Prof Suresh Chander
suresh.chander@gmail.com
The present education system in India-and in many developing countries-has become a matter of serious concern. Education was once meant to unite society, reduce inequality, and open doors across class and circumstance. Today, it is increasingly doing the opposite: deepening divisions, burdening families, and creating stress rather than capability.
A global comparison brings the problem into sharp focus. Even families considered rich by Indian standards often cannot afford to send their children to private schools in the United States. Private education there is an elite choice, not a norm. Yet American children are not deprived of quality education. The reason is simple and instructive: government-run public schools are free and functional.
There is no tuition fee. Textbooks and learning materials are provided. Midday meals ensure that hunger does not interfere with learning. Uniforms are not compulsory, sparing parents needless expense. There are no recurring “donations” or hidden charges. In many states, students are provided laptops or tablets, recognising that digital access is no longer a luxury but a necessity.
In India, the situation is reversed. Government schools exist, but decades of neglect-real and perceived-have eroded public trust. Parents, regardless of affordability, feel compelled to send their children to private schools. Education has quietly become one of the largest household expenses, often exceeding healthcare. Tuition fees, uniforms, transport, textbooks, coaching classes, and informal payments together place families under constant financial strain.
What is often missed in this debate is not merely the economic cost of education, but its social cost.
There was a time-within living memory-when there were no private schools. Everyone studied in the same government schools. Children from different economic and social backgrounds shared the same classrooms, the same teachers, the same playgrounds. Schools were not perfect, but they were sincere. Teachers, by and large, were dedicated and respected.
From those common schools emerged the entire spectrum of society. Some students went on to become Supreme Court judges, doctors, engineers, professors, and theatre personalities. Others became wall painters, cinema hall gatekeepers, small grocery shopkeepers, and skilled workers. All were dignified roles. All were essential to society. All traced their beginnings to the same public education system.
Such social mixing is unthinkable today.
Schooling itself now segregates children at the age of five. Educational institutions have become markers of income, language, and social status. Children grow up in parallel worlds, rarely interacting with those outside their economic bracket. Education no longer reflects society; it fragments it.
This fragmentation has consequences beyond classrooms. Instead of producing confident, capable citizens, the system increasingly produces credentialed anxiety. Rote learning, exam obsession, and a flourishing coaching industry dominate the landscape. Critical thinking, creativity, craftsmanship, and ethical grounding are pushed to the margins. Students are trained to compete relentlessly, but not to understand society or contribute meaningfully to it.
Teachers, too, suffer. Many are reduced to syllabus-deliverers rather than mentors. Their professional autonomy and social respect have declined. Schools chase rankings, boards chase results, and learning itself becomes secondary.
From a broader policy perspective, the consequences are worrying. Rising inequality, mental health stress among students, financial insecurity for middle-class families, and graduates with degrees but limited real-world skills are all symptoms of a deeper malaise. Education, instead of solving social problems, is adding new ones.
Strong public education systems are not acts of charity. They are investments in national stability. Countries that understand this treat government schools as foundational institutions. Those that abandon them turn education into a marketplace-and pay the price in social division.
The lesson from experience is unmistakable. When education was common, society was cohesive. When schools were shared, outcomes were diverse but dignified. When learning was public, opportunity was equal, even if achievement varied.
The question before us is not whether private schools should exist. It is whether public education should be allowed to decay. A developing country that makes education unaffordable is not building its future-it is mortgaging it.
Unless India decisively restores faith in its government schools, restrains the unchecked commercialisation of education, and reclaims learning as a public good, education will continue to create more problems than it solves.
For a nation aspiring to social harmony and economic strength, that is a risk we can no longer afford.
(The author is former Head of Computer Engineering Department in G B Pant University of Agriculture & Technology)
Follow our WhatsApp channel
