Prof. D. Mukhopadhyay , Dr. Kamal Agarwal
Economic success of a nation is invariably the function of effectiveness of its education system. An economically advanced nation is observed to have been empowered with time-honoured education and quality of imparted education is one of the pivotal determinants of all round success of a country and this hypothesis is equally applicable to India. Whatever techno-economic progress achieved by India so far is due to adoption of modern technology driven teaching and learning trajectory of last seventy five years. However, the rate of progress is significantly low in terms of Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education participation in particular and primary and secondary education sector is not very encouraging picture.The objective of this write up is to sketch a bird’s eye view of certain challenges faced by the Indian education sector. It is a well known fact that India is tagged with the third largest education system in the world in term of quantity but barring quality. Degree of capability of result fetching workforce of a nation depends upon the quality of education imparted to the children belonging to different strata of education seeking population, say, from age group of 6 to 25 Years in general. It is a perceived notion that most of the employed Indian workforce lack proper skills and contemporary technology driven educational exposure and expertise. Most of the employed persons are from the strata of secondary school graduates which represents, by and large, 40% of the total workforce as on September, 2022. According to the available statistics, about 48% of the workforce belong to the strata of below secondary school graduates and remaining 12% of the workforce belong to the league of college graduates and postgraduates.
During September, 2022, the unemployment rate was about 7.5% when Labour Participation Rate was 39.5%. Unemployment Rate and Labour Participation Rate are linearly correlated and in simplicity, according to the empirical findings, people with lesser education contribute to much lower unemployment rate and they are also subject of low Labour Participation Rate. It is pertinent to refer the latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) which spells out that the policy makers should immediately adopt necessary measures to meet the urgent need of bringing about improvement in teaching standards, research outcomes and infrastructural facilities in order to produce skilled and contemporary knowledge imparting quality education at all levels. To be specific, only 20% of Standard Three children are observed to have been able to read the Standard Two Level children’s Text Books. Mathematical and computational ability is evidenced to be a gross dismal as only 26% of Standard Three children are found to have been able to administer a ‘two-digit’ subtraction with borrowing concept. However, private schools students’ performance is much better than that of the typical government aided and government sponsored schools. It is worth mentioning that Government of India has launched ‘NIPUN Bharat Program ‘ in 2021 in order to achieve foundational literacy and numeracy ability for Standard Three children by 2026-27 . The ASER also pointed out that girls’ participation ratio in education appears to be encouraging as the drop out rate of 16.1 % in 2016 has come down to 7.9% in 2022. Education’s foundation is triple ‘Rs’ comprising of the ability to read, write and ‘arithmetical computational ability and as far as higher education is concerned , it is all about processing data, generating information , cultivating knowledge, stimulating critical thinking and and encouraging imparting of contemporary skills relevant for socioeconomic development within a given time frame. Gross Enrollment Ratio for higher education in India lags far behind Japan, USA, United Kingdom, France, Germany,Scandinavian and Nordic Countries including China, and it is just about 26% even though India has the world’s largest number of higher education institutions with nearly one-third of these institutions are just less than a decade old . India does not have a mention-able magnitude of world-class universities and institutions of higher learning. . Only 5% of the university graduates are employable and the same figure is about 25% of the graduates in technology and management disciplines. The major challenges facing India in the higher education sector include lack of trained faculty; underfunded research facilities, inadequate libraries and ICT and information technology systems driven teaching-learning know how.
The evolutionary progress of mankind from cave-age to digital technology-age has been possible because of the catalytic role of education. Education is the enabler of causing human development in terms of cognitive, intellectual, pragmatic, rationale and reasoning. Higher education comprises of Science, medicine, engineering and technology, accountancy and management, law and governance and these disciplines contribute and play a dominating role in imparting and disseminating information, expertise, knowledge, ethical values, skills and wisdom for overall quality dominant education which eventually enhances efficiency , proficiency and and productivity of the workforce and ultimately makes a nation self reliant and self dependence in the field of research and development, creativity and innovation. In educational institutions,the subject that people select are usually on the basis of their interest and employment generation potentiality. The main objectives of education is to develop intellectual capability by which an individual secures his or her well being and contributes towards the economic development of a nation at large.
The emerging issues and challenges the Indian education system faces include low quality teaching and communication skills, shortage of quality and campus ready teachers and instructors, lack of practical and application orientation and demonstrative knowledge and skill of the instructors, continuity with out of date curricula and lack of education sectors’ integration with rapid technological development. Further, learners usually migrate to urban areas for getting enrolled in universities and higher educational institutions for which they are to bear a significant contingency of financial burden in connection with lodging and boarding cost, tuition and program fees, food and provisions books, e-resources and allied expenses. The challenges the Indian education system faces include heterogeneous education system featured with location diversity, diverse ethnicity, lack of uniformity of standard of education and research among the universities and institutions of higher learning. There are huge number of students who face financial hardships and to avert such difficulties, they take up part time occupation and jobs.
The tentative recommendations under the given scenario of uncompetitive education delivery system may emanate to bring about improvement in delivery of quality and purposive education and to make an individual equipped with most modern skills, expertise and knowledge in order to build a technology savvy knowledge society. Competition in education sector needs to be invited and competition in no way acts as a threat but an opportunity for capability attainment through capacity development. Many critiques made a hue and cry when the Indian economy was made open and liberalized from highly bureaucratic control to a market driven economic system in early 1990s and India has been competitive today and aspiring to be one of the leading global economic growth engines because of the paradigm shift from closed economic system to globalized economic system and integration of the Indian economy with the rest of the world were effected . Thus, foreign investments and participation in the Indian education sector should be welcomed and facilitated by the Government of India for establishing their set ups in India . The NEP 2020 is a positive initiative and direction for integrating the Indian education sector with the globe but its implementation needs to be accelerated. Technological and professional education need to be made hassle free accessible to the individuals keeping in view the global benchmark. To work in high-tech environment needs quality education and research skills without which it may be difficult to obtain the tag of the leading global economic power in the near targeted future.. The teachers and instructors are required to be exposed to continuing education for sharpening their education delivery and research skills. More percentage of participation of people in production and distribution system is necessary for achieving the target economic growth and it is possible only when people are motivated with requisite skills earned through appropriate training and learning . The performance of the education delivery entities needs to be made quantified and measurable and inefficiency of the teaching and academic support staff can hardly be controlled unless a scientific standard for accountability measurement is figured out and fixed. It is unacceptable to any society that only 5% of the university graduates are equipped with employ-ability skills.
Under the given situation, more and more private sector investment is a must and it is possible only when they are facilitated with incentives in terms of double taxation treaties, international tax reliefs and exemptions. In Middle East Countries, hundreds of universities are set up by the economically superior and technologically advanced countries and that is one of the enabling factors of economic development of those countries. Government of India shall definitely not remain a silent observer if any of the foreign investors and universities violate law of the land or encourage any action detrimental to the national interest. In a nut shell, education sector needs to be opened up to the potential educational entrepreneurs both at national and international levels. The Public Private Partnership( PPP ) Model is suggested for bringing about excellence in the higher education system. A society is influenced by physical, emotional, dynamic, intellectual, ethical, aesthetic and spiritual potentialities of its people and education contributes to the development of modern and innovative approaches, strategies , methods and methodologies that lead to economic advancement of a nation. It is worth mentioning that an appropriately educated person equipped with requisite skill sets is aware of how to communicate and deal with other people at home, workplace, community federations and within the community at large.. Therefore, it is the need of the hour to adopt and implement the measures that would lead to achieving improvements in academic delivery , research and developmental activities.and impart quality education . The university curricula should stress on imparting ‘ why and how’ phenomena and simply not on ‘ what’ oriented education. Education is a powerful enabler of overall intellectual growth of an individual which in turn makes his or her standard of living and living conditions better. Obtaining quality education contributes to securing economic well being for self and extending the same to socioeconomic development. Of a nation. Therefore, the policy makers and strategy formulators should immediately take up necessary step to make quality education accessible to all within a a given time frame in order to achieve the mission that India would emerge to be a global economic growth engine from the status of an emerging economy.
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