Education in India

Swami Vivekananda said “Education is manifestation of perfection already in man”. Is India the motherland of great scholars like swami Vivekananda, manifesting   its supremacy in the field of education?  India which was adobe for first great universities recorded in history is currently ranked 149^th among 180 countries in terms of Literacy rate.

Does this mean that it is impossible for India to achieve total literacy by 2022? I am confident that achieving absolute literacy in India by the time we celebrate our 75^th Independence. You might wonder that it isn’t possible even in a distant dream, but in reality it is a golden opportunity to prove all the predictions wrong.

I do have sixty three years of history backing me, to confidently say that we can overcome illiteracy in a decade from now.

India progressed steadily in three fold path, in field of literacy from mere 12% in 1947 to 68% as on 2007. This is despite low spending from the government of India in the field of education. As per Budget 2010, government’s spending is just 2.8% of our GDP. If we are able to show such a great progress with such a minimum effort, just imagine the progress which we can make if we have the entire 280 million educated and employed youth of our country work towards this literacy mission.

Let us have a look at various prime factors which are bottle necks in our Literacy mission.

Bottle Necks in our Literacy Mission:

• ·         Absenteeism of Teaching Staff: As per the study done by UNICEF, 25% of the public school teachers were absent while their survey was taken. . Among teachers who were paid to teach, absence rates ranged from 15% in Maharashtra to 71% in Bihar.
• ·         Qualification and Competency of Teaching Staff: Most of the teaching staff of Government in rural areas are under qualified and unfit for their role.
• ·         Infrastructure in schools: Very few government run schools have proper infrastructure including drinking water and toilets. As per study of National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration of 188 government-run primary schools found that 59% of the schools had no drinking water and 89% had no toilets.
• ·         School Drop outs: As per the study the enrolment rate of children in the age group 6-14 years is 84%, but the dropout rate was 34% primary level and 53% at secondary level. That means that only 13 out of 100 children who enrol in school complete their higher secondary. Poverty and unemployment in rural areas are prime reasons behind this high dropout rate.

Let us have a look at how we can overcome these bottle necks in next blog, and later let us have a look at some budding brains working towards providing primary education for neglected children in slums and rural India.