|
Education is the backbone of national development; it is widely accepted as an
instrument of social change (Education Commission, 1968); education is also seen
as the best defense of a nation (Nigerian Minister of Education stated during
the E-9 Summit in New Delhi in 1993). Taking the centre stage of any development
effort, education is a major indicator of human development. Today, education is
not merely basic education (of five or eight years) for all; in the developed
world, the common minimum education is defined either as 10 or 12 years of
schooling.
India faces challenges of education at various levels, namely, adult and
continuing education, school education, higher and professional education, which
are further bound by regional rural-urban and gender disparities. At the same
time the challenge is two-fold - that of numbers and of quality. Indeed, the
challenge is meaningfully educating a one billion strong nation on a continuing
basis. India hosts the single largest illiterate population in the world. According to
Census 2001, there are 302 million Indians above the age of six years who are
illiterate. Female illiteracy is as high as 45.8% and rural illiteracy is about
43%.
Article 45 of our Constitution ensures that "the state shall endeavor
to
provide for free and compulsory education for all children until they complete
the age of fourteen years". Yet the fact remains that 36.75 million children in
the age group 11-14 are out of school and the dropout rate at the primary level
is as high 54.5%.
In case of secondary education, by the end of the Tenth Five Year Plan there
will be an addition of about 6.9 million students at the secondary and senior
secondary level, which in turn will require an additional 0.13 million new
teachers and about 34, 500 new school units. The number of students enrolled in
higher education in 1999-200 were 70.8 lakhs and the number of teachers were
3.31 lakh. But the enrolment is very high in under graduate programmes and
abysmally low in post-graduate progammes. Further, faculty wise analysis of
enrollment indicates high percentage of enrolment in arts programme, followed
immediately by commerce and then science. Studies also indicate that the rate of
participation in higher education is only 6% of the eligible children in India
as compared to 50 % in developed countries.
While the sheer expansion in numbers itself poses challenges to quality of
education, massive expansion in knowledge and information base is leading to
rapidly changing needs and demands. Irrespective of the level at which they
teach, all teachers need to be fully equipped with rigorous intellectual and
other qualities to understand and value their own culture and help learners to
view various events happening around them. But the fact is that there is a
shortage of qualified teachers at all levels. At the primary levels most of the
teachers are educated only upto the secondary level, while at the secondary
level almost 66% of the teachers are themselves educated only upto higher
secondary. Teacher training is a vital quality concern and an estimated 4.6
million school teachers need training on a regular basis. The non-availability
of qualified teachers has also affected the performance of students and failure
rates are very high in subjects of Mathematics, Science and English.
High quality education also faces other constraints like dearth of latest
scientific equipment, up to date libraries, and research facilities. There is a
non-availability of latest information, studies, data, pedagogical techniques as
well as inability to interact with peers professionals and experts. Privatisation too has posed academic and quality questions.
|
|
