Why the Indian Education system is failing
Our Indian education system faces a lot of problems that do not let it prosper and help
other children succeed in life. The biggest problem which it has to face is the poor
grading system. It judges the intelligence of a student on the basis of academics which
is in the form of exam papers. That is very unfair to students who are good in their
overall performance but not that good at specific subjects.
Moreover, they only strive to get good marks not paying attention to understanding
what is taught. In other words, this encourages getting good marks through mugging up
and not actually grasping the concept efficiently.
Furthermore, we see how the Indian education system focuses on theory more. Only a
little percentage is given for practical purposes. This makes them run after the bookish
knowledge and not actually applying it to the real world. This practice makes them
perplexed when they go out in the real world due to a lack of practical knowledge.
Most importantly, the Indian education system does not emphasize enough the
importance of sports and arts. Students are always asked to study all the time where
they get no time for other activities like sports and arts.
The history of Indian education has its roots in the ancient ages where they followed
the Gurukul system – a system where the students resided in the house of their
teacher until the teacher felt that he had imparted all that he could. The subjects
taught varied from Sanskrit to Scriptures to Mathematics to Metaphysics and the
knowledge attained would be passed on to the future generations. However, this
system was changed during the Colonial era when the British set up schools that
followed a curriculum confined to subjects such as Mathematics, Science, etc. While
the ancient system included more interaction with nature, the modern system
was more classroom-oriented.
In 2014, India’s global education ranking slipped to 93. This, together with a series of
scams faced by the Indian education sector, calls for an immediate need to bring
reforms in our education system. Indian Education System has been synonymous
with ‘Examinations’, ‘Board Exams’, ‘Entrance Exams’, ‘Marks’, etc. A student in
India is left with the options of choosing from Science, Humanities, or Commerce
after he/she finishes his tenth grade. However, the trend shows that more and more
students are opting to go abroad for further studies after completing their post-
graduation in India. As per the statistics of The U.S. Council of Graduate Schools’
offers of admission to Indian postgraduate students, the admissions are up 25 percent for 2013-14 from the previous year, compared to a 9 percent increase for all
Countries.
Some of the reasons for this soaring number of students not opting India to pursue their further education is:
(1) Lack of top-quality programs offered by Indian colleges.
(2) Poor quality of teachers. Teaching is not considered a lucrative career option
in India. Most of them end up in this career as they couldn’t find jobs elsewhere.
(3) Outdated syllabus taught in most of the colleges.
(4) Lack of state-of-art infrastructure in the top colleges.
A typical Indian classroom is characterized by long hours of lectures by the teacher
with very little focus on the students’ ability to comprehend. However, Indian
The education system today is seeing many technology-driven innovations for students.
A smart class from Educomp is such an example. Smart class is essentially a digital
content library of curriculum-mapped, multimedia-rich, 3D content. It also enables
teachers to quickly assess how much of a particular lesson students have been able
to assimilate during the class. Once a topic is covered, the teacher gives the class a
set of questions on a large screen. Each student then answers via a personal
answering device or the smart assessment system. The teacher gets the scores right
away and based on that, she repeats parts of the lesson that the students don’t
appear to have grasped. Another example is the launch of the YouTube channel Edu
India, which is an Indian curriculum focused education channel.
Some other players in this sector who have come up with innovative ideas in changing the education system are Everonn Education, NIIT, Core Education & Technologies, IL& FS, Compucom, HCL Infosystems, Learn Next, Tata Interactive Systems, Mexus
Education, S. Chand Harcourt, and discovery.
We also see a lot more schooling options available today as a replacement to the conventional mainstream system. In his article, Vaibhav Devanathan of LaughGuru has emphasized that the high level of stress in students caused by mainstream schools has given rise to various
alternative methods of schooling in India like Montessori schools, Krishnamurti
schools, Home-Schooling, and Gardner’s Model. Future Indian Education Systems predominantly follows the system laid by the British.
Although we can boast of having the IITs, IIMs, and some of the best law and medical colleges, India’s contribution to the world of innovation is close to none.
The education system should therefore focus on churning out not just engineers, but also
entrepreneurs, artists, scientists, writers, etc. all of whom are influential in the
development of the economy.
The Indian education system with its various factors can be looked into from to main point of views the positive side and the drawbacks:
The positive side of the Indian Education system
Students go through many exams in their learning years. It teaches us to analyze
our strengths and weaknesses consistently.
Indian education system emphasizes competitive spirit. Competition teaches
students to unleash their full potential.
Indian schools teach basic knowledge in all subjects.
The annual system in school years helps slow learners.
These days a lot of positive changes are happening in the education system of India. Emphasis on practical knowledge is increased.
Drawbacks of the Indian Education system
Rote learning. Emphasis on memorizing the facts rather than thoroughly
understanding the concepts.
Completely relying on textbooks.
Giving more importance to textbooks than the teacher. There is no autonomy
for teachers.
Students have no freedom to think creatively and to question the content in
the textbooks.
Taking marks as an assessment of student’s talent, when marks can be easily
obtained by memorizing the pre-written answers from the textbooks.
Students are not being taught why they are learning particular subjects and
topics. Textbooks do not mention how the topics are relevant in practical life.
There is no incentive for teachers to encourage critical thinking in children.
Lack of infrastructure.
Most of the syllabus is in theoretical form.
The dearth of capable teachers in government schools.
Low salaries of teachers.
Pressurizing students for marks and grades. Student suicides are increasing
day by day.
Students are learning the subjects just to reach the next level, i.e obtaining
admission from the good college.
The Indian government is spending only 3% of its GDP on education.
As the Govt unable to invest enough in the education sectors, private
institutions roped in, and the result is the High cost of education.
No control of the government on the fee structure of private educational institutes.
Ethics aren’t being taught in schools. And the result of this is many educated
persons lack ethics.
Very low teacher to student ratio. As a result, teachers are not able to
concentrate on each and every child. According to the Right to Education, there
should be one teacher for every 30 students.
High prices of higher education in India. Indian Govt isn’t investing in higher
education aspirants.
Rise of coaching centers for competitive exams and private tuitions for school
children are is resulted by the poor education system, which couldn’t make
students job-ready.
Our textbooks do not mention the importance of physical activity and extracurricular activities. Most of the schools in India do not have playgrounds.
Not encouraging research and innovation.
Not teaching students about how to deal with daily life struggles.
Incentivising hyper-competitiveness rather than encouraging to co-learn.
Shortage of textbooks for govt school students.
No proper career guidance is available for students.
Most of the govt school students are unable to do basic math. This reveals the
negligence of teachers.
Not everyone has access to school. A lot of rural areas still have no schools.
And there are many single-teacher schools.
In the top 100 universities list by ‘Times Higher Education World Reputation
Rankings 2016’, none of the Indian universities could make it into the list.
Writer - Hrishita Dev
Editor - Priyam Kusundal
Graphics - Jhem Picache
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