GS Paper II

News Excerpt:

Pradip Saha’s recently released book “The Learning Trap” talks about the limitations of technology to set the broken system right.

Status of Education system in India:

• India’s public sector accounts for about 15 lakh schools, an estimated 95 lakh teachers and about 26.5 crore enrolled children.
• Quality varies with the type of school, catering to different income segments.
• The kendriya vidyalayas and some other government-managed schools, government schools, once preferred by the elites, are attended by the poor because education is free.
• In private schools catering to the rich, school fees can range from Rs 50,000 to one lakh a month.
• Another category is the missionary schools, aided schools that get some government grants, and private schools catering to the lower and upper middle classes where fees vary between Rs 2,000-40,000 per month.
• Notwithstanding the fees, the quality of teaching is, by and large, poor in all categories.
• According to Economic Survey 2022-23, total education outlay, including both national and state level expenditure, added up to 2.9% of the country's 2022 GDP – a proportion that has remained constant for the last four years.
• As per the Education 2030 Framework for Action, countries are expected to spend at least 6% of their GDPs on education.

Technology vs Education:

• Technological fundamentalism driven more by the markets than student needs has resulted in curriculum revisions without the advice of experts.
• Such revisions do not recognise that much goes into the process of learning i.e. fostering a hunger for knowledge and imbibing values of hard work and diligence for internalising lessons.
• This is an intense process which requires guidance. And all this is most vital at younger ages when habits set in and students do not have the capacity to self learn.
• For example, China banned the use of edutech for Classes I-VI, it hasn’t deviated from approved school curricula to adopt remote teaching.
• India on the other hand in the process of adopting remote teaching, has deviated from approved school curricula. Instead, loans and subsidies are being given for “technological innovations.”
• The technology and apps have their limitations, without good teachers, they cannot guarantee outcomes.

Commercialisation of Education:

• Tuition industry is reportedly valued at over Rs 58 billion and is expected to double by 2028.
• Parents have been paying crores to this parallel education system.
• Tuition centres have emerged as a result of a government policy that has consistently devalued high school examinations by making national exams the only gateway to professional careers.
• The industry consists of two categories -
• one focusing on cracking the UPSC and entrance exams for IIT, NEET and IIM and
• fees are as high as Rs 1,000 per subject per hour,
• second providing instruction to school children, something that schools ought to have provided in the first place.
• fees could range from Rs 10-40,000 per month depending on the quality of the teacher and the paying capacity of parents.

Challenges faced by the present education system:

• The education sector is in a state of crisis — in part due to reckless commercialisation and politicisation.
• Poorly trained and often poorly paid teachers are responsible for the poor quality of teaching resulting in the mushrooming of tuition centers and the use of apps.
• The divide between the “well-educated” (by and large from the already educated rich aspirational families) and the “less educated” (either first-generation learners or from modest backgrounds) is widening.
• The second category of students keeps on growing — they are struggling to cope with a failed system.
• The government focuses on tinkering with teaching and learning materials devoid of any innovative thinking.
• According to the ASER Report 2023, a Class V student can read only a Class II text and is unable to construct a grammatically correct sentence in any language or that 79% of the students of that class cannot do a simple division.
• There is very little monitoring with the government preoccupied with running its own schools.
• Increasing tendency among parents to prefer tuition centres to regular schools.
• Even as reputed schools are facing prospects of ghost classes in Grades XI and XII, the unregulated, unsupervised tuition centres function from morning to evening.
• Pressure of success and humiliation of failures are resulting in stress-induced suicides and mental health problems.

Way forward:

• The education system must be rebuilt with a step-by-step strategy and a national consensus that commits to insulate it from narrow political considerations.
• This requires not falling into the temptation to seek easy solutions — for instance, technology as a substitute for solid investments that are required to provide “decent” education.
• For this, governments have to double the budget on education and its expenditure.
• Education urgently needs to be a priority in terms of political attention and fiscal resources.
• Making education the business of society and not government alone. This could involve reducing governmentalism even as the state focuses on adherence to standards and outcomes.
• Social participation can be widened to include the energy and skill base of our senior citizens, engage civil society and seek out volunteerism, instead of profiteers.
• Ways can be found to make cash doles to women conditional to the school performance of children.
• Teachers (many of them with salaries three times that paid in private schools) could be made accountable for results.
• At the root of this change is the understanding that no growth or development is possible without educated people and a skilled workforce.

Mains PYQ

Q. How have digital initiatives in India contributed to the functioning of the education system in the country? Elaborate your answer (UPSC 2020)