and Shiv Nadar have been received , but that will not end the mountain of demands ahead.

Law:
Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill 2010, which was introduced 3 years ago, is still waiting for approval. Annually a sum of 95,000 crore is spent abroad by more than 600,000 students from India as per an Assocham study. If the bill is approved, then students here can receive quality education for lesser amount. The issues in higher education regarding the quality and quantity can be overcome with the foreign education providers entering India.
To take action against private institutions that tax the fee or cheat the students, The Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Technical, Medical Educational Institutions and Universities Bill are some of the bills that can make the education system fair. Things would look better if the important bills regarding education are approved without delays.

Tech-aid:
Some of the best technical minds are given to the world from India, however, we still lag behind when it comes to using the technology for education.
Initiatives from government like, National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) to give broadband to more than 200,00 gram panchayats, Akash tablets, education portals such as Sakshat, to provided learning needs to over 500 million through National Mission in Education through Information and Communication Technology's proposed scheme are all in their budding state.
Usage of technology can change the way Indian education system works. It can have positive effects, like learning opportunity to students at affordable price.

Vocational and skill education:
500 million people are to be skilled by 2020 as per government's target, considering the fact that only 2% of the workforce have had vocational education, this is a hard thing to achieve. To achieve this target, about 18 ministries and National Skill Development Corporation have been assigned. Image crisis is suffered by Vocational education, for which the government has to create awareness through programmes etc. STAR scheme has been introduced by the government to lure skill education.

Observe the results:
Although the government has initiated several schemes and programmes with considerable capital, it lacks in observing the mechanisms. There has been no success in terms expected to the Right to Education Act, because of the lack of observation of the outcome. The budgets are often misused or not used by the institutions or administrators, which go unnoticed due to lack of observation. An audit that is regular in nature, for the programmes and schemes developed by the government can lead to a success story.