current education system essay

Essay on Indian Education System for Students and Children

500+ words essay on indian education system for students and children.

The Indian education system is quite an old education system that still exists. It has produced so many genius minds that are making India proud all over the world. However, while it is one of the oldest systems, it is still not that developed when compared to others, which are in fact newer. This is so as the other countries have gone through growth and advancement, but the Indian education system is still stuck in old age. It faces a lot of problems that need to be sorted to let it reach its full potential.

Problems with Indian Education System

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. 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 lack of practical knowledge.

Most importantly, the Indian education system does not emphasize enough on 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.

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How Can We Improve Indian Education System?

As the Indian Education System is facing so many problems, we need to come up with effective solutions so it improves and creates a brighter future for students . We can start by focusing on the skill development of the students. The schools and colleges must not only focus on the ranks and grades but on the analytical and creative skills of children.

In addition, subjects must not be merely taught theoretically but with practical. This will help in a better understanding of the subject without them having to mug up the whole thing due to lack of practical knowledge. Also, the syllabus must be updated with the changing times and not follow the old age pattern.

Other than that, the government and private colleges must now increase the payroll of teachers. As they clearly deserve more than what they offer. To save money, the schools hire teachers who are not qualified enough. This creates a very bad classroom environment and learning. They must be hired if they are fit for the job and not because they are working at a lesser salary.

In conclusion, the Indian education system must change for the better. It must give the students equal opportunities to shine better in the future. We need to let go of the old and traditional ways and enhance the teaching standards so our youth can get create a better world.

FAQs on Indian Education System

Q.1 What problems does the Indian Education System face?

A.1 Indian education is very old and outdated. It judges students on the basis of marks and grades ignoring the overall performance of the student. It focuses on academics side-lining arts and sports.

Q.2 How can we improve the Indian education system?

A.2 The colleges and schools must hire well and qualified teachers. They must help students to understand the concept instead of merely mugging up the whole subject.

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The turning point: Why we must transform education now

Global warming. Accelerated digital revolution. Growing inequalities. Democratic backsliding. Loss of biodiversity. Devastating pandemics. And the list goes on. These are just some of the most pressing challenges that we are facing today in our interconnected world.

The diagnosis is clear: Our current global education system is failing to address these alarming challenges and provide quality learning for everyone throughout life. We know that education today is not fulfilling its promise to help us shape peaceful, just, and sustainable societies. These findings were detailed in UNESCO’s Futures of Education Report in November 2021 which called for a new social contract for education.

That is why it has never been more crucial to reimagine the way we learn, what we learn and how we learn. The turning point is now. It’s time to transform education. How do we make that happen?

Here’s what you need to know. 

Why do we need to transform education?

The current state of the world calls for a major transformation in education to repair past injustices and enhance our capacity to act together for a more sustainable and just future. We must ensure the right to lifelong learning by providing all learners - of all ages in all contexts - the knowledge and skills they need to realize their full potential and live with dignity. Education can no longer be limited to a single period of one’s lifetime. Everyone, starting with the most marginalized and disadvantaged in our societies, must be entitled to learning opportunities throughout life both for employment and personal agency. A new social contract for education must unite us around collective endeavours and provide the knowledge and innovation needed to shape a better world anchored in social, economic, and environmental justice.  

What are the key areas that need to be transformed?

• Inclusive, equitable, safe and healthy schools

Education is in crisis. High rates of poverty, exclusion and gender inequality continue to hold millions back from learning. Moreover, COVID-19 further exposed the inequities in education access and quality, and violence, armed conflict, disasters and reversal of women’s rights have increased insecurity. Inclusive, transformative education must ensure that all learners have unhindered access to and participation in education, that they are safe and healthy, free from violence and discrimination, and are supported with comprehensive care services within school settings. Transforming education requires a significant increase in investment in quality education, a strong foundation in comprehensive early childhood development and education, and must be underpinned by strong political commitment, sound planning, and a robust evidence base.

• Learning and skills for life, work and sustainable development

There is a crisis in foundational learning, of literacy and numeracy skills among young learners. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, learning poverty has increased by a third in low- and middle-income countries, with an estimated 70% of 10-year-olds unable to understand a simple written text. Children with disabilities are 42% less likely to have foundational reading and numeracy skills compared to their peers. More than 771 million people still lack basic literacy skills, two-thirds of whom are women. Transforming education means empowering learners with knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to be resilient, adaptable and prepared for the uncertain future while contributing to human and planetary well-being and sustainable development. To do so, there must be emphasis on foundational learning for basic literacy and numeracy; education for sustainable development, which encompasses environmental and climate change education; and skills for employment and entrepreneurship.

• Teachers, teaching and the teaching profession

Teachers are essential for achieving learning outcomes, and for achieving SDG 4 and the transformation of education. But teachers and education personnel are confronted by four major challenges: Teacher shortages; lack of professional development opportunities; low status and working conditions; and lack of capacity to develop teacher leadership, autonomy and innovation. Accelerating progress toward SDG 4 and transforming education require that there is an adequate number of teachers to meet learners’ needs, and all education personnel are trained, motivated, and supported. This can only be possible when education is adequately funded, and policies recognize and support the teaching profession, to improve their status and working conditions.

• Digital learning and transformation

The COVID-19 crisis drove unprecedented innovations in remote learning through harnessing digital technologies. At the same time, the digital divide excluded many from learning, with nearly one-third of school-age children (463 million) without access to distance learning. These inequities in access meant some groups, such as young women and girls, were left out of learning opportunities. Digital transformation requires harnessing technology as part of larger systemic efforts to transform education, making it more inclusive, equitable, effective, relevant, and sustainable. Investments and action in digital learning should be guided by the three core principles: Center the most marginalized; Free, high-quality digital education content; and Pedagogical innovation and change.

• Financing of education

While global education spending has grown overall, it has been thwarted by high population growth, the surmounting costs of managing education during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the diversion of aid to other emergencies, leaving a massive global education financial gap amounting to US$ 148 billion annually. In this context, the first step toward transformation is to urge funders to redirect resources back to education to close the funding gap. Following that, countries must have significantly increased and sustainable financing for achieving SDG 4 and that these resources must be equitably and effectively allocated and monitored. Addressing the gaps in education financing requires policy actions in three key areas: Mobilizing more resources, especially domestic; increasing efficiency and equity of allocations and expenditures; and improving education financing data. Finally, determining which areas needs to be financed, and how, will be informed by recommendations from each of the other four action tracks .

What is the Transforming Education Summit?

UNESCO is hosting the Transforming Education Pre-Summit on 28-30 June 2022, a meeting of  over 140 Ministers of Education, as well as  policy and business leaders and youth activists, who are coming together to build a roadmap to transform education globally. This meeting is a precursor to the Transforming Education Summit to be held on 19 September 2022 at the UN General Assembly in New York. This high-level summit is convened by the UN Secretary General to radically change our approach to education systems. Focusing on 5 key areas of transformation, the meeting seeks to mobilize political ambition, action, solutions and solidarity to transform education: to take stock of efforts to recover pandemic-related learning losses; to reimagine education systems for the world of today and tomorrow; and to revitalize national and global efforts to achieve SDG-4.

• More on the Transforming Education Summit
• More on the Pre-Summit

Related items

• Future of education
• SDG: SDG 4 - Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

This article is related to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals .

More on this subject

Other recent news

Why we must transform our education systems, now

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, the hon. minister david sengeh and the hon. minister david sengeh minister of education and chief innovation officer - government of sierra leone, chief innovation officer - directorate of science, technology and innovation in sierra leone rebecca winthrop rebecca winthrop director - center for universal education , senior fellow - global economy and development.

June 23, 2022

This blog summarizes the research “ Transforming education systems: Why, what, and how .”

Every single day, the challenges of global education become more daunting and more urgent. Just a few days ago on June 21, the United Nations reported that as many as 222 million school-aged children impacted by crisis require urgent educational support — this number is three times the estimates from 2016.  Furthermore, as currently reported by the World Bank and UNICEF, the portion of 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries during the pandemic who could not read a simple story is estimated to have grown from about 50 percent to over 70 percent today. The poorest children and those living in remote regions have been hit the hardest. We are at a critical inflection point with hundreds of millions of children likely to miss out on a quality education in the very moment where we have to confront climate change, increasing conflict, and renewed pandemic risks. Alarm bells are being sounded and the United Nations secretary general has invited political leaders, policymakers, youth, and all stakeholders to join him at the Transforming Education Summit (TES) in New York in September 2022 to make commitments that will transform education.   

We agree that something different and transformational needs to happen now. But what does transformation mean, anyway?   

Here we share a condensed version of our perspective on how policymakers can better understand what it means and most importantly get started with making significant commitments for action. We don’t have the final answers, but we want to share the perspective of a global think tank that has studied the development of education systems over the past 100 years and a national government from a low-income country in the midst of an education transformation. You can read the full report here and the executive summary here .  

What is education system transformation?  

At its core, system transformation must entail a fresh review of the goals of our education systems. There must be a frank assessment — are the goals meeting the moment that we are in and are they owned broadly across society? If the answer is “no,” then transformation means repositioning all components of the education system to coherently contribute to a new, shared purpose.  

We hope that countries and local stakeholders can use these insights to take the [education] transformation journey forward wherever they are.

We propose three steps centered on purpose, pedagogy, and position that embed a participatory, inclusive approach as the key to successful transformation.  

Step 1: Start with purpose  

Education leaders, families, teachers, and students can have very different expectations about the purpose of their education system. Without a broadly shared vision in and outside of the education system, any attempt at transformation will have a slim chance of success. When education leaders do take the time to have meaningful conversations with diverse stakeholders about the goals of education, it can help pave the way for a broadly shared vision. Such a shared vision has played a key role in successful reforms in Portugal, Finland, and Canada.    

In Sierra Leone, the most recent education sector plan was developed after careful and thorough consultations with a wide group of stakeholders. In addition to the national and local government, partner countries and civil society organizations, the government has made a point of consulting previously excluded groups like the bike riders union, the market women’s associations, and traditional and religious leaders across the country. Given the deep inequality in students’ learning in Sierra Leone which was highlighted by all stakeholders, the education sector plan and strategy prioritize foundational learning not as an end goal but as the floor to give every child a chance for longer-term educational success. And the country now puts the children who are currently learning the least at the front of its efforts thanks to its Policy on Radical Inclusion in Schools.   

Step 2: (Re)design the pedagogical core  

The second step is to (re)design teaching and learning experiences to ensure students achieve the system’s stated goals. Unfortunately, redesigning education systems often results in limited results for children’s learning and development. We need to focus more on what students are expected to learn — not just how that content is delivered—and we need to pay special attention to those who are learning the least.   

Some of the most promising results that take this approach to heart in recent years come from a practice called Teaching at the Right Level. Grouping children by ability level and conducting interactive learning activities for a period of time each day is at the core of this methodology. Real-time assessments provide data needed to move students on to higher level groups as they master skills. The approach is most effective for education systems that have large numbers of students failing to master literacy and numeracy by the end of primary school and where the default teaching approach is whole group instruction, even with very large class sizes.   

In Sierra Leone, the country has joined the first cohort of World Bank Accelerator Program countries to explicitly change its pedagogical core to support foundational learning. In addition, the country has launched the Sierra Leone Education Innovation Challenge to generate key evidence on what can help improve learning outcomes. Several of the service providers are adopting Teaching at the Right Level to improve learning outcomes. Initial signs are positive for our learning outcomes, as even with COVID-19 disruptions, we do not have major learning losses even if no gains were made.   

Step 3: Position and align system components  

Next, the system must be positioned to support the pedagogical core across the following six components: (1) Curriculum, (2) Human resources, (3) Data and assessment, (4) Governance, (5) Funding, and (6) Engagement of “winners” and “losers” in the alignment process.  

In Sierra Leone, the government has recently updated the preprimary, basic, senior secondary, civic, and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) curricula. In addition, the country has paid special attention to using data to support the realignment behind the updated  pedagogical core while investing in teacher training at all levels.   

Before 2018, Sierra Leone had little detailed information about who its education system served and who it left out. Data collection had used paper-based questionnaires, and, as a result, data were often lagging by up to a year and scattered across multiple government departments. Sierra Leone set about digitizing its annual school census and cut the data collection time to 10 weeks. By also carefully updating the questions asked, Sierra Leone shed light on who was left out of the system. Now the Annual School Census is both gender-disaggregated and asks about the disability status of the students and the accessibility of the classrooms. Moreover, the Ministry digitized and linked education data going all the way back to 2015. This gave the Ministry a data-driven starting point for addressing disparities within the education system, and it remains a crucial component supporting its goals of developing a more inclusive system, including for pregnant girls and children with disabilities.   

What now?  

We believe that there is much to learn from history and solutions currently being implemented around the world to help us. As Minister Sengeh’s Co-Chair of the TES Advisory Committee and the Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohamed recently said: “This is not ‘t’ for tweaking. This is ‘T’ for Transformation.” We hope that countries and local stakeholders can use these insights to take the transformation journey forward wherever they are — and for those that are further along on the path, please do share your experiences with us and the world. We look forward to adding your learnings and lessons to the collective effort to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4—quality education for all.   

Global Education

Global Economy and Development

Center for Universal Education

Christine Apiot Okudi, Atenea Rosado-Viurques, Jennifer L. O’Donoghue

August 23, 2024

Sudha Ghimire

August 22, 2024

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Education in India – A Detailed Analysis

Last updated on July 24, 2024 by ClearIAS Team

This article is a detailed analysis of the Education System of India.

The post covers various aspects of the problems faced by the Indian Education sector, the Constitutional provisions related to education, and the education policies adopted by modern India.

Also read: Learning Poverty

Table of Contents

History of Education in India

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India has a rich tradition of imparting knowledge.

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The ‘gurukul’ was a type of education system in ancient India with shishya (students) living with the guru in the same house. Nalanda has the oldest university system of education in the world. Students from across the world were attracted to Indian knowledge systems.

Many branches of the knowledge system had their origin in India. Education was considered a higher virtue in ancient India.

However, the renaissance and scientific thinking as happened in Europe didn’t happen in India at that time.

The British who took control of the Indian affairs by that time had different priorities. Education in British India initially lagged a lot.

However, later, the British established the modern education system still followed in India. They replaced age-old systems of education in the country with English ways . 

Still, the education system in India needs a lot of reforms.

Also read: Examination System in India

Current Status of Education in India: Data from Census 2011

• Literacy rate in India as per Census 2011:  74%.
• Literacy rate: Male: 82.1%; Female: 65.5%
• Kerala tops the rankings, followed by Delhi, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu.
• Bihar is the lowest among states, followed by Arunachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, etc., however, they are improving their position.
• Bihar has a literacy rate of 63.8%, and that of women is 53.3%.
• Literacy rates for both adults as well as youths have increased, still, the absolute number of illiterates in India is as much as India’s population was at the time of independence.
• The gender gap in terms of literacy began to narrow first in 1991 and the pace has accelerated, however still lags far behind the global female literacy rate of 7% (UNESCO 2015).
• There are large state variations in the gender gap.
• However, during 2001 – 2011, the male literacy rate increased by 6 percentage points but female literacy increased by nearly 12 percentage points. Achievement in female literacy in Bihar is noteworthy: from 33% in 2001 to 53% in 2011.
• Be that as it may, India is still lagging behind the world  literacy rate of 86.3%(UNESCO 2015).  A major group of states lies in the average rank i.e. just above the national level of 64.8 percent.  

Indian Education System: The Present Pyramidal Structure

The Indian education system can broadly be considered as a pyramidal structure:

• Pre-primary level: 5-6 years of age.
• Primary (elementary) level: 6-14 years of age. Elementary-level education is guaranteed by our constitution under Article 21 A . For this level, the government has introduced Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) under the Right To Education(RTE) Act.
• Secondary level: Age group between 14-18. For this level, the government has extended SSA to secondary education in the form of the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan .
• Higher education: generally of three levels: UG→ PG→ MPhil/PhD. To cater to the requirements of higher education, the government has introduced Rashtriya Uchhattar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA).

Read: Examination System in India

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) related to Education

Goal 4 of SDG : Education for all – ensures equitable, inclusive, and quality education along with the promotion of lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030.

Provisions in the Indian Constitution related to Education

• Under  Article 45 in DPSP , it was mentioned that the government should provide free and compulsory education for all children up to the age of 14 years within 10 years from the commencement of the Constitution. As this was not achieved, Article 21A was introduced by  the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act of 2002 , making elementary education a fundamental right rather than a directive principle. Article 45 was amended to provide for early childhood care and education to children below the age of six years.
• To implement Article 21A, the government legislated the RTE Act. Under this act, SSA – Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan – got a further impetus. SSA aims to provide Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE) in a time-bound manner.
• SSA has been operational since 2000-2001. Its roots go back to 1993-1994 when the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) was launched. However, under the RTE Act, it got legal backing.

RTE Act 2009

• 86th Amendment Act 2002 introduced Article 21-A, which provides for free and compulsory education of all children in the age group of six to fourteen years as a Fundamental Right.
• The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act was enacted to implement this fundamental right.

Provisions of the RTE Act

• ‘Compulsory education’ means an obligation of the government to provide free elementary education and ensure compulsory admission, attendance, and completion of  elementary education.
• Provision for a non-admitted child to be admitted to an age-appropriate class.
• Rational deployment of teachers, ensuring that there is no urban-rural imbalance in their postings.
• Prohibition of deployment of teachers for non-educational work, other than services like decennial census, elections, etc.
• It prohibits (a) physical punishment and mental harassment (b) screening procedures for admission of children (c) capitation fees (d) private tuition by teachers (e) running of schools without recognition.
• Development of curriculum in consonance with the values enshrined in the constitution, ensuring all-around development of the child, building a system of child-friendly and child-centered learning.
• To further inclusiveness, 25% reservation is provided for disadvantaged students in private schools.

Criticisms of the RTE Act

• Even though the RTE + SSA have increased access to schools, resulting in a high enrollment rate, dropout rates increased in tandem. However, there is inadequate attention given to this scenario.
• There is a fear of financial burden on the government for teacher recruitment and training.
• The grey area of teacher transfer is also not helping the cause.
• Since all state holidays are not relevant for all localities, such a calendar preparation by local authorities can increase attendance and can also encourage local panchayats to take ownership of schools.
• RTE students in private schools are paying extra fees as the schools claim that the government fund provided for the same is not adequate.
• Most private schools treat RTE as charity and demand that the onus of universalizing education should be on the government’s head rather than putting pressure on them.
• 70% of students are in government schools. So it must be fixed in priority, by providing infrastructure , teacher quality , and targeted   learning  for children from  disadvantaged  groups to provide an equitable education system.
• Under the RTE Act, till class 8, students should not be failed in exams. This is called the No detention policy. It had reduced dropout rates.
• There is growing criticism of the policy resulting in reducing the quality of elementary education. Hence the RTE Act was amended to scrap the policy.
• RTE Act prioritized schooling of children only from the age of 6, thus ignoring pre-school education. Kothari Commission had recommended the establishment of a center for the development of pre-primary education in each district.
• District Information System for Education (DISE) report states that 30% of primary and 15% of upper primary schools have higher PTRs.
• According to the Economic Survey 2018-19, the PTR at the national level for primary schools is 23 and 27 for secondary schools. Thus PTR appears to be satisfactory, as there are sufficient teachers. However, the main issue is a balanced deployment of teachers based on student strength.
• Even though the Student-Classroom ratio (SCR) improved in almost all of the States, there is disparity across the country.

Modern Education in India: The Evolution of the System through various policies

The British government had introduced modern education in India. From Macaulay’s minutes to Wood’s dispatch to several commissions like the Sadler Commission, 1904 Indian education policy, etc. built the foundation of the Indian education system during the colonial period.

Radhakrishnan committee

In 1948-49, the University Education Commission was constituted under Radhakrishnan . It molded the education system based on the needs of an independent India. The pre-Independent Indian education value system was catering to colonial masters. There was a need to replace Macaulayism  with the Indian value system.  ( Macaulayism is the policy of eliminating indigenous culture through the planned substitution of the alien culture of a colonizing power via the education system). Some of the values mentioned in the commission were:

• Wisdom and Knowledge 
• Aims of the Social Order : the desired social order for which youths are being educated.
• Love for higher values in life
• Training for Leadership

The Independent Indian education system developed along the lines of this value framework. In the present times, where there are imminent threats of political ideologies hijacking the pedagogy of education and commercialization of education eroding value systems, it is appreciable to dust off the values promulgated by the commission. A recent controversial circular by the Central University of Kerala (CUK), directing that research topics for Ph.D. students must be by ‘national priorities’, and research in ‘irrelevant topics’ and ‘privilege areas’ must be discouraged, is a case in point.

Kothari commission

If the Radhakrishnan committee charted out the value system of the Indian education system, it was the Kothari Commission that provided the basic framework of the same. The commission provided for:

• Standardization of educational system on 10+2+3 pattern.
• Emphasized the need to make work experience and social/national service an integral part of education.
• Linking of colleges to several schools in the neighborhood.
• Equalization of opportunities to all and to achieve social and national integration .
• Neighborhood school system without social or religious segregation and a s chool complex system integrating  primary and secondary levels of education.
• Establishment of Indian Education Service.
• On-the-job training of the teaching staff and efforts to raise the status of the teachers to attract talents into the profession.
• To raise expenditure on education from 2.9% of the GDP to 6% by 1985.

This committee report paved the way for the National Educational Policy 1968 which provided the base and roadmap for further development of the education system in India.

National Educational Policy 1968

• The policy provided for “radical restructuring” and  equalization of educational opportunities to achieve national integration and greater cultural and economic development.
• Increase public expenditure on education to 6% of GDP.
• Provide for better training and qualification of teachers.
• Three-language formula : state governments should implement the study of a modern Indian language, preferably one of the southern languages, apart from Hindi and English in the Hindi-speaking states, and of Hindi along with the regional language and English in the non-Hindi-speaking states. Hindi was encouraged uniformly to promote a common language for all Indians.

National Educational Policy 1985

• The policy aimed at the removal of disparities and to equalize educational opportunities, especially for women, SC and ST.
• Launching of “Operation Blackboard”  to improve primary schools nationwide.
• IGNOU, the Open University, was formed.
• Adoption of the “rural university” model , based on the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, to promote economic and social development at the grassroots level in rural India.

T.S.R.Subramanium committee report

• ECCE is inconsistent across states. So all government schools should have facilities for pre-primary education, which would facilitate pre-school education by the government instead of the private sector.
• The policy of no detention should be upheld only till class five and not till class eight.
• There is a steep rise in teacher shortage, absenteeism, and grievances.
• Need to constitute an Autonomous Teacher Recruitment Board.
• Four years integrated B.Ed. the course should be introduced.
• There is an inadequate integration of information technology (IT) and the education sector.
• The National Skills Qualification Framework should be scaled up.
• The choice of vocational courses should be in line with local opportunities and resources . 
• Bringing formal certification for vocational education at par with conventional education certificates.
• All India Education Service.
• Existing separate laws governing individual regulators in higher education should be replaced by the said act.
• The role of existing regulatory bodies like UGC and AICTE should be revised.
• National Accreditation Board (NAB) subsuming the existing accreditation bodies.

Kasturirangan Report On School Education (Draft National Education Policy)

For restructuring the education system in India, the government is preparing to roll out a New Education Policy that will cater to Indian needs in the 4th Industrial Revolution by making use of its demographic dividend. Committee for Draft National Education Policy (chaired by Dr. K. Kasturirangan) submitted its report on May 31, 2019.

You can read about the National Education Policy 2020 in detail here .

School Education: 

• Low accessibility.
• The curriculum doesn’t meet the developmental needs of children.
• Lack of qualified and trained teachers.
• Substandard pedagogy.
• Currently, most early childhood education is delivered through anganwadis and private preschools. However, there has been less focus on the educational aspects of early childhood.
• Guidelines for up to three-year-old children.
• Educational framework for three to eight-year-old children.
• This would be implemented by improving and expanding the Anganwadi system and co-locating anganwadis with primary schools.
• Expanding the ambit of the Act to all children between the ages of three to 18 years, thus including early childhood education and secondary school education.
• There should be no detention of children till class eight. Instead, schools must ensure that children are achieving age-appropriate learning levels.
• The current structure of school education is to be restructured based on the development needs of students.
• 10+2+3 structure to be replaced by 5-3-3-4 design comprising: (i) five years of foundational stage (three years of pre-primary school and classes one and two), (ii) three years of preparatory stage (classes three to five), (iii) three years of middle stage (classes six to eight), and (iv) four years of secondary stage (classes nine to 12).
• The current education system solely focuses on rote learning. The curriculum load should be reduced to its essential core content.
• Force students to concentrate only on a few subjects.
• Do not test learning in a formative manner.
• Cause stress among students.
• To track students’ progress throughout their school experience, State Census Examinations in classes three, five, and eight should be established.
• Restructure the board examinations to test only the core concept. These board examinations will be on a range of subjects. The students can choose their subjects and the semester when they want to take these board exams. The in-school final examinations may be replaced by these board examinations.
• Although establishing primary schools in every habitation has increased access to education, it has led to the development of very small schools making it operationally complex. Hence the multiple public schools should be brought together to form a school complex .
• A complex will consist of one secondary school (classes nine to twelve) and all the public schools in its neighborhood that offer education from pre-primary to class eight.
• These will also include anganwadis, vocational education facilities, and an adult education center.
• Each school complex will be a semi-autonomous unit providing integrated education across all stages from early childhood to secondary education.
• This will ensure that resources such as infrastructure and trained teachers can be efficiently shared across a school complex.
• A steep rise in a teacher shortage, lack of professionally qualified teachers, and deployment of teachers for non-educational purposes have plagued the system.
• Teachers should be deployed with a particular school complex for at least five to seven years.
• They will not be allowed to participate in any non-teaching activities during school hours.
• Existing B.Ed. the program will be replaced by a four-year integrated B.Ed. program that combines high-quality content, pedagogy, and practical training. An integrated continuous professional development will also be developed for all subjects.
• Separating the regulation of schools from aspects such as policymaking, school operations, and academic development.
• Independent State School Regulatory Authority for each state will prescribe basic uniform standards for public and private schools.
• The Department of Education of the State will formulate policy and conduct monitoring and supervision.

Higher Education

• According to the All India Survey on Higher Education , the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education in India has increased from 20.8% in 2011-12 to 25.8% in 2017-18. Lack of access is a major reason behind the low intake of higher education. The policy aims to increase GER to 50% by 2035.
• Multiple regulators with overlapping mandates reduce the autonomy of higher educational institutions and create an environment of dependency and centralized decision-making.
• The National Higher Education Regulatory Authority (NHERA) should replace the existing individual regulators in higher education. Thus the role of all professional councils such as AICTE would be limited to setting standards for professional practice. The role of the UGC will be limited to providing grants.
• Separate the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) from the UGC into an independent and autonomous body. It will function as the top-level accreditor and will issue licenses to different accreditation institutions. All existing higher education institutions should be accredited by 2030.
• Replacing the current system of establishing higher educational institutions by Parliament or state legislatures. Instead, institutions can be set up through a Higher Education Institution Charter from NHERA.
• Research universities focus equally on research and teaching.
• Universities focus primarily on teaching.
• Colleges focus only on teaching at undergraduate levels.
• All such institutions will gradually move towards full autonomy.
• Total investment in research and innovation in India has declined from 0.84% of GDP in 2008 to 0.69% in 2014. India also lags behind many nations in the number of researchers, patents, and publications.
• NRF will act as an autonomous body for funding, mentoring, and building the capacity for quality research.
• Undergraduate programs should be made interdisciplinary by redesigning their curriculum to include: a common core curriculum; and one/two area(s) of specialization.
• Introduce four-year undergraduate programs in Liberal Arts.
• By the next five years, five Indian Institutes of Liberal Arts must be set up as model multidisciplinary liberal arts institutions.
• Poor service conditions and heavy teaching loads, augmented by a lack of autonomy and no clear career progression system, have resulted in low faculty motivation.
• Introduction of a Continuous Professional Development program and permanent employment track system for faculty in all higher education institutions by 2030.
• The student-teacher ratio of not more than 30:1 must be ensured.
• All higher education institutions must have complete autonomy on curricular, pedagogical, and resource-related matters.

Read: Institutions of Eminence Scheme

Additional Key Focus Areas:

Additional key focus areas are (1) Technology in Education (2) Vocational Education (3) Adult Education and (4) the Promotion of Indian Languages.

Technology in Education

• Improving the classroom process of teaching, learning, and evaluation
• Aiding teacher training.
• Improving access to education.
• Improving the overall planning, administration, and management of the entire education system.
• Electrification of all educational institutions paves the way for technology induction.
• An autonomous body, the National Education Technology Forum, set up under the Mission, will facilitate decision-making on the use of technology.
• Single online digital repository to make available copyright-free educational resources in multiple languages.

Vocational Education

• Less than 5% of the workforce in the age group of 19-24 receives vocational education in India, in contrast to 52% in the USA, 75% in Germany and 96% in South Korea.
• Vocational courses : All school students must receive vocational education in at least one vocation in grades 9 to 12.
• Higher Education Institutions must offer vocational courses that are integrated into undergraduate education programs.
• The draft Policy targets to offer vocational education to up to 50% of the total enrolment in higher education institutions by 2025, up from the present level of enrolment of below 10%.
• National Committee for the Integration of Vocational Education for charting out plans for the above objectives.

Adult Education

As per Census 2011, India had a total of 26.5 crore adult non-literate (15 years and above).

• Establishing an autonomous  Central Institute of Adult Education as a constituent unit of NCERT. It will develop a National Curriculum Framework for adult education.
• Adult Education Centers will be included within the school complexes.
• Relevant courses are made available at the National Institute of Open Schooling.
• National Adult Tutors Programme to build a cadre of adult education instructors and managers.

Education and Indian Languages

• The medium of instruction must be the mother tongue until grade 5, and preferably until grade 8.
• 3 language formula be continued and flexibility in the implementation of the formula should be provided. Implementation of the formula needs to be strengthened, particularly in Hindi-speaking states. Schools in Hindi-speaking areas should also teach Indian languages from other parts of India for national integration.
• To promote Indian languages, a National Institute for Pali, Persian, and Prakrit will be set up.
• The mandate of the Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology will be expanded to include all fields and disciplines to strengthen vocabulary in Indian languages.

Transforming Education

The policy talked about the synergistic functioning of India’s education system, to deliver equity and excellence at all levels, from vision to implementation, led by a new Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog.

Education Governance

Revitalize education governance by bringing in synergy and coordination among the different ministries, departments, and agencies.

• Constitute the National Education Commission or Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog, as an apex body for education headed by the Prime Minister. It would be responsible for developing, implementing, evaluating, and revising the vision of education and overseeing the implementation and functioning of bodies including the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), National Higher Education Regulatory Authority, and National Research Foundation.
• The Ministry of Human Resources and Development must be renamed the Ministry of Education to bring the focus back on education.

Financing Education

• The Draft Policy reaffirmed the commitment to spending 6% of GDP as a public investment in education.
• The draft Policy seeks to double the public investment in education from the current 10% of total public expenditure to 20% in the next 10 years. 5% will be utilized for higher education, 2% in school education, and 1.4% for early childhood care and education.
• There should be optimal and timely utilization of funds through the institutional development plans and by plugging loopholes in the disbursement of funds.

Criticism of the New Education Policy of India

• The New Education Policy lacks operational details.
• It is not clear from where the funding will be sourced.
• Enough importance is not given to innovation, startup culture or economic principles to be added to the curriculum.
• One-size-fits for all states can’t be a solution as each state in India is diverse in its educational needs. Controversy on NEET has shown this.
• With technological advancement and the democratization of knowledge, the policy should have focused more on how to teach rather than what to teach.
• Economic Survey 2017-18 mentioned the perils of the distinction between research institutions and universities in higher education. The policy recommendation of three distinct higher education institutions of research universities, teaching universities, and teaching colleges will further augment the gap between research and universities.
• The draft policy is silent on the Institutions of Eminence and agencies like the Higher Education Funding Agency.
• The role of Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog should be defined clearly. What would be its role vis-a-vis existing regulators? Also, there are criticisms from some quarters that RSA will open the door to the politicization of education.
• Earlier the 3-language formula proposed by the draft policy made Hindi compulsory in non-Hindi speaking states. However, after the furor, the proposal was removed.
• Even though the policy talks about bringing “unrepresented groups” into school and focusing on educationally lagging “ special education zones” , it doesn’t comprehensively address the inequalities prevalent in the system. It misses methods to bridge the gaps between rich and poor children.
• The policy proposes to remove the provision mandating that primary schools be within stipulated distance from students’ homes and common minimum infrastructure and facility standards that should be met by all schools. If a common minimum standard is not specified, it will create an environment where quality in some schools will fall further thus augmenting the inequalities between schools across the country.

India’s education history is rich with ambitious policies failing at the altar of inadequate implementation of the same. In the absence of a handholding mechanism for states to embark on the path-breaking reforms mentioned in the policy and that too in a short time, will be too much to ask.

Funding requirements and governance architecture pose major challenges in the implementation of the policy. Political commitment is required to increase funding. RTE Act expansion to include preschool should keep in mind the present infrastructure inadequacies and teacher vacancies.

Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog may face administrative problems and turf battles. Also, it will raise questions on the role of new bodies like the National Medical Council.

The recent controversy on 3 language formula shows the sensitivity of language education in India and care should be taken to appreciate the emotional overtures while implementing the same.

Politically acceptability, social desirability, technological feasibility, financial viability, administratively doability, and judicially tenability are 6 pillars that will impact the implementation of the policy.

Be that as it may, the new education policy aims to address the challenges of (i) access, (ii) equity, (iii) quality, (iv) affordability, and (v) accountability faced by the current education system. It aims to revitalize and equip the education system to meet the challenges of the 21st century and 4th industrial revolution rather than catering to 19th and 20th century needs of industrialization. Also, India is on the cusp of a demographic dividend, rather than entered into this phase. So the education system catering to these needs is not a luxury that we hope for but rather a dire need at this moment in Indian history.

The Problems associated with the Education System in India

HRD ministry: Over 1.4 million schools and 50,000 higher educational institutions are operating in India. Out of 907 universities, there are 399 state universities, 126 deemed-to-be universities, 48 central and 334 private universities.

• Even after more than a hundred years of “ Gokhale’s Bill”1911, where universal primary education was originally mooted, India is yet to achieve this goal.
• China had achieved it in the 1970s. As per Census 2011, over 26% of India’s population is still illiterate, compared to 4% in China. About 50% of India’s population has only primary education or less, compared to 38% in China. The 13% of the population with tertiary education at the upper end in India is comparable with China.
• Progress has been made in respect of female participation up to secondary level and GER for girls has exceeded that of boys.
• But the girl’s enrollment rate is lower than that of boys at the higher education level.
• A gap is visible across social categories in terms of enrollment rate at the higher education level.
• According to NSSO’s 71st round (2014), drop-out rates are very high for boys at the secondary school level. Reasons for the same are economic activities, lack of interest in education, and financial constraints.
• The transition rate from secondary school to senior secondary and further to higher education is very low.

Despite these highly ambitious education policies and elaborate deliberations on the same, the outcomes are rather shaky. Major criticisms and shortcomings of these policies and their implementations are:

• Half the population is crowded at the bottom, either illiterate or with only primary education. Meanwhile, a disproportionately large segment is at the upper end with tertiary education.
• The 2015 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) reflects this deteriorating quality. The report opines that deficits in foundational reading and arithmetic skills are   cumulative, which leaves students grossly   handicapped for further education .
• India had fared poorly in the Programme for International Student Assessment  (PISA) test in 2008, and 09.
• Education policies in India are focused on inputs rather than on learning outcomes.
• Teacher shortages.
• Local politics.
• Corruption in teacher appointment.
• Defects in teacher training.
• Socio-cultural factors like caste division, and cynical attitude towards the teaching profession.
• There is no accountability, as there is a guaranteed lifetime job independent of performance.
• From 1952-2012 , education expenditure as a percentage of total government expenditure increased from 7.92 to 11.7, and as a percentage of GDP increased from 0.64 to 3.31. But it has still not reached 6% of GDP, as was recommended by the Kothari Commission way back in 1964.
• Expenditure by the government on elementary education is more than tertiary level, but expenditure per student is more in tertiary. So there is a need to increase expenditure in all segments.
• All India survey on higher education has shown that in West Bengal Muslim students in universities are very low. Lack of education at the primary and secondary levels is said to be the main reason.
• Even though Article 15(4),(5) provides reservations for SC, ST, and OBC in higher education institutions , the Economic Survey 2018-19 points out their inadequate representation in these institutions.
• The suicide of Rohit Vemula, a Ph.D. scholar at the University of Hyderabad, in 2016 had brought forward the discrimination still existing in these institutions.
• Also, the representation of teachers at these levels is skewed against the backward class in spite of reservations. Article 16(4) provides for reservations of backward class in jobs.
• At the school level, poor children are primarily concentrated in government schools. The poor quality of government schools thus disproportionately affects these children and creates a vicious cycle of illiteracy.
• At the higher education level, the situation is more critical. One reason for the introduction of the National Medical Commission Bill is to curb the exorbitant fees charged by medical colleges.
• Youths coming out of the higher education system in India are not employable, as they lack relevant industry-level skills.
• India’s long-standing neglect of primary and secondary education has limited access to quality basic education. No skill development program can succeed without an underlying foundation of basic education.
• National Policy on  Skill Development and Entrepreneurship 2015 (PMKVY) has shown disappointing results.
• Budget 2019-20  stated that the government enables about 10 million youth to take up industry-relevant skill training through the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY). The  Budget has also increased focus on  ‘new-age skills’  like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, 3D Printing, Virtual Reality, and Robotic.
• Currently, B Tech courses in AI are offered mostly in premier institutions only.
• The budget 2019-20 proposed the National Sports Education Board for the development of sportspersons under the  Khelo India program (2017).

Now we will look at each rung of the education ladder in India.

Early childhood education

• Early childhood education (ECE) is needed for  cognitive development in the early stage.
• Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS)  has a component for providing ECE through Anganwadis . But lack of effective regulation in this sector is eroding the quality of ECE.
• There is a National Early Childhood Care and Education Policy 2013 . However, the policy has not been properly implemented.
• There are multiple service providers but there is no clarity in the types of services provided.
• The sprawling of an unregulated private channel, both organized and unorganized, which is also spreading to rural areas, has led to inequitable access, uneven quality, and commercialization of ECE.
• Both Anganwadis and private schools focus on reading, writing, and arithmetic rather than cognitive and conceptual development.
• There is a decline in the quality and training of teachers.
• S.R. Subramanian’s committee report has brought focus to the quality deterioration in this sector.

Primary level

• There is an increasing trend of parents choosing private schools for the primary level. However, there is variable quality in private schools. Also, fees vary from school to school and are on the higher side.
• Eschew rigid curricula and make them more cognitive and flexible. There should be a broader cognitive approach than rote learning.
• There is a need for activity-based learning. Teachers should teach at the right level, rather than teaching for the average learner.
• The government has launched Padhe Bharat Bade Bharat –  targeting early reading and writing. The twin-track  approach of comprehension and math is the main focus.
• There is a supply-side problem . The government is pumping funds through government schools thus increasing the number of schools and thus enrollment. However, quality and inclusiveness have dropped and dropout rates increased. These lead to poor learning outcomes.

School Complex

• RTE and SSA have resulted in over-access but low-quality primary-level education. Now the aim should be to integrate these into school complexes, as mentioned by the Kasturirangan committee report, thus rationalizing the number of schools in an area.
• The ‘Adarsh’ integrated school system of Rajasthan is an example of a school complex system . Here one school provides classes from l to XII under one principal. There is one such school in every gram panchayat.
• This is an efficient way to solve teacher shortages and also to address the shortages of secondary schools. It can also address the problem of resource scarcity by integrating and rationalizing resources.
• Inclusive learning can be furthered through school.
• Also, these complexes can act as a pivot around which new reforms in education can be implemented.

Secondary level

ASER Rural 2017: In 2017, ASER changed the age group of the survey from primary level to secondary level. The report mentions the following:

• Enrollment is low in this age group. There is a high digital divide at this level. Low quality also persists at this level. There is a high amount of absenteeism as well.
• There is a need to expand RTE to cover the 14-18 age groups.
• To realize the demographic dividend, skill education for these groups is necessary.

Economic Survey 2018-19 points out that Indian demography is changing and it requires more quality secondary education system rather than merely an increasing number of primary-level schools.

Private fees

• The vagueness in the judgment regarding ‘reasonable surplus’ and ‘commercialization’ of education has watered down the outcome of the judgment.
• There are state laws for capping fees. However, implementation problems and litigation make them ineffective.
• CAG report mentioned misreporting and mismanagement by private schools. So laws should address this problem through stricter inspection, penalties, etc.

Higher education

There is an increasing number of higher education institutions but their quality is questionable, effectively making ‘islands of excellence amidst the sea of mediocrity. Increased accessibility to a low-quality higher education system has made democratization of mediocrity.

Raghuram Rajan, the ex-RBI governor, argued that India needs idea factories and universities by leveraging India’s inherent strengths like tolerance, diversity, etc. He said that there is a need for strong accreditation agencies and continuing education.

Problems of the higher education system in India

• There is a dual problem of both quality and quantity. The gross enrollment ratio (GER) in higher education is only 24.5.
• Even though education policy had an elitist bias in favor of higher education, the state of the same is much worse than the state of school education. Unlike school education, there is no national survey of the learning levels of college students.
• The desired levels of research and internationalization of Indian campuses remain weak points.
• Also, there is a low philanthropic investment in this sector. This creates an exclusive dependency on government funding by universities. This, in turn, reduces the autonomy and vision of these universities.
• Privatization of higher education has not been led by philanthropy but the commercial interest that does not have a symbiotic relationship with the vision of universities.
• These have led to inadequate human capacity, shoddy infrastructure, and weak institutions. Recommendations of the Narayana Murthy committee,  on the role of the corporate sector in higher education, have not been implemented and thus channeling of CSR funds to higher education remains inadequate.
• Banks and financial institutions are not giving adequate attention to this area. Giving PSL status to these institutions can be considered.
• Indian higher education system is of a linear model with very little focus on specialization.
• UGC and AICTE act more as controllers of education than facilitators.
• Due to the mushrooming of colleges at a higher rate since the 1980s , there is a regulatory sprawl in higher education.
• Poor governance , with mindless  over-regulation , is widespread in this sector. Educational institutions responded to this with claims of academic and institutional autonomy for themselves, which was mostly a smokescreen for a culture of sloth in these institutions.
• There is a concentration of powers, as these regulatory institutions control all aspects like accreditation, curriculum setting, professional standard-setting, funding, etc.
• Compartmentalization and fragmentation of the knowledge system.
• Disconnect with society.
• Overemphasis on entrance tests.
• Absence of innovation in learning methods.
• Corrosion of autonomy of universities.
• For long basic disciplines across the physical and social sciences and humanities were ignored.
• However, the Economic Survey 2017-18 mentioned that there is an increase in Ph.D. enrolment in India in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) due to efforts by the government to increase the number and quantum of fellowships. However, there are still fewer researchers in India in comparison to other countries.
• Budget 2019-20 proposes ‘Study in India’  with a focus on bringing foreign students to higher educational institutions in India to make India a “hub of higher education.”
• Higher education institutions are used as rewards for loyalists and channels of graft by political parties in power.
• Indian higher education system is plagued by unregulated and shoddy coaching institutions. The coaching industry makes around Rs. 24000 crores a year in India. Proper regulation of the same is required.

Research and development (R&D)

Economic Survey 2017-18 stated: “To transform from net consumer to net producer of knowledge, India should invest in educating its youth in science and mathematics, reform the way R&D is conducted, engage the private sector and the Indian diaspora, and take a more mission-driven approach in areas such as dark matter, genomics, energy storage, agriculture, and mathematics and cyber-physical systems”.

• Although Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) is consistently increasing, as a fraction of GDP it has been stagnant between 0.6-0.7  percent of GDP over the past two decades.
• The universities play a relatively small role in the research activities in India. There is a disconnection between research institutes and universities. This results in the compartmentalization of research activities and teaching into two separate silos.
• The  separation of research from teaching leads to a situation where universities  have students but need additional faculty support, while research institutes have qualified faculty but are starved of young students.
• India was, at one point, spending more on R&D as a percentage of GDP than countries like China – but currently, India under-spends on R&D.
• Doubling of R&D spending is necessary and much of the increase should come from the private sector and universities.

The need of the hour

• It is imperative to improve math and cognitive skills at the school level to make a difference at a higher level.
• There is a need to expand R&D in India and to go beyond paper presentations and patents to a broader contribution of providing value for society.
• There is also a need to encourage Investigator-led Research for funding science research.  Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) 2008,  a statutory body of DST, is a step in the right direction.
• 50:50 partnerships with SERB for industry-relevant research under the Ucchatar Avishkar Yojana (UAY) is the right way to go forward.
• It would strengthen state universities and provide knowledge in areas specific to a state.
• National Research Foundation,  to fund, coordinate, and promote research at the college level, is proposed by the Kasturirangan report. It is reiterated in Budget 2019-20 : NRF will ensure the overall research ecosystem in the country is strengthened with a focus on areas relevant to national priorities without duplication of effort and expenditure. The funds available with all Ministries will be integrated into NRF.
• Link national labs to universities and create new knowledge ecosystems. Together they can link up with the commercial sectors and help develop industrial clusters.
• National Mission on Dark Matter
• National Mission on Genomics
• National Mission on Energy Storage Systems
• National Mission on Mathematics
• National Mission on Cyber-Physical Systems
• National Mission on Agriculture
• Ramanujan Fellowship Scheme.
• Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research ( INSPIRE ) Faculty Scheme.
• Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship.
• Visiting Advanced Joint Research Faculty Scheme ( VAJRA ).
• Improve the culture of research thus ‘ ease of doing research’. There is a need for less hierarchical governance systems that encourage risk-taking and curiosity in the pursuit of excellence.
• Greater public engagement of the science and research establishment is needed. A greater effort at science communication  is needed.

Government initiatives on higher education

The government is trying to revitalize the Indian higher education system and for this many initiatives have been launched. Let’s discuss the importance of them.

National Testing Agency (NTA) 2017

• NTA was set up for conducting entrance exams in higher educational institutions. It is based on the recommendations of the Ashok Mishra committee on IIT entrance 2015.
• It will conduct JEE, NEET, National Eligibility Test (NET), Common Management Admission Test (CMAT), and Graduate Pharmacy Aptitude Test (GPAT).
• It will provide diversity and plurality in higher education. It will also ensure independence and transparency in conducting the exams.
• However, it should be ensured that the computer-based test should not lead to further exploitation of rural students.
• NEET stands for National Eligibility cum Entrance Test . It is for admissions in medical courses by replacing a plethora of medical entrance tests with one national-level test.
• Supreme Court had said that NEET should be the sole basis for admission to medical courses.
• There is a controversy about whether urban and CBSE students will dominate NEET. The government should pay heed to this criticism.
• In Tamil Nadu doctors serving in rural areas get weightage in PG admission. NEET will effectively dislodge this system.
• This controversy brought forward the conflict between the fair and transparent system of admission to curb the commercialization of medical education and the socioeconomic goals of the state, which in the case of Tamil Nadu includes ensuring enough doctors for rural areas.
• Controversy on NEET has brought the following question to the limelight: should uniformity be thrust upon a country with such vast disparity and diversity? The political leadership should iron out the differences and produce a suitable admission policy. This task should not be left to the judiciary.
• Be that as it may, states can’t remain insulated from the need to upgrade their education standard.

RUSA: Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan 2013

• About 94 % of students in higher education study in 369 State universities, whereas less than 6% of students study in 150 Centrally-funded institutions.
• 11th 5-year plan  (2007-12) opined that the center’s bias towards premier central institutions had skewed funding for these institutions mainly and thus neglected state-level institutions.
• State investment in higher education was declining. UGC’s system of direct release of funds to State institutions bypassing State governments also leads to a sense of alienation for the states.
• RUSA tried to correct this bias. The scheme aims at financing state institutions concerning their governance and performance.
• RUSA has shown the result in increasing the performance of state institutions and changing the way regulators function for the good. State Higher Education Council(SHEC)  made medium-long-term state perspective plans.
• Cabinet in 2018 decided to continue the scheme. A renewed focus by the center on RUSA will be a success only if it is impartially administered and states are willing to heed the advice of SHEC.

HECI: Higher Education Commission of India bill

• On the recommendation of the Yashpal Committee 2010 for renovation and rejuvenation of higher education, the National Commission on Higher Education and Research bill was introduced but was not passed.
• HECI was proposed to act as an overarching regulator of higher education by replacing UGC, which will maintain academic standards, approve new educational institutions, etc. but with no funding powers.
• Draft Higher Education Commission of India (Repeal of University Grants Commission Act) Bill, 2018 was introduced in 2018. Budget 2019-20 proposed to bring a bill on HECI this year.
• The draft bill had separated funding and placed it under MHRD. This was criticized for the fear of increasing political control and reducing the autonomy of universities.

IoE: Institutions of Eminence 2017

• Around 2005, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the QS World University Rankings started, and in 2009 the Academic Ranking of World Universities started. From India, only the Indian Institute of Science was included in the top 500 every year. This prompted the government to introduce NIRF and IoE.
• Under IoE, UGC was tasked to select 10 government universities and 10 private ones as IoE. These would be given autonomy in operations.
• Selected government institutions would be provided with ₹1,000 crore over five years.
• The IoE tag is expected to help them achieve the world’s top 500 higher education institutions in a decade and later into the top 100.
• Institutes among the top 50 in the National Institute Ranking Framework rankings or in the top 500 in international ratings were eligible.
• The model for the sector remains dependent on state patronage.
• Entry into the global education race could now become an overriding concern when many systemic issues are plaguing the sector.
• Funding only for public institutions is discriminatory.
• Humanities institutions were neglected.
• Transparency in the selection process, and the public sharing of benchmarks and guidelines. The furor over the selection of Jio Institute, even before it functioned, had attracted many eyeballs and criticisms.
• Separate category to include sectoral institutions like IIM.

National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2015

NIRF is a methodology adopted by the MHRD to rank higher education institutions in India.

• NIRF is common for public and private institutions as well as state and central institutions. Comparison of state-level colleges with central and private colleges may lead to a vicious cycle of low funding, poor performance, and low ranks among state-level institutions because of the resource gap.
• So performance index values should be normalized concerning investments and resources that have gone into that institution. Also should consider making another ranking system for state-level institutions.

HEFA: Higher Education Financing Agency 2018

Introduced in Budget 2018-19, HEFA is a joint venture of MHRD and Canara Bank

• With an initial capital base of Rs 1,000 crores, it will act as a not-for-profit organization that will leverage funds from the market and supplement them with donations and CSR funds. These funds will be used to finance improvement in infrastructure in top institutions.
• It has been tasked with raising ₹1 lakh crore to finance infrastructure improvements in higher education by 2022.

 Foreign Education Providers Bill 2013 

• There is no account of programs delivered by foreign universities in India. Inadequate regulation has led to low-quality courses offered in this sector.
• The foreign Institution bill was not been able to pass in Parliament. However,

EQUIP report has mentioned the revival of this bill.

There are many other schemes and initiatives like SWAYAM, which offers open online courses from Class IX to post-graduation free of cost, GIAN and IMPRINT which are primarily focused on elite institutes like IITs and IISc.

APAAR: One Nation One Student ID Card

The Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR) is a transformative initiative introduced in alignment with the National Education Policy (NEP) of 2020 and the National Credit and Qualifications Framework (NCrF).

It aims to provide a unified and accessible academic experience for students across India by assigning a unique and permanent 12-digit ID to every student, consolidating their academic achievements in one place.

Other Major Issues connected with the Education sector in India

The Indian education sector is also affected by other issues like the politicization of campuses, gender parity problems, poor-quality standards, etc.

Politicization of campuses

• JP movement had provided an impetus to the politicization of students.
• In Indian higher education institutions, university politics has become a launchpad for political ambitions.
• Though campus politics is vital for democracy, as it makes students better citizens, the negative side of the politicization of campuses has been visible across Indian campuses. Recent incidents at Kerala University are a case in point.
• One of the most important problems of student politics in India is that it acts as an appendage to political parties without having an independent identity or autonomy.

Gender Parity

• By parents → who send boys to private and girls to government schools. Economic Survey 2018-19: enrollment of girls is higher than that of boys in government schools but the pattern gets reversed in private schools. The gender gap in enrollment in private schools has consistently increased across age groups.
• By teachers → who reinforced the belief that boys are quick learners.
• Girls are eased out of school to work on home chores or get married.
• Economic Survey 2018-19 opines that BBBP has been a success and proposes to extend the cause of Gender equality by coining the slogan of BADLAV (Beti Aapki Dhan Lakshmi Aur Vijay-Lakshmi) to enhance the contribution of women in the workforce and the economy.
• For ranking states based on gender disparity, Digital Gender Atlas for Advancing Girl’s Education was launched by MHRD.
• In higher education, gender disparities still prevail in enrollment.
• Efforts by the Government through programs like Beti Padhao, and Beti Bachao, the GPI has improved substantially at the primary and secondary levels of enrolment.

Quality of education

Learning outcomes are not assessed in India as numerical outcomes. The 12th Five-Year Plan noted the need for measuring and improving learning outcomes.

• Children of illiterate parents can’t supplement school studies at home and also can’t afford expensive tuition, leading to a vicious cycle of illiteracy.
• From 2014 to 2018, there was a gradual improvement in both basic literacy and numeracy for Class III students but only a quarter of them are at grade level (ability to read and do basic operations like subtraction of Class II level).
• The report also shows that 1 out of 4 children leaving Class VIII are without basic reading skills (ability to read at least a Class II level).

Government initiatives

• Central Rules under the RTE Act were amended in February 2017 to include the defined class-wise and subject-wise learning outcomes.
• Nationwide sub-program of SSA to improve comprehensive early reading, writing, and early mathematics programs for children in Classes I and II.

Teacher Training

• Teachers play the most critical role in a student’s achievement.
• The need is for better incentives for teachers, investments in teacher capacity through stronger training programs, and addressing the problems in the teaching-learning process.
• However, teachers in India, especially in government schools, are considered a cog in the way to efficient governance. There is an inadequate focus on their motivation and skill updation.
• NCERT study shows that there is no systematic incorporation of teacher feedback into designing pieces of training. Also, there is no mechanism to check whether this training is translated into classroom performance.
• These results in de-professionalizing the teaching profession and curb a teacher’s “internal responsibility” — the sense of duty to the job.
• World Development Report on Education (2018) opined that both teaching skills and motivation matter. Individually targeted continued training is important. In line with this, MHRD and the National Council for Teacher Education launched the National Teacher Platform, or Diksha in 2017 . It is a one-stop solution to address teacher competency gaps.
• However, the current training through Diksha follows a one-size-fits-all approach. Even though the platform is designed to democratize both access to and creation of content by teachers, its real benefits are in the ability to provide continuous professional development which complements existing physical training.
• This technology-enabled platform allows training to become a continuous activity rather than an annual event and also creates a feedback loop ensuring the effectiveness of the material.
• Diksha has the potential to re-engineer in-service teacher training in India. It is important to create good content and also to ensure technology consumption by teachers, the role of headmasters in promoting teachers’ professional development, etc.

As India participates in the PISA in 2021, it is to be made sure that we recognize the importance of teachers and their role in education outcomes.

Private Schools vs Public Schools: The Big Debate in Education

At least 30% of students between the 6-14 age groups are in the private sector.

• There is an increasing perception that the quality of teaching in private schools is better than that of public schools. Thus there is a clamour for increasing the number of private schools and simultaneously limiting public spending on government schools.
• However, the claim on the quality of private schools is debatable as there is a wide disparity of the same among these schools.

Research paper by Geeta Gandhi Kingdon, professor of education and international development at the Institute of Education, London, offers insights into private-public school education in India:

• The paper points out that between 2010-11 and 2015-16, the average enrolment in government schools declined from 122 to 108 students per school, while in private schools it rose from 202 to 208.
• Nevertheless, according to the District Information System for Education (DISE), 65% of all school-going children, 113 million, get their education from government schools.
• The study points out that the migration to private schools is due to the belief among parents that these schools offer better value for money in terms of quality.
• IndiaSpend, in 2016, reported that despite the Rs 1.16 lakh crore spent on SSA, the quality of learning declined between 2009 and 2014. It also points out that less than one in five elementary school teachers in India are trained. Also, the contractual teachers, who are high in number in government schools, are likely to be less motivated and accountable.
• Preference for private school tutoring is there.
• The quality of schools varies between states. In 2016, in Kerala, the proportion of children enrolled in primary government schools increased from 40.6% in 2014 to 49.9% according to ASER 2016.
• States with better-functioning government schools have more expensive private schools as there is no market for the ‘low-fee’ budget private schools. Around 80% of private schools in India are ‘low’ fee schools.
• ASER 2016 has shown small improvements in learning outcomes in government schools.
• Between 2010-11 and 2015-16, the number of private schools grew by 35% – to 0.30 million. On the other hand, the number of government schools grew only by 1%, to 1.04 million. The migration out of government schools has left many of these economically unviable.
• Government teachers in India earn four times that of China but don’t perform as well. Up to 80% of India’s public expenditure on education is spent on teachers. There is a need to link teacher salaries to their accountability.
• However, the salary of private teachers is very low compared to their government counterparts. This is due to the “bureaucratically-set high ‘minimum wage’, which is being influenced by strong unions of government school teachers.
• Another reason for the low salary of private school teachers is that the private education sector offers salaries based on market factors of demand and supply. Since 10.5% of graduates are unemployed in India, there is a high supply of teachers.
• Rather than merely increasing the budget outlay for education, the need is to revise the Education policy for better accountability and monitoring mechanisms.
• Gandhi argued that a Public-private partnership (PPP) model may be the solution, with public sector funding and private resources for education, since reforming the present system may not be politically feasible.

Rather than debating about private versus public schools, the focus should be to  enable the private sector to set up more schools under the scrutiny of regulatory authorities. There is no point in driving off the private initiative in schooling given the limited resources of the states. Private investment should be encouraged but made accountable for quality and conduct.

The above discussion showed the challenges of the Indian education system. A workforce that India wants to create in this digital age requires reforms in education at all levels. UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report 2016 opined that India is expected to achieve universal primary education in 2050. India is 50 years late in achieving its global education commitments. If the nation wants fundamental changes in the education system, it has to meet the 2030 SDG targets on education. There is an urgent requirement for greater evolution in education in India.

Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme (EQUIP): How to transform Education in India?

EQUIP is a  five-year vision plan on education, released by MHRD, by  the Prime Minister’s decision to create a five-year vision plan for each Ministry.

The EQUIP project is crafted by ten expert groups led by experts within and outside the government:

• Group 1: Strategies for expanding access
• Group 2: Towards global best teaching/learning process
• Group 3: Promoting Excellence
• Group 4: Governance reforms
• Group 5: Assessment, Accreditation, and Ranking Systems
• Group 6: Promotion of research and innovation
• Group 7: Employability and Entrepreneurship
• Group 8: Using Technology for Better Reach
• Group 9: Internationalisation
• Group 10: Financing Higher Education

The groups have suggested initiatives to transform the education system completely. The goals set by the groups are:

• Double GER in higher education and resolve the geographically and socially skewed access to higher education institutions.
• Upgrade the quality of education to global standards.
• Position at least 50 Indian institutions among the top 1000 global universities.
• Introduce governance reforms in higher education for well-administered campuses.
• Accreditation of all institutions as an assurance of quality.
• Promote Research and Innovation ecosystems for positioning India in the top three countries in the world in matters of knowledge creation.
• Double the employability of the students passing out of higher education.
• Harness education technology for expanding the reach and improving pedagogy.
• Promote India as a global study destination.
• Achieve a quantum increase in investment in higher education.

We can see that each of the above goals has been known to us for a long time. The problem is its implementation. The political class and all other stakeholders should come together to achieve these goals. The plethora of government initiatives on higher education is a sure sign of the importance given by the political class in the reform of the education system of India. Let’s hope that a new dawn of Indian education is around the corner which will bring back the glory of ancient times when India was the centre of knowledge production.

As the Economic Survey 2016-17 points out, lack of health, malnourishment, etc. affects the cognitive ability of children. This will, in turn, have a detrimental effect on their future educational prospects. This leads to a vicious cycle of inter-generational illiteracy, poor health, and ultimately poverty. So education and health are complementary to each other and reforms in one sector should invariably be preceded and followed by reforms in other sectors. Human development as a whole can be considered as a wholesome development and we must appreciate the interlinkages of each section of human capital formation, be it health, education, digital literacy, skills, etc.

Also read: PM-USHA

In the larger domain of human capital , education, and skill development have a big role.

Census 2011 data on literacy gives us a quick perspective on the current status of education. However, education is not just about literacy.

RTE act acts as a cornerstone for Indian education. Nevertheless, it is the various education policies, charted out since Independence, which led to the historical evolution of the education system in India.

The results of these policies can be said to be mixed. There is still a lot of room for improvement.

There are various government initiatives targeting each level of the education system in India. The higher Education System is given a greater focus these days.

The latest update in the education sector is the Kasturirangan report or draft new education policy . It captures the need of the hour for reforming education.

The modern Indian education system is crying for a revamp. The draft New Education Policy (NEP) is the right moment to take stock of its history, achievements, and misgivings to chart out a futuristic education plan for 21st-century India.

Also read:  Education in state list: Should it be restored?

Article by  Sethu  Krishnan M, curated by ClearIAS Team

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Reader Interactions

November 27, 2019 at 10:33 pm

Wow what the largest matter of education is?. Very nice thank u sir

November 28, 2019 at 12:09 pm

Nice article but it is too long we need around 400 words which explains education in india,challenges,way forward only It is very hard to remember and segrate from given imp because all points look like imp please try to make it around 400 words only

November 28, 2019 at 2:00 pm

@MKM – The aim was to cover almost everything about Education in India as a comprehensive post. The post covers: (a) History of Education in India (b) Current Status of Education in India: Data from Census 2011 (c) RTE Act (d) Various Educational Policies in the past (e) The New National Educational Policy (NEP) (f) The Problems associated with the Education System in India (g) Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme (EQUIP): How to transform Education in India?

Though ClearIAS prefers short and crisp articles, for important areas like Education, we felt a detailed write-up would be useful.

Thank you for your feedback. We will continue to create concise articles as well.

November 28, 2019 at 12:35 pm

Good Source thank you Team.

November 28, 2019 at 1:56 pm

November 28, 2019 at 2:41 pm

November 29, 2019 at 7:45 am

This is a very nice and comprehensive information on education.

November 29, 2019 at 2:21 pm

Such a nice article sir thank you..

December 16, 2019 at 5:31 pm

March 30, 2020 at 12:48 pm

Sir,a small corrrection regarding literacy rate ranking, Kerala (93%)tops its followed by Lakshadweep(92 %), Mizoram (91 %) , Tripura (87.7 %) and Goa (87.4 %) as 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th places repectively according to 2011 census.

June 16, 2020 at 12:20 am

Excellent Work

August 31, 2020 at 1:14 pm

Thank you vry much team.🤗 You provide excellent data ,analysis,facts,etc…evrything at one doc.

November 16, 2020 at 10:47 pm

Absolutely amazing stuff. Can’t believe.. Thanks from the bottom of my heart ❤️❤️

May 27, 2021 at 12:38 pm

Great article about Education ​very informative thanks for sharing

May 31, 2021 at 11:55 pm

Well and easy to understand…thank u for the team

September 12, 2021 at 10:37 am

Very good and such a broad information thank u 💖.. Lots of love

December 16, 2021 at 11:10 am

Need to update with current data eg how much percentage of school/ children get access of online education in pandemic Era COVID challanges others family support etc thank

January 28, 2022 at 10:32 am

Thank you so much for your birthday support

February 27, 2022 at 5:33 pm

good information

June 10, 2022 at 3:00 pm

Nice article very informative…traditional classroom study should be changed into a smart classroom online

July 14, 2022 at 8:55 pm

December 18, 2022 at 1:05 am

Absolute coverage article, Kindly keep it up for your determined spectators.

May 28, 2023 at 9:10 pm

desserstation on education/slums/miagration par hindi me pdf mil sakta hai

January 23, 2024 at 8:06 pm

The analysis provides a comprehensive overview of India’s education system, highlighting its pyramid structure and alignment with Sustainable Development Goals. Constitutional provisions like Article 21A and the RTE Act aim for universal education. However, the RTE Act faces criticism. To enhance educational outcomes, addressing these concerns and ensuring effective implementation are imperative. Schools in Pataudi Gurgaon focus on quality, inclusivity, and overcoming criticisms can lead Indian education to new heights. Thank You Samriddhi Sharma

February 7, 2024 at 7:44 pm

It’s crucial to delve into the challenges confronting the Indian education sector and understand the constitutional framework and policies guiding it. Exploring these aspects sheds light on the complexities and opportunities within the system. However, it’s equally important to consider how these discussions translate into action at the grassroots level, especially in local communities like Rajajinagar, Bangalore. How are schools in rajajinagar bangaloreaddressing these systemic issues and implementing reforms to ensure quality education for all students? This intersection of policy discourse and on-the-ground realities is where meaningful change happens.

March 8, 2024 at 6:22 am

Is there any data on how many states provide free education to girls till grade X and how many provide it till grade XII?

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What Changes to the U.S. Education System Are Needed to Support Long-Term Success for All Americans?

With the pandemic deepening inequities that threaten students’ prospects, the vice president of the Corporation’s National Program provides a vision for transforming our education system from one characterized by uneven and unjust results to one that puts all students on a path to bright futures 

At no point in our nation’s history have we asked so much of our education system as we do today. We ask that our primary and secondary schools prepare all students, regardless of background, for a lifetime of learning. We ask that teachers guide every child toward deeper understanding while simultaneously attending to their social-emotional development. And we ask that our institutions of higher learning serve students with a far broader range of life circumstances than ever before.

We ask these things of education because the future we aspire to requires it. The nature of work and civic participation is evolving at an unprecedented rate. Advances in automation, artificial intelligence, and social media are driving rapid changes in how we interact with each other and what skills hold value. In the world our children will inherit, their ability to adapt, think critically, and work effectively with others will be essential for both their own success and the well-being of society.

At Carnegie Corporation of New York, we focus on supporting people who are in a position to meet this challenge. That includes the full spectrum of educators, administrators, family members, and others who shape young people’s learning experiences as they progress toward and into adulthood. Our mission is to empower all students with the tools, systems, knowledge, and mindsets to prepare them to fully participate in the global economy and in a robust democracy.

All of our work is geared toward transforming student learning. The knowledge, skills, and dispositions required for success today call for a vastly different set of learning experiences than may have sufficed in the past. Students must play a more active role in their own learning, and that learning must encompass more than subject-matter knowledge. Preparing all children for success requires greater attention to inclusiveness in the classroom, differentiation in teaching and learning, and universal high expectations.

This transformation needs to happen in higher education as well. A high school education is no longer enough to ensure financial security. We need more high-quality postsecondary options, better guidance for students as they transition beyond high school, and sufficient supports to enable all students to complete their postsecondary programs. Preparing students for lifelong success requires stronger connections between K–12, higher education, and work.

The need for such transformation has become all the more urgent in the face of COVID-19. As with past economic crises, the downturn resulting from the pandemic is likely to accelerate the erosion of opportunities for low-skilled workers with only a high school education. Investments in innovative learning models and student supports are critical to preventing further inequities in learning outcomes. 

An Urgent Call for Advancing Equity 

The 2020–21 school year may prove to be the most consequential in American history. With unfathomable speed, COVID-19 has forced more change in how schools operate than in the previous half century.

What is most concerning in all of this is the impact on the most underserved and historically marginalized in our society: low-income children and students of color. Even before the current crisis, the future prospects of a young person today looked very different depending on the color of her skin and the zip code in which she grew up, but the pandemic exposed and exacerbated long-standing racial and economic inequities. And the same families who are faring worst in terms of disrupted schooling are bearing the brunt of the economic downturn and disproportionately getting sick, being hospitalized, and dying.

Our mission is to empower all students with the tools, systems, knowledge, and mindsets to prepare them to fully participate in the global economy and in a robust democracy.

Every organization that is committed to educational improvement needs to ask itself what it can do differently to further advance the cause of educational equity during this continuing crisis so that we can make lasting improvements. As we know from past experience, if the goal of equity is not kept front and center, those who are already behind through no fault of their own will benefit the least. If ever there were a time to heed this caution, it is now.

We hope that our nation will approach education with a new sense of purpose and a shared commitment to ensuring that our schools truly work for every child. Whether or not that happens will depend on our resolve and our actions in the coming months. We have the proof points and know-how to transform learning, bolster instruction, and meet the needs of our most disadvantaged students. What has changed is the urgency for doing so at scale.

Our starting place must be a vision of equal opportunity, and from there we must create the conditions that can actually ensure it — irrespective of how different they may look from the ones we now have. We need to reimagine the systems that shape student learning and put the communities whose circumstances we most need to elevate at the center of that process. We need to recognize that we will not improve student outcomes without building the capacity of the adults who work with them, supporting them with high-quality resources and meaningful opportunities for collaboration and professional growth. We need to promote stronger connections between K–12, higher education, and employment so that all students are prepared for lifelong success.

The pandemic has deepened inequities that threaten students’ prospects. But if we seize this moment and learn from it, if we marshal the necessary resources, we have the potential to transform our education system from one characterized by uneven and unjust results to one that puts all students on a path to bright futures.

In a pandemic-induced moment when the American education system has been blown into 25 million homes across the country, where do we go from here?

We Must Learn to Act in New Ways

These are not controversial ideas. In fact, they constitute the general consensus about where American education needs to go. But they also represent a tall order for the people who influence the system. Practically everyone who plays a part in education must learn to act in new ways.

That we have made progress in such areas as high school completion, college-going rates, and the adoption of college- and career-ready standards is a testament to the commitment of those working in the field. But it will take more than commitment to achieve the changes in student learning that our times demand. We can’t expect individuals to figure out what they need to do on their own, nor should we be surprised if they struggle to do so when working in institutional structures designed to produce different outcomes. The transformation we seek calls for much greater coordination and a broader set of allies than would suffice for more incremental changes.

Our starting place must be a vision of equal opportunity, and from there we must create the conditions that can actually ensure it — irrespective of how different they may look from the ones we now have.

Our best hope for achieving equity and the transformation of student learning is to enhance adults’ ability to contribute to that learning. That means building their capacity while supporting their authentic engagement in promoting a high-quality education for every child. It also means ensuring that people operate within systems that are optimized to support their effectiveness and that a growing body of knowledge informs their efforts.

These notions comprise our overarching strategy for promoting the systems change needed to transform student learning experiences on a large scale. We seek to enhance adult capacity and stakeholder engagement in the service of ensuring that all students are prepared to meet the demands of the 21st century. We also support knowledge development and organizational improvement to the extent that investments in these areas enhance adult capacity, stakeholder engagement, and student experiences.

Five Ways We Invest in the Future of Students

These views on how best to promote systems change in education guide our philanthropic work. The strategic areas of change we focus on are major themes throughout our five investment portfolios. Although they are managed separately and support different types of initiatives, each seeks to address its area of focus from multiple angles. A single portfolio may include grants that build adult capacity, enhance stakeholder engagement, and generate new knowledge.

New Designs to Advance Learning

Preparing all students for success requires that we fundamentally reimagine our nation’s schools and classrooms. Our public education system needs to catch up with how the world is evolving and with what we’ve come to understand about how people learn. That means attending to a broader diversity of learning styles and bringing what happens in school into greater alignment with what happens in the worlds of work and civic life. We make investments to increase the number of innovative learning models that support personalized experiences, academic mastery, and positive youth development. We also make investments that build the capacity of districts and intermediaries to improve learning experiences for all students as well as grants to investigate relevant issues of policy and practice.

Pathways to Postsecondary Success

Lifelong success in the United States has never been more dependent on educational attainment than it is today. Completing some education beyond the 12th grade has virtually become a necessity for financial security and meaningful work. But for that possibility to exist for everyone, we need to address the historical barriers that keep many students from pursuing and completing a postsecondary program, and we must strengthen the options available to all students for education after high school. Through our investments, we seek to increase the number of young people able to access and complete a postsecondary program, with a major focus on removing historical barriers for students who are first-generation college-goers, low-income, or from underrepresented groups. We also look to expand the range of high-quality postsecondary options and to strengthen alignment between K–12, higher education, and the world of work.

Leadership and Teaching to Advance Learning

At its core, learning is about the interplay between teachers, students, and content. How teachers and students engage with each other and with their curriculum plays a predominant role in determining what students learn and how well they learn it. That’s not to say that factors outside of school don’t also greatly impact student learning. But the research is clear that among the factors a school might control, nothing outweighs the teaching that students experience. We focus on supporting educators in implementing rigorous college- and career-ready standards in math, science, and English language arts. We make investments to increase the supply of and demand for high-quality curricular materials and professional learning experiences for teachers and administrators.

Public Understanding

As central as they are to the education process, school professionals are hardly the only people with a critical role to play in student learning. Students spend far more time with family and other community members than they do at school. And numerous stakeholders outside of the education system have the potential to strengthen and shape what happens within it. The success of our nation’s schools depends on far more individuals than are employed by them. 

We invest in efforts to engage families and other stakeholders as active partners in supporting equitable access to high-quality student learning. We also support media organizations and policy research groups in building awareness about key issues related to educational equity and improvement.

Integration, Learning, and Innovation

Those of us who work for change in education need a new set of habits to achieve our vision of 21st-century learning. It will take more than a factory-model mindset to transform our education system into one that prepares all learners for an increasingly complex world. We must approach this task with flexibility, empathy for the people involved, and an understanding of how to learn from what’s working and what’s not. We work to reduce the fragmentation, inefficiencies, and missteps that often result when educational improvement strategies are pursued in isolation and without an understanding of the contexts in which they are implemented. Through grants and other activities, we build the capacity of people working in educational organizations to change how they work by emphasizing systems and design thinking, iteration, and knowledge sharing within and across organizations.

Two recent surveys by Carnegie Corporation of New York and Gallup offer insights into how our education system can better help all Americans navigate job and career choices

Join Us in This Ambitious Endeavor

Our approach of supporting multiple stakeholders by pulling multiple levers is informed by our deep understanding of the system we’re trying to move. American education is a massive, diverse, and highly decentralized enterprise. There is no mechanism by which we might affect more than superficial change in many thousands of communities. The type of change that is needed cannot come from compliance alone. It requires that everyone grapple with new ideas.

We know from our history of promoting large-scale improvements in American education that advancements won’t happen overnight or as the result of one kind of initiative. Our vision for 21st-century education will require more than quick wins and isolated successes. Innovation is essential, and a major thrust of our work involves the incubation and dissemination of new models, resources, and exemplars. But we must also learn to move forward with the empathy, flexibility, and systems thinking needed to support people in making the transition. Novel solutions only help if they can be successfully implemented in different contexts.

Only a sustained and concerted effort will shift the center of gravity of a social enterprise that involves millions of adults and many tens of millions of young people. The challenge of philanthropy is to effect widespread social change with limited resources and without formal authority. This takes more than grantmaking. At the Corporation, we convene, communicate, and form coalitions. We provide thought leadership, issue challenges, and launch new initiatives. Through these multifaceted activities, we maximize our ability to forge, share, and put into practice powerful new ideas that build a foundation for more substantial changes in the future.

We encourage everyone who plays a role in education to join us in this work. Our strategy represents more than our priorities as a grantmaker. It conveys our strong beliefs about how to get American education to where it needs to be. The more organizations and individuals we have supporting those who are working to provide students with what they need, the more likely we are to succeed in this ambitious endeavor. 

LaVerne Evans Srinivasan is the vice president of Carnegie Corporation of New York’s National Program and the program director for Education.

TOP: Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, a lower-school substitute teacher works from her home in Arlington, Virginia, on April 1, 2020. Her role in the school changed significantly due to the pandemic. Whereas she previously worked part-time to support teachers when they needed to be absent from the classroom, amid COVID-19 she now helps teachers to build skills with new digital platforms so they can continue to teach in the best way for their students and their families. (Credit: Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

More than half of American counties are without access or have very limited access to local news. Political scientist and Andrew Carnegie Fellow Joshua P. Darr has been studying what the loss of local news means for American communities

With the philanthropic support of Carnegie Corporation of New York, thousands of newly digitized, high-quality images of medieval manuscripts are now freely available to the public

What the best education systems are doing right

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In South Korea and Finland, it’s not about finding the “right” school.

Fifty years ago, both South Korea and Finland had terrible education systems. Finland was at risk of becoming the economic stepchild of Europe. South Korea was ravaged by civil war. Yet over the past half century, both South Korea and Finland have turned their schools around — and now both countries are hailed internationally for their extremely high educational outcomes. What can other countries learn from these two successful, but diametrically opposed, educational models? Here’s an overview of what South Korea and Finland are doing right.

The Korean model: Grit and hard, hard, hard work.

For millennia, in some parts of Asia, the only way to climb the socioeconomic ladder and find secure work was to take an examination — in which the proctor was a proxy for the emperor , says Marc Tucker, president and CEO of the National Center on Education and the Economy. Those examinations required a thorough command of knowledge, and taking them was a grueling rite of passage. Today, many in the Confucian countries still respect the kind of educational achievement that is promoted by an exam culture.

The Koreans have achieved a remarkable feat: the country is 100 percent literate. But success comes with a price.

Among these countries, South Korea stands apart as the most extreme, and arguably, most successful. The Koreans have achieved a remarkable feat: the country is 100 percent literate, and at the forefront of international comparative tests of achievement, including tests of critical thinking and analysis. But this success comes with a price: Students are under enormous, unrelenting pressure to perform. Talent is not a consideration — because the culture believes in hard work and diligence above all, there is no excuse for failure. Children study year-round, both in-school and with tutors. If you study hard enough, you can be smart enough.

“Koreans basically believe that I have to get through this really tough period to have a great future,” says Andreas Schleicher , director of education and skills at PISA and special advisor on education policy at the OECD. “It’s a question of short-term unhappiness and long-term happiness.” It’s not just the parents pressuring their kids. Because this culture traditionally celebrates conformity and order, pressure from other students can also heighten performance expectations. This community attitude expresses itself even in early-childhood education, says Joe Tobin, professor of early childhood education at the University of Georgia who specializes in comparative international research. In Korea, as in other Asian countries, class sizes are very large — which would be extremely undesirable for, say, an American parent. But in Korea, the goal is for the teacher to lead the class as a community, and for peer relationships to develop. In American preschools, the focus for teachers is on developing individual relationships with students, and intervening regularly in peer relationships.

“I think it is clear there are better and worse way to educate our children,” says Amanda Ripley, author of The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way . “At the same time, if I had to choose between an average US education and an average Korean education for my own kid, I would choose, very reluctantly, the Korean model. The reality is, in the modern world the kid is going to have to know how to learn, how to work hard and how to persist after failure. The Korean model teaches that.”

The Finnish model: Extracurricular choice, intrinsic motivation.

In Finland, on the other hand, students are learning the benefits of both rigor and flexibility. The Finnish model, say educators, is utopia.

Finland has a short school day rich with school-sponsored extracurriculars, because Finns believe important learning happens outside the classroom.

In Finland, school is the center of the community, notes Schleicher. School provides not just educational services, but social services. Education is about creating identity.

Finnish culture values intrinsic motivation and the pursuit of personal interest. It has a relatively short school day rich with school-sponsored extracurriculars, because culturally, Finns believe important learning happens outside of the classroom. (An exception? Sports, which are not sponsored by schools, but by towns.) A third of the classes that students take in high school are electives, and they can even choose which matriculation exams they are going to take. It’s a low-stress culture, and it values a wide variety of learning experiences.

But that does not except it from academic rigor, motivated by the country’s history trapped between European superpowers, says Pasi Sahlberg, Finnish educator and author of Finnish Lessons: What the World Can Learn From Educational Change in Finland .

Teachers in Finland teach 600 hours a year, spending the rest of time in professional development. In the U.S., teachers are in the classroom 1,100 hours a year, with little time for feedback.

“A key to that is education. Finns do not really exist outside of Finland,” says Sahlberg. “This drives people to take education more seriously. For example, nobody speaks this funny language that we do. Finland is bilingual, and every student learns both Finnish and Swedish. And every Finn who wants to be successful has to master at least one other language, often English, but she also typically learns German, French, Russian and many others. Even the smallest children understand that nobody else speaks Finnish, and if they want to do anything else in life, they need to learn languages.”

Finns share one thing with South Koreans: a deep respect for teachers and their academic accomplishments. In Finland, only one in ten applicants to teaching programs is admitted. After a mass closure of 80 percent of teacher colleges in the 1970s, only the best university training programs remained, elevating the status of educators in the country. Teachers in Finland teach 600 hours a year, spending the rest of time in professional development, meeting with colleagues, students and families. In the U.S., teachers are in the classroom 1,100 hours a year, with little time for collaboration, feedback or professional development.

How Americans can change education culture

As TED speaker Sir Ken Robinson noted in his 2013 talk ( How to escape education’s death valley ), when it comes to current American education woes “the dropout crisis is just the tip of an iceberg. What it doesn’t count are all the kids who are in school but being disengaged from it, who don’t enjoy it, who don’t get any real benefit from it.” But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Notes Amanda Ripley, “culture is a thing that changes. It’s more malleable than we think. Culture is like this ether that has all kinds of things swirling around in it, some of which are activated and some of which are latent. Given an economic imperative or change in leadership or accident of history, those things get activated.” The good news is, “We Americans have a lot of things in our culture which would support a very strong education system, such as a longstanding rhetoric about the equality of opportunity and a strong and legitimate meritocracy,” says Ripley.

One reason we haven’t made much progress academically over the past 50 years is because it hasn’t been economically crucial for American kids to master sophisticated problem-solving and critical-thinking skills in order to survive. But that’s not true anymore. “There’s a lag for cultures to catch up with economic realities, and right now we’re living in that lag,” says Ripley. “So our kids aren’t growing up with the kind of skills or grit to make it in the global economy.”

“We are prisoners of the pictures and experiences of education that we had,” says Tony Wagner , expert-in-residence at Harvard’s educational innovation center and author of The Global Achievement Gap . “We want schools for our kids that mirror our own experience, or what we thought we wanted. That severely limits our ability to think creatively of a different kind of education. But there’s no way that tweaking that assembly line will meet the 21st-century world. We need a major overhaul.”

Indeed. Today, the American culture of choice puts the onus on parents to find the “right” schools for our kids, rather than trusting that all schools are capable of preparing our children for adulthood. Our obsession with talent puts the onus on students to be “smart,” rather than on adults’ ability to teach them. And our antiquated system for funding schools makes property values the arbiter of spending per student, not actual values.

But what will American education culture look like tomorrow? In the most successful education cultures in the world, it is the system that is responsible for the success of the student, says Schleicher — not solely the parent, not solely the student, not solely the teacher. The culture creates the system. The hope is that Americans can find the grit and will to change their own culture — one parent, student and teacher at a time.

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About the author

Amy S. Choi is a freelance journalist, writer and editor based in Brooklyn, N.Y. She is the co-founder and editorial director of The Mash-Up Americans, a media and consulting company that examines multidimensional modern life in the U.S.

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The Education System of the United States of America: Overview and Foundations

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Prevailing discourse in the USA about the country’s teachers, educational institutions, and instructional approaches is a conversation that is national in character. Yet the structures and the administrative and governance apparatuses themselves are strikingly local in character across the USA. Public understanding and debate about education can be distorted in light of divergence between the country’s educational aspirations and the vehicles in place for pursuing those aims. In addressing its purpose as a survey of US education, the following chapter interrogates this apparent contradiction, first discussing historical and social factors that help account for a social construction of the USA as singular and national system. Discussion then moves to a descriptive analysis of education in the USA as institutionalized at the numerous levels – aspects that often reflect local prerogative and difference more so than a uniform national character. The chapter concludes with summary points regarding US federalism as embodied in the country’s oversight and conduct of formal education.

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Major Issues in the Indian Education System

The Indian Education System has its share of issues and challenges which need to be resolved to provide better and improved education to children, who are the future of the country. Over the years, a lot has changed in the Indian education system but still, there are many loopholes and problems which need to be resolved. 

In this article, we shall discuss in detail the issues and challenges with the Indian Education System and a few counter solutions to overcome these challenges. Also discussed are a few schemes which have been initiated by the Government for the improved education of students across the country. 

Aspirants preparing for the upcoming IAS Exam must carefully go through this article. 

Education System in India – Issues Download PDF Here

About the Indian Education System

A major shift in the education system can be observed from the pre and post-British rule till today in India. Initially, children were educated in Gurukuls which was later modified and the modern education system was introduced. 

After India became independent, the constitution committed six fundamental rights, of which one was the Right to Education. It allowed free education for every child up between the ages of 6 and 14 years. 

The education system is mainly divided into pre-primary, primary, elementary and secondary education, which is followed by higher studies. 

However, there are many drawbacks and loopholes in this system which if curbed can work for the overall development of the country. 

To know in detail about the Right to Education Act (RTE) , aspirants can visit the linked article.

Current Issues in Education in India

Discussed below are the current issues with the Education system in India:

• Expenditure on education – More funds should be allotted for the development of the education system in India. In the past few years, many beneficial steps have been taken in this direction and if the same is continued India may soon overcome the current challenges.
• Gross enrolment pattern – As followed by the UN must also be adopted by India.
• Capacity utilisation – The world now needs creative minds and the Government must encourage schools to boost the students and utilise their capacities to the max and not let their ideas go unheard.
• Infrastructure facilities – Better infrastructure must be provided especially in Government schools. Since the Government is now focussing on digital education, they must undertake steps to provide all necessary facilities in the Government schools and rural areas as well.
• PPP model – Well-designed PPPs can create models of innovation for the school system in India. Thus the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model must be taken into consideration.
• Student-teacher ratio – The number of students in search of proper education is way more in comparison to the teachers and faculty available. Thus, qualified teachers must be appointed to impart knowledge to the future of the country.
• Accreditation and branding – quality standards.
• Students studying abroad – Many students choose to study abroad because of these issues in the Indian education system. The concerned authorities must work on them and students must also choose to stay, learn in India and empower the country through their knowledge.

UPSC and other Government exam aspirants can also refer to the links given below for exam preparation:

Indian Education System Problems and Solutions

There are a few simple solutions which can help in overcoming the problems with the India Education System:

• Innovations required – India is moving towards digital education. This will help in budding the innovative minds of students and the youth of the country. This will bring a transformation in the Indian education system and the authorities and Government must encourage and boost the young minds to focus on overall development rather than just the book-learning.
• Quality of education – There is a major difference in the quality of education being provided in the rural and urban areas of the country. Steps must be taken to standardize the quality of education across India so that everyone can get equal and unbiased knowledge and opportunities to grow.
• Making education affordable – There are Government schools and educational Institutions which are affordable but lack in terms of infrastructure and quality. On the other hand, there are various private education institutions which demand high fees and have better infrastructure and equipment to study. This disparity must be worked upon and the Government must make education affordable and accessible for all. 

Schemes & Campaigns to Boost Education System in India

Given below is a list of Government schemes introduced to enhance the education system in India:

• Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan – Launched in 2001 to promote ‘Education for All’, strengthening the existing infrastructure of schools and construction of new schools. To know in details about the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) , visit the linked article.
• National Programme for Education of Girls at Elementary Level – It is a focused intervention of the Government of India, to reach the “Hardest to Reach” girls, especially those not in school. Read more at Elementary Education: Moving Towards RTE And Quality Improvement.
• Mid-Day Meal Scheme – It is one meal that is provided to all children enrolled in government schools, government-aided schools, local body schools, special training centres (STC), madrasas and maktabs supported under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). Visit the Mid Day Meal Scheme page to learn more.
• Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan – It is a flagship scheme aiming at enhancing secondary education and increasing the enrolment rate by providing a secondary school within a reasonable distance of every home.
• Scheme for Infrastructure Development in Minority Institutes – The scheme would facilitate the education of minorities by augmenting and strengthening school infrastructure in Minority Institutions to expand facilities for formal education to children of minority communities.
• Beti Bachao Beti Padhao – The scheme to promote girl child education in India. Visit the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana page to learn more about the BBBP campaign.

Aspirants can get the detailed UPSC Syllabus for the prelims and mains examination at the linked article and start their exam preparation accordingly. 

Frequently Asked Questions about Indian Education System

What are some of the problems that beset the indian education system, how effective is the indian education system.

For any further updates, candidates can visit BYJU’S and get the latest study material and preparation strategy. 

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What Students Are Saying About How to Improve American Education

An international exam shows that American 15-year-olds are stagnant in reading and math. Teenagers told us what’s working and what’s not in the American education system.

By The Learning Network

Earlier this month, the Program for International Student Assessment announced that the performance of American teenagers in reading and math has been stagnant since 2000 . Other recent studies revealed that two-thirds of American children were not proficient readers , and that the achievement gap in reading between high and low performers is widening.

We asked students to weigh in on these findings and to tell us their suggestions for how they would improve the American education system.

Our prompt received nearly 300 comments. This was clearly a subject that many teenagers were passionate about. They offered a variety of suggestions on how they felt schools could be improved to better teach and prepare students for life after graduation.

While we usually highlight three of our most popular writing prompts in our Current Events Conversation , this week we are only rounding up comments for this one prompt so we can honor the many students who wrote in.

Please note: Student comments have been lightly edited for length, but otherwise appear as they were originally submitted.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Current Education System

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The current education system is the way schools teach students today. It includes classes, tests, and homework to help kids learn new things and prepare for their future.

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Explained: How will NEP 2020 change the education system in India

Nep 2020 is a milestone in the history of education system in india. here is how it will change the education system in india..

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• NEP2020 aims to recognise the need to evaluate "higher order skills" such as creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, visualisation, and idea generation.
• NEP 2020 emphasises on multidisciplinary learning and no separations are made between vocational and academic streams.

Long overdue, the New Education Policy 2020 is on the lines of universalising education from pre-school to secondary level. It replaces a 34-year-old policy to become a more inclusive, holistic, comprehensive, and far-sighted policy to make India a knowledge hub by the end of this decade.

Under the new policy, the government aims to bridge social gaps in participation, access, and learning outcomes in school education with a target of 100 percent Gross Enrolment Ratio (GEER) or zero school drop outs by 2030.

• Multiple entry and exit options in degree courses
• Discontinuation of MPhil Programs
• Single regulator for higher education institutes
• Low stakes Board Exams
• Common entrance exams for Universities

Impact of NEP 2020 on Indian education system

4. Mother Tongue as a medium of instruction

NEP 2020 focuses on the use of mother tongue as the instruction medium however, not mandating the use of a particular language on anyone.

5. Science, Arts and Commerce gets blurred

NEP 2020 emphasises on multidisciplinary learning and no separations are made between vocational and academic streams. ACadru, one of the best online learning platforms offer free access to multi-disciplinary modules that help users to build unique careers for future jobs.

6. Teacher Training

The new education system is an evolved blend of the digital and traditional learning system. Educators, therefore, have to be trained digitally to blend into the new digital learning processes.

NEP 2020 is a milestone in the history of the education system in India. It will provide the much-needed tectonic shift in the pedagogical structure emphasising experiential and practical learning that will instill 21st-century skills in children. ACadru is currently the only platform that offers a multidisciplinary learning platform with skill-building activities for senior school and college students starting from grade 9.

Authored by Kamini Vidisha, Founder, Acadru.

Read: Education experts give thumbs up to Union Budget, welcome NEP thrust, seek more help for school-returning students

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Harvard Staff Writer

Paul Reville says COVID-19 school closures have turned a spotlight on inequities and other shortcomings

This is part of our Coronavirus Update series in which Harvard specialists in epidemiology, infectious disease, economics, politics, and other disciplines offer insights into what the latest developments in the COVID-19 outbreak may bring.

As former secretary of education for Massachusetts, Paul Reville is keenly aware of the financial and resource disparities between districts, schools, and individual students. The school closings due to coronavirus concerns have turned a spotlight on those problems and how they contribute to educational and income inequality in the nation. The Gazette talked to Reville, the Francis Keppel Professor of Practice of Educational Policy and Administration at Harvard Graduate School of Education , about the effects of the pandemic on schools and how the experience may inspire an overhaul of the American education system.

Paul Reville

GAZETTE: Schools around the country have closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Do these massive school closures have any precedent in the history of the United States?

REVILLE: We’ve certainly had school closures in particular jurisdictions after a natural disaster, like in New Orleans after the hurricane. But on this scale? No, certainly not in my lifetime. There were substantial closings in many places during the 1918 Spanish Flu, some as long as four months, but not as widespread as those we’re seeing today. We’re in uncharted territory.

GAZETTE: What lessons did school districts around the country learn from school closures in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and other similar school closings?

REVILLE:   I think the lessons we’ve learned are that it’s good [for school districts] to have a backup system, if they can afford it. I was talking recently with folks in a district in New Hampshire where, because of all the snow days they have in the wintertime, they had already developed a backup online learning system. That made the transition, in this period of school closure, a relatively easy one for them to undertake. They moved seamlessly to online instruction.

Most of our big systems don’t have this sort of backup. Now, however, we’re not only going to have to construct a backup to get through this crisis, but we’re going to have to develop new, permanent systems, redesigned to meet the needs which have been so glaringly exposed in this crisis. For example, we have always had large gaps in students’ learning opportunities after school, weekends, and in the summer. Disadvantaged students suffer the consequences of those gaps more than affluent children, who typically have lots of opportunities to fill in those gaps. I’m hoping that we can learn some things through this crisis about online delivery of not only instruction, but an array of opportunities for learning and support. In this way, we can make the most of the crisis to help redesign better systems of education and child development.

GAZETTE: Is that one of the silver linings of this public health crisis?

REVILLE: In politics we say, “Never lose the opportunity of a crisis.” And in this situation, we don’t simply want to frantically struggle to restore the status quo because the status quo wasn’t operating at an effective level and certainly wasn’t serving all of our children fairly. There are things we can learn in the messiness of adapting through this crisis, which has revealed profound disparities in children’s access to support and opportunities. We should be asking: How do we make our school, education, and child-development systems more individually responsive to the needs of our students? Why not construct a system that meets children where they are and gives them what they need inside and outside of school in order to be successful? Let’s take this opportunity to end the “one size fits all” factory model of education.

GAZETTE: How seriously are students going to be set back by not having formal instruction for at least two months, if not more?

“The best that can come of this is a new paradigm shift in terms of the way in which we look at education, because children’s well-being and success depend on more than just schooling,” Paul Reville said of the current situation. “We need to look holistically, at the entirety of children’s lives.”

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard file photo

REVILLE: The first thing to consider is that it’s going to be a variable effect. We tend to regard our school systems uniformly, but actually schools are widely different in their operations and impact on children, just as our students themselves are very different from one another. Children come from very different backgrounds and have very different resources, opportunities, and support outside of school. Now that their entire learning lives, as well as their actual physical lives, are outside of school, those differences and disparities come into vivid view. Some students will be fine during this crisis because they’ll have high-quality learning opportunities, whether it’s formal schooling or informal homeschooling of some kind coupled with various enrichment opportunities. Conversely, other students won’t have access to anything of quality, and as a result will be at an enormous disadvantage. Generally speaking, the most economically challenged in our society will be the most vulnerable in this crisis, and the most advantaged are most likely to survive it without losing too much ground.

GAZETTE: Schools in Massachusetts are closed until May 4. Some people are saying they should remain closed through the end of the school year. What’s your take on this?

REVILLE: That should be a medically based judgment call that will be best made several weeks from now. If there’s evidence to suggest that students and teachers can safely return to school, then I’d say by all means. However, that seems unlikely.

GAZETTE: The digital divide between students has become apparent as schools have increasingly turned to online instruction. What can school systems do to address that gap?

REVILLE: Arguably, this is something that schools should have been doing a long time ago, opening up the whole frontier of out-of-school learning by virtue of making sure that all students have access to the technology and the internet they need in order to be connected in out-of-school hours. Students in certain school districts don’t have those affordances right now because often the school districts don’t have the budget to do this, but federal, state, and local taxpayers are starting to see the imperative for coming together to meet this need.

Twenty-first century learning absolutely requires technology and internet. We can’t leave this to chance or the accident of birth. All of our children should have the technology they need to learn outside of school. Some communities can take it for granted that their children will have such tools. Others who have been unable to afford to level the playing field are now finding ways to step up. Boston, for example, has bought 20,000 Chromebooks and is creating hotspots around the city where children and families can go to get internet access. That’s a great start but, in the long run, I think we can do better than that. At the same time, many communities still need help just to do what Boston has done for its students.

Communities and school districts are going to have to adapt to get students on a level playing field. Otherwise, many students will continue to be at a huge disadvantage. We can see this playing out now as our lower-income and more heterogeneous school districts struggle over whether to proceed with online instruction when not everyone can access it. Shutting down should not be an option. We have to find some middle ground, and that means the state and local school districts are going to have to act urgently and nimbly to fill in the gaps in technology and internet access.

GAZETTE : What can parents can do to help with the homeschooling of their children in the current crisis?

“In this situation, we don’t simply want to frantically struggle to restore the status quo because the status quo wasn’t operating at an effective level and certainly wasn’t serving all of our children fairly.”

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REVILLE: School districts can be helpful by giving parents guidance about how to constructively use this time. The default in our education system is now homeschooling. Virtually all parents are doing some form of homeschooling, whether they want to or not. And the question is: What resources, support, or capacity do they have to do homeschooling effectively? A lot of parents are struggling with that.

And again, we have widely variable capacity in our families and school systems. Some families have parents home all day, while other parents have to go to work. Some school systems are doing online classes all day long, and the students are fully engaged and have lots of homework, and the parents don’t need to do much. In other cases, there is virtually nothing going on at the school level, and everything falls to the parents. In the meantime, lots of organizations are springing up, offering different kinds of resources such as handbooks and curriculum outlines, while many school systems are coming up with guidance documents to help parents create a positive learning environment in their homes by engaging children in challenging activities so they keep learning.

There are lots of creative things that can be done at home. But the challenge, of course, for parents is that they are contending with working from home, and in other cases, having to leave home to do their jobs. We have to be aware that families are facing myriad challenges right now. If we’re not careful, we risk overloading families. We have to strike a balance between what children need and what families can do, and how you maintain some kind of work-life balance in the home environment. Finally, we must recognize the equity issues in the forced overreliance on homeschooling so that we avoid further disadvantaging the already disadvantaged.

GAZETTE: What has been the biggest surprise for you thus far?

REVILLE: One that’s most striking to me is that because schools are closed, parents and the general public have become more aware than at any time in my memory of the inequities in children’s lives outside of school. Suddenly we see front-page coverage about food deficits, inadequate access to health and mental health, problems with housing stability, and access to educational technology and internet. Those of us in education know these problems have existed forever. What has happened is like a giant tidal wave that came and sucked the water off the ocean floor, revealing all these uncomfortable realities that had been beneath the water from time immemorial. This newfound public awareness of pervasive inequities, I hope, will create a sense of urgency in the public domain. We need to correct for these inequities in order for education to realize its ambitious goals. We need to redesign our systems of child development and education. The most obvious place to start for schools is working on equitable access to educational technology as a way to close the digital-learning gap.

GAZETTE: You’ve talked about some concrete changes that should be considered to level the playing field. But should we be thinking broadly about education in some new way?

REVILLE: The best that can come of this is a new paradigm shift in terms of the way in which we look at education, because children’s well-being and success depend on more than just schooling. We need to look holistically, at the entirety of children’s lives. In order for children to come to school ready to learn, they need a wide array of essential supports and opportunities outside of school. And we haven’t done a very good job of providing these. These education prerequisites go far beyond the purview of school systems, but rather are the responsibility of communities and society at large. In order to learn, children need equal access to health care, food, clean water, stable housing, and out-of-school enrichment opportunities, to name just a few preconditions. We have to reconceptualize the whole job of child development and education, and construct systems that meet children where they are and give them what they need, both inside and outside of school, in order for all of them to have a genuine opportunity to be successful.

Within this coronavirus crisis there is an opportunity to reshape American education. The only precedent in our field was when the Sputnik went up in 1957, and suddenly, Americans became very worried that their educational system wasn’t competitive with that of the Soviet Union. We felt vulnerable, like our defenses were down, like a nation at risk. And we decided to dramatically boost the involvement of the federal government in schooling and to increase and improve our scientific curriculum. We decided to look at education as an important factor in human capital development in this country. Again, in 1983, the report “Nation at Risk” warned of a similar risk: Our education system wasn’t up to the demands of a high-skills/high-knowledge economy.

We tried with our education reforms to build a 21st-century education system, but the results of that movement have been modest. We are still a nation at risk. We need another paradigm shift, where we look at our goals and aspirations for education, which are summed up in phrases like “No Child Left Behind,” “Every Student Succeeds,” and “All Means All,” and figure out how to build a system that has the capacity to deliver on that promise of equity and excellence in education for all of our students, and all means all. We’ve got that opportunity now. I hope we don’t fail to take advantage of it in a misguided rush to restore the status quo.

This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.

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• Education /

Current Education System in India

• Updated on  
• Feb 9, 2023

Rooted in the ancient learnings of Vedas and Puranas, the Indian education system has come a long way from the old-school Gurukuls to the new-age hi-tech academic institutions. Though the constitution of India primarily gave the authority of the educational apparatus of the country to the state, the introduction of a constitutional amendment in 1976 added the role of the national government for suggesting school education policies and programmes with the state still having some freedom over the implementation of programs. The school system of the country has a total of four levels, i.e. lower primary, upper primary, high and higher secondary. Though the educational system can still be improved in a variety of ways, the country has strived to bring significant changes through initiatives such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan as well as the Right to Education Act. With this blog, we will take a comprehensive look at some of the prevalent features of the current education system in India and how it can be improved.

This Blog Includes:

Goals for pedagogy, grading system , abridging the gap: secondary & post-secondary education, embracing the role of technology in education, advent of international private schools, availability of a wide range of short-term courses, specialised programs, emphasis on extra-curricular activities, varied scholarship opportunities, issues in the current education system in india.

The main goal behind designing the curriculum for schools is to inculcate a structural approach that aims to inform students about the salient features of our rich cultural heritage, egalitarianism, democracy, and secularism. In the current education system in India, central emphasis is put on the study of the Indian freedom movements, constitutional publications and other essential topics that focus on imparting students with the knowledge of national identity as well as the glorious history of the country. Further, the curriculums also incorporate the study of diverse cultures in India along with a range of basic academic disciplines as well as official and regional languages.

In the current education system in India, the vitality of the grading system is emphasized. The students in schools and colleges are not just tested based on their learning abilities but also on their acquired knowledge and skills as well as their performance in extracurricular activities . This system is implemented in order to emphasize the importance of the overall growth of the child to broaden their horizons. 

There is a pivotal need to lessen the gap present between the education that is provided at a school level and the senior secondary level that is provided at the post-secondary level. When it comes to schooling, the current education system in India is finite and limited to the foundational knowledge rudimentary to understand basic academic disciplines such as Mathematics , Science , and Social Science , amongst others. When students complete their senior secondary education, they are generally asked to select from degree and diploma courses which are more specialised and that’s why most of them feel confused about what to study after 12th . Thus, there is an essential need to abridge this gap so that students can sort out their interests during their schooling journey which would further assist them in selecting the right undergraduate course after the 12th.

The academic institutions in India, be it primary, secondary or higher education, are embracing advanced technologies in facilitating learning and bringing a revolutionary change to the same-old classroom teaching. Many schools have brought tablets into their traditional classrooms to make learning an engaging and interesting process by teaching kids through digital applications. From a multitude of distance learning programs to online learning management systems such as the School of Open Learning by Delhi University as well as MOOCs, Indian universities and colleges are also rigorously incorporating digital platforms to help every individual attain higher education regardless of the constraints they are facing.

Must Read: How Is Technology Changing the Face of Education ?

As modernization has found its way into the current education system of India, the introduction of international private schools is a prominent change brought to the sector. These schools aim at preparing students to compete at a global level with the outer world and seek international opportunities. Though the fees and admission criteria are evidently more complex than public schools, international schools have become a top choice for most of the parents of higher strata as well as the middle class striving to provide their kids with global exposure.

In the spirit of innovation, new diplomas and vocational courses , have been introduced to give the students a basic idea of what to expect out of a degree course as well as provide them with the necessary grounding for skill-based education. These courses incorporate uniquely designed curriculums that support vocational training and polishing the skills of students in a particular field. So, if you are someone who is looking for a course that will directly lead to conversion to a well-paying job and gives you instant professional occupancy, you should definitely explore diploma courses after the 12th . Thus, through these short-term courses, the chief goal of the current education system in India is to foster learning-focused pedagogy while promoting skill-based training programs.

The Government of India has launched several specialised courses and training programs for housewives, industrial labourers and workers in order to promote educational opportunities for people of all ages. These programs include livelihood schemes aimed at boosting the presence of skilled manpower as well as aimed at the motto of women empowerment . Further, in the current education system in India, the government is offering plentiful training courses under its varied departments and ministries of Agriculture , the Food Processing Industry, Health and Family Welfare, Human Resource Development, Information Technology, and Rural Development, amongst others.

Know All About Rural Development Courses !

Whether at the school or college level, essential importance is being given to extra-curricular activities to ensure the wholesome development of every student. In the current education system of India, schools and universities rapidly encourage students to take part in co-curricular activities such as sports , cultural and varied other endeavours which are frequently added to their study curriculum. Their participation in extra-curricular activities helps them furnish their future prospects. Further, degree programs are also formulated while ensuring that students are given the requisite practical exposure to the field of study they want to explore!

Check Out: Types of Co-curricular Activities

Special attention is also being paid towards providing enough opportunities to help deserving students with scholarships and education loans that can provide them with suitable financial assistance for their academic journey. Schemes such as Aga Khan Scholarship , Pratibha Scholarship , LIC Scholarship , and Dhirubhai Ambani Scholarship , amongst others, offer much-needed financial to meritorious students wanting to pursue secondary and higher education in the country as well as abroad.

The following are the current concerns with the Indian educational system:

• Education spending: More money needs to be set aside for the expansion of India’s educational system. Numerous positive steps have been made in this direction over the past few years, and if they are kept up, India may soon be able to overcome its current difficulties.
• India needs to adopt the UN’s gross enrolment pattern as well.
• Utilizing students’ capacities to the full is important because the world now needs creative thinkers , and the government should encourage educators to do just that.
• Infrastructure facilities should be improved, particularly in government schools. Government must take action to provide all necessary facilities in government schools and rural areas since they are currently focusing on digital education.
• Model PPP – PPPs that are well-designed can produce innovative school systems in India. Consequently, the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model needs to be considered.
• The ratio of students to teachers : In comparison to the number of teachers and faculty members available, there are significantly more students seeking a proper education. As a result, trained educators must be hired to educate the nation’s future.
• Standards for quality in branding and accreditation
• Students studying abroad: Due to these problems with the Indian educational system, many students opt to study abroad . The relevant authorities must address them, and students must decide to remain in India to continue their education and strengthen the nation through their knowledge.

India has the third-largest education and development sector in the world, behind China and the United States . It is abundantly clear from the discussion above that the current educational system in India is more theory-focused than career-focused. It emphasises theory and exams more. The Indian educational system, however, has undergone a significant change as a result of the new education policy, in 2020. The division of stages has been changed as a result of the new National Education Policy (NEP) so that it now reflects the typical stages of mental development that children go through. It has grown lively and skill-focused. India has a 69.3 per cent adult literacy rate. More than 20 universities from India’s higher education system are anticipated to rank among the top 200 worldwide by the year 2030.

In India, where there are 500 million people, 18% of them are between the ages of 15 and 24 and are enrolled in secondary and higher education. In India, the adult literacy rate (15+ years) is 69.3%, with adult males having a literacy rate of 78.8% and adult females having a literacy rate of 59.3%.

India’s 21st-century modern-age education system is made up of a new method of learning that includes online education, skill-development programmes, digital learning platforms, a grading system, the use of educational technology in the classrooms, and a recently introduced New Education Policy!

Here are the top 5 issues that the Indian Education system is facing: Lack of a budget. Too much pressure on Grades. Too much competition. Not Focusing on Overall Growth. Lack of Training.

Thus, the current education system in India is still immensely far behind those of top countries such as the USA and the UK and there is still a lot of scope for improvement. If you are planning to continue your academic journey abroad, you can always get in touch with our Leverage Edu experts and we’ll provide you with suitable guidance in choosing an ideal course and university as well as throughout the whole application process thus assisting you in getting successfully shortlisted into the institution of your choice.

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The article is well structured and describes the ongoing stage of the education system. It gives a brief understanding which is well written and well pointed in each and every point.Thank you such an insightful article.

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The Education Crisis: Being in School Is Not the Same as Learning

First grade students in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province are learning the alphabet through child-friendly flash cards. Their learning materials help educators teach through interactive and engaging activities and are provided free of charge through a student’s first learning backpack. © World Bank 

THE NAME OF THE DOG IS PUPPY. This seems like a simple sentence. But did you know that in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, three out of four third grade students do not understand it? The world is facing a learning crisis . Worldwide, hundreds of millions of children reach young adulthood without even the most basic skills like calculating the correct change from a transaction, reading a doctor’s instructions, or understanding a bus schedule—let alone building a fulfilling career or educating their children. Education is at the center of building human capital. The latest World Bank research shows that the productivity of 56 percent of the world’s children will be less than half of what it could be if they enjoyed complete education and full health. For individuals, education raises self-esteem and furthers opportunities for employment and earnings. And for a country, it helps strengthen institutions within societies, drives long-term economic growth, reduces poverty, and spurs innovation.

One of the most interesting, large scale educational technology efforts is being led by EkStep , a philanthropic effort in India. EkStep created an open digital infrastructure which provides access to learning opportunities for 200 million children, as well as professional development opportunities for 12 million teachers and 4.5 million school leaders. Both teachers and children are accessing content which ranges from teaching materials, explanatory videos, interactive content, stories, practice worksheets, and formative assessments. By monitoring which content is used most frequently—and most beneficially—informed decisions can be made around future content.

In the Dominican Republic, a World Bank supported pilot study shows how adaptive technologies can generate great interest among 21st century students and present a path to supporting the learning and teaching of future generations. Yudeisy, a sixth grader participating in the study, says that what she likes doing the most during the day is watching videos and tutorials on her computer and cell phone. Taking childhood curiosity as a starting point, the study aimed to channel it towards math learning in a way that interests Yudeisy and her classmates.

Yudeisy, along with her classmates in a public elementary school in Santo Domingo, is part of a four-month pilot to reinforce mathematics using software that adapts to the math level of each student. © World Bank

Adaptive technology was used to evaluate students’ initial learning level to then walk them through math exercises in a dynamic, personalized way, based on artificial intelligence and what the student is ready to learn. After three months, students with the lowest initial performance achieved substantial improvements. This shows the potential of technology to increase learning outcomes, especially among students lagging behind their peers. In a field that is developing at dizzying speeds, innovative solutions to educational challenges are springing up everywhere. Our challenge is to make technology a driver of equity and inclusion and not a source of greater inequality of opportunity. We are working with partners worldwide to support the effective and appropriate use of educational technologies to strengthen learning.

When schools and educations systems are managed well, learning happens

Successful education reforms require good policy design, strong political commitment, and effective implementation capacity . Of course, this is extremely challenging. Many countries struggle to make efficient use of resources and very often increased education spending does not translate into more learning and improved human capital. Overcoming such challenges involves working at all levels of the system.

At the central level, ministries of education need to attract the best experts to design and implement evidence-based and country-specific programs. District or regional offices need the capacity and the tools to monitor learning and support schools. At the school level, principals need to be trained and prepared to manage and lead schools, from planning the use of resources to supervising and nurturing their teachers. However difficult, change is possible. Supported by the World Bank, public schools across Punjab in Pakistan have been part of major reforms over the past few years to address these challenges. Through improved school-level accountability by monitoring and limiting teacher and student absenteeism, and the introduction of a merit-based teacher recruitment system, where only the most talented and motivated teachers were selected, they were able to increase enrollment and retention of students and significantly improve the quality of education. "The government schools have become very good now, even better than private ones," said Mr. Ahmed, a local villager.

The World Bank, along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the UK’s Department for International Development, is developing the Global Education Policy Dashboard . This new initiative will provide governments with a system for monitoring how their education systems are functioning, from learning data to policy plans, so they are better able to make timely and evidence-based decisions.

Education reform: The long game is worth it

In fact, it will take a generation to realize the full benefits of high-quality teachers, the effective use of technology, improved management of education systems, and engaged and prepared learners. However, global experience shows us that countries that have rapidly accelerated development and prosperity all share the common characteristic of taking education seriously and investing appropriately. As we mark the first-ever International Day of Education on January 24, we must do all we can to equip our youth with the skills to keep learning, adapt to changing realities, and thrive in an increasingly competitive global economy and a rapidly changing world of work.

The schools of the future are being built today. These are schools where all teachers have the right competencies and motivation, where technology empowers them to deliver quality learning, and where all students learn fundamental skills, including socio-emotional, and digital skills. These schools are safe and affordable to everyone and are places where children and young people learn with joy, rigor, and purpose. Governments, teachers, parents, and the international community must do their homework to realize the promise of education for all students, in every village, in every city, and in every country. 

The Bigger Picture: In-depth stories on ending poverty

Four of the biggest problems facing education—and four trends that could make a difference

Eduardo velez bustillo, harry a. patrinos.

In 2022, we published, Lessons for the education sector from the COVID-19 pandemic , which was a follow up to,  Four Education Trends that Countries Everywhere Should Know About , which summarized views of education experts around the world on how to handle the most pressing issues facing the education sector then. We focused on neuroscience, the role of the private sector, education technology, inequality, and pedagogy.

Unfortunately, we think the four biggest problems facing education today in developing countries are the same ones we have identified in the last decades .

1. The learning crisis was made worse by COVID-19 school closures

Low quality instruction is a major constraint and prior to COVID-19, the learning poverty rate in low- and middle-income countries was 57% (6 out of 10 children could not read and understand basic texts by age 10). More dramatic is the case of Sub-Saharan Africa with a rate even higher at 86%. Several analyses show that the impact of the pandemic on student learning was significant, leaving students in low- and middle-income countries way behind in mathematics, reading and other subjects.  Some argue that learning poverty may be close to 70% after the pandemic , with a substantial long-term negative effect in future earnings. This generation could lose around $21 trillion in future salaries, with the vulnerable students affected the most.

2. Countries are not paying enough attention to early childhood care and education (ECCE)

At the pre-school level about two-thirds of countries do not have a proper legal framework to provide free and compulsory pre-primary education. According to UNESCO, only a minority of countries, mostly high-income, were making timely progress towards SDG4 benchmarks on early childhood indicators prior to the onset of COVID-19. And remember that ECCE is not only preparation for primary school. It can be the foundation for emotional wellbeing and learning throughout life; one of the best investments a country can make.

3. There is an inadequate supply of high-quality teachers

Low quality teaching is a huge problem and getting worse in many low- and middle-income countries.  In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the percentage of trained teachers fell from 84% in 2000 to 69% in 2019 . In addition, in many countries teachers are formally trained and as such qualified, but do not have the minimum pedagogical training. Globally, teachers for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects are the biggest shortfalls.

4. Decision-makers are not implementing evidence-based or pro-equity policies that guarantee solid foundations

It is difficult to understand the continued focus on non-evidence-based policies when there is so much that we know now about what works. Two factors contribute to this problem. One is the short tenure that top officials have when leading education systems. Examples of countries where ministers last less than one year on average are plentiful. The second and more worrisome deals with the fact that there is little attention given to empirical evidence when designing education policies.

To help improve on these four fronts, we see four supporting trends:

1. Neuroscience should be integrated into education policies

Policies considering neuroscience can help ensure that students get proper attention early to support brain development in the first 2-3 years of life. It can also help ensure that children learn to read at the proper age so that they will be able to acquire foundational skills to learn during the primary education cycle and from there on. Inputs like micronutrients, early child stimulation for gross and fine motor skills, speech and language and playing with other children before the age of three are cost-effective ways to get proper development. Early grade reading, using the pedagogical suggestion by the Early Grade Reading Assessment model, has improved learning outcomes in many low- and middle-income countries. We now have the tools to incorporate these advances into the teaching and learning system with AI , ChatGPT , MOOCs and online tutoring.

2. Reversing learning losses at home and at school

There is a real need to address the remaining and lingering losses due to school closures because of COVID-19.  Most students living in households with incomes under the poverty line in the developing world, roughly the bottom 80% in low-income countries and the bottom 50% in middle-income countries, do not have the minimum conditions to learn at home . These students do not have access to the internet, and, often, their parents or guardians do not have the necessary schooling level or the time to help them in their learning process. Connectivity for poor households is a priority. But learning continuity also requires the presence of an adult as a facilitator—a parent, guardian, instructor, or community worker assisting the student during the learning process while schools are closed or e-learning is used.

To recover from the negative impact of the pandemic, the school system will need to develop at the student level: (i) active and reflective learning; (ii) analytical and applied skills; (iii) strong self-esteem; (iv) attitudes supportive of cooperation and solidarity; and (v) a good knowledge of the curriculum areas. At the teacher (instructor, facilitator, parent) level, the system should aim to develop a new disposition toward the role of teacher as a guide and facilitator. And finally, the system also needs to increase parental involvement in the education of their children and be active part in the solution of the children’s problems. The Escuela Nueva Learning Circles or the Pratham Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) are models that can be used.

3. Use of evidence to improve teaching and learning

We now know more about what works at scale to address the learning crisis. To help countries improve teaching and learning and make teaching an attractive profession, based on available empirical world-wide evidence , we need to improve its status, compensation policies and career progression structures; ensure pre-service education includes a strong practicum component so teachers are well equipped to transition and perform effectively in the classroom; and provide high-quality in-service professional development to ensure they keep teaching in an effective way. We also have the tools to address learning issues cost-effectively. The returns to schooling are high and increasing post-pandemic. But we also have the cost-benefit tools to make good decisions, and these suggest that structured pedagogy, teaching according to learning levels (with and without technology use) are proven effective and cost-effective .

4. The role of the private sector

When properly regulated the private sector can be an effective education provider, and it can help address the specific needs of countries. Most of the pedagogical models that have received international recognition come from the private sector. For example, the recipients of the Yidan Prize on education development are from the non-state sector experiences (Escuela Nueva, BRAC, edX, Pratham, CAMFED and New Education Initiative). In the context of the Artificial Intelligence movement, most of the tools that will revolutionize teaching and learning come from the private sector (i.e., big data, machine learning, electronic pedagogies like OER-Open Educational Resources, MOOCs, etc.). Around the world education technology start-ups are developing AI tools that may have a good potential to help improve quality of education .

After decades asking the same questions on how to improve the education systems of countries, we, finally, are finding answers that are very promising.  Governments need to be aware of this fact.

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Indian Education System Essay

Indian education system has changed over the time. A major change in our education system came with the colonization of the country by the Britishers. It was the British Government who introduced modern education in India, as they wanted some educated Indians to assist them in administering the state. Indian education system is mainly divided into four stages – lower primary, upper primary, high school and higher secondary.

Students follow a fixed curriculum up to 10 th standard; though, in higher secondary they get to choose from various streams i.e. science, commerce, etc. Apart from certain textual changes and over time rectifications, nothing much has changed in Indian Education system. The need to reform and restructure our education system has been felt many time. However, no concrete steps have yet been taken in this direction.

Long and Short Essays on Indian Education System in English

Here are Long and Short Essays on Indian Education system in English of varying lengths to help you with the topic in your exam.

After going through this Indian Education System Essay you will be well versed with the Indian Education system and its shortcomings.

Also, you would be able to assess it and make suggestions for its improvement.

These Essays will help you in your school essay writing competition and also in several debate competitions.

Short Essay on Indian Education System – Essay 1 (200 words)

Indian education system is quite different from that of the foreign nations. The curriculum in the western countries is known to be quite light and based on practical knowledge whereas in India the focus is on theoretical knowledge and acquiring marks by hook or crook.

Students are expected to mug up chapter after chapter and fetch good grades in the class. The marking system in the Indian schools begins from the primary classes thereby burdening little kids. The competition is growing by the day. Parents want their children to outperform their peers and teachers want their class to do better than the other classes.

They are so blinded by the urge of staying ahead of the competition that they do not realize that they are pushing the children in the wrong direction. At an age when the students should be given the chance to explore their interests and hone their creative side, they are pressurized to follow a set curriculum and slog day and night to get good marks.

Instead of making the students understand various concepts of mathematics, physics and other subjects so that they can use them at different stages in their life, the focus is on blindly learning the chapters whether or not the concepts are understood just so that one can get good marks. So, the very basis of the Indian education system is inappropriate.

Essay on Indian Education System Needs Serious Reforms – Essay 2 (300 words)

Introduction

Indian education system is said to be old and mundane. In the times, when the organizations are looking for creative and enthusiastic individuals, the Indian schools train the young minds, to follow a set curriculum and behave as they are told for almost fifteen years of their lives. There is no freedom to provide suggestions or share ideas. There is a serious need to reform the Indian education system which in turn helps in developing smarter individuals.

Need to Think Out of the Box

There is a dire need to think out of the box if we want to make new inventions, bring positive changes in the society and prosper at a personal level. However, unfortunately our schools train us otherwise. They tie us to a set study schedule and keep us so busy with completing the assignments and learning theoretical lessons that there is no room left for creativity.

The Indian education system must be changed to make way for creative thinking. Schools must focus on activities that challenge the student’s mind, hone their analytical skills and invoke their creative thinking ability. This will help them perform better in different fields as they grow up.

Need for All Round Development

The primary focus of the Indian education system is on academics. Here also the focus is not on understanding the concept and enhancing knowledge but only on mugging up the lessons with or without understanding them with the sole aim of attaining good marks. Even though some schools have extra-curricular activities, there is hardly one class per week for these activities.

Education in the Indian schools has just been reduced to gaining theoretical knowledge which is not enough to raise an intelligent and responsible individual. The system must be changed to ensure the all round development of the students.

The people in power must understand that the Indian education system requires serious reforms. The system must change to develop students spiritually, morally, physically as well as mentally.

Essay on Indian Education System and Its Development – Essay 3 (400 words)

Indian Education System has seen quite a few changes ever since its inception. It has changed with the changing times and with the changes in the society. However, whether these changes and developments are for good or not is still a question.

The Gurukul

The Indian education system dates back several centuries. From the ancient times, children are being sent to the teachers to learn lessons on different subjects and to add value to their lives and make them skilled to live a self dependent life. During the ancient times, the gurukuls were set up in various parts of the country.

Children went to gurukuls to seek education. They stayed with their guru (teacher) in their ashram until they completed their education. The students were taught various skills, given lessons in different subjects and were even involved in doing the household chores to ensure their all round development.

British Brought About Changes in the Indian Education System

As the Britishers colonized India, the Gurukul system began to fade away as the Britishers set up schools that followed a different education system. The subjects taught in these schools were quite different from that taught in the gurukuls and so was the way the study sessions were conducted.

There was a sudden change in the entire education system of India. The focus shifted from the all round development of the students to the academic performance. This was not a very good change. However, one thing that changed for good during this time was that girls also began to seek education and were enrolled in schools.

Introduction of Educomp Smart Classes

The education system introduced by the British is still prevalent in India. However, with the advancement in technology many schools have adopted to newer means to impart education to the students. Educomp smart classes have been introduced in the schools. These classes have brought about a positive change. Unlike the earlier times when the students only learned from the books, they now get to see their lessons on a big wide screen installed in their class rooms. This makes the learning experience interesting and helps the students grasp better.

In addition to it, many extra-curricular activities are also being introduced by the schools for the all round development of the students. However, the marking system still remains as stringent and the students have to focus largely on their academics.

So, there has been a major shift in the Indian education system since the ancient times. However, we require further reforms in the system for the proper development of the students.

Essay on Education System in India is Good or Bad – Essay 4 (500 words)

The Indian education system is said to be largely flawed. It does more harm than good to the young minds. However, some people may argue that it gives a good platform to the students as it challenges their mind and focuses on increasing their grasping power. The debate on whether the Indian education system is good or bad is ongoing.

The Good and Bad of the Indian Education System

While the people in power discuss the good and the bad in the Indian education system and whether there is a need to bring in reforms or not, here is a look at the pros and cons of the same.

Cons of Indian Education System

Indian education system has many cons. Here is a look at some of the main cons in the system:

• Lack of Practical Knowledge

Focus of the Indian education system is on the theoretical part. Teachers read out from the book during the classes and explain the concepts verbally. Students are expected to understand even the intricate concepts theoretically. The need to impart practical knowledge is not felt even though it is highly essential.

• Focus on Grades

The focus of the Indian schools is on mugging up the chapters to get good grades. Teachers do not bother if the students have understood the concept or not, all they look at is the marks they have obtained.

• No Significance to All Round Development

The focus is only on studies. No effort is made to build a student’s character or his physical health. The schools do not contribute in the all round development of their students.

• Over Burdening

The students are over burdened with studies. They study for long hours in the school and are given a pile of home work to complete at home. In addition to it, the regular class tests, first term examination, weekly examination and mid-term examination puts a lot of pressure on the young minds.

Pros of Indian Education System

Here are some of the pros of the Indian education system:

• Provides Knowledge on Different Subjects

The Indian education system includes a vast curriculum and imparts knowledge on various subjects including maths, environmental science, moral science, social science, English, Hindi and computer science to name a few. All these subjects form a part of the curriculum from the primary classes itself. So, the students gain knowledge about different subjects from an early age.

• Inculcates Discipline

The schools in India are very particular about their timings, time table, ethical code, marking system and study schedule. Students need to follow the rules set by the school else they are punished. This is a good way to inculcate discipline in the students.

• Increases Grasping Power

Owing to the marking and ranking system in the Indian schools, the students are required to learn their lessons thoroughly. They need to do so in order to fetch good marks and rank higher than their classmates. They look for different ways to concentrate and grasp better. Those who identify the tools that help them grasp better are able to enhance their grasping power which helps them throughout their lives.

Indian education system has been criticized time and again. There is a tremendous need to change this system to ensure proper development of our young generation.

Long Essay on Indian Education System – Essay 5 (600 words)

Indian education system is one of the oldest education systems around the globe. It is unfortunate that while the education systems of the other nations have undergone major changes with the changing times and technological advancement we are still stuck with the old and mundane system. Neither has our system seen any major change in the curriculum nor has there been any significant change in the way the education is imparted.

Problems with Indian Education System

The Indian education system has numerous problems that hinder the proper growth and development of an individual. One of the main problems with the Indian education system is its marking system. The intelligence of the students is judged by the way they perform in a 3 hour theoretical paper rather than by their overall performance in the class. In such a scenario, learning lessons to get good marks becomes the sole aim of the students. They are not able to think beyond it. They are not bothered about understanding concepts or enhancing their knowledge all they think about is to look for ways to get good marks.

Another problem is that the focus is only on theory. No importance is given to practical learning. Our education system encourages the students to become bookworms and does not prepare them for handling the real problems and challenges of life.

Academics are given so much importance that the need to involve the students in sports and art activities is overlooked. Students are also overburdened with studies. Regular exams are held and students are scrutinized at every step. This creates acute stress among the students. The stress level of the students continues to grow as they advance to higher classes.

Ways to Improve Indian Education System

Many ideas and suggestions have been shared to improve the Indian education system. Some of the ways to change our education system for good include:

• Focus on Skill Development

It is the time for the Indian schools and colleges to stop putting so much importance to the marks and ranks of the students and focus on skill development instead. The cognitive, problem solving, analytical and creative thinking skills of the students must be enhanced. In order to do so they must be involved in various academic as well as extra-curricular activities instead of caging them in the dull class room sessions.

• Impart Practical Knowledge

Practical knowledge is very important to develop a thorough understanding of any subject. However, our Indian education system focuses mainly on theoretical knowledge. This needs to be changed. Students must be imparted practical knowledge for better understanding and application.

• Revise the Curriculum

The curriculum of our schools and colleges is the same since decades. It is the time to change it as per the changing times so that the students learn things more relevant to their times. For instance, computer should become one of the main subjects in schools so that students learn how to work efficiently on the same from the very beginning. Similarly, there should be classes on developing good communication skills as it is the need of the hour.

• Hire Better Teaching Staff

In order to save a few bucks, the educational institutes in our country hire teachers who demand less salary even if they are not highly skilled and experienced. This approach must be changed. Good teaching staff must be hired in order to nurture the young minds well.

• Look Beyond Academics

The education system of our country must look beyond academics. Sports, arts and other activities must also be given importance to ensure the all round development of students.

While the need to change the Indian education system has been emphasized several times nothing much has been done in this regard. It is the time to understand the importance of changing this old system for the better future of the children as well as the country as a whole.

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New Delhi: Primary education in India has been a tale of neglect, political interference, and missed opportunities. And now, cartoons  about coalition governments, the  caste system , and controversial historical events like the  Babri demolition  are slowly disappearing from school textbooks.

“Education isn’t divorced from polity or society; if India continues this education system, its soft power will diminish,” warned Deepak Nayyar, economist and former Delhi University vice chancellor, during the launch of  The Routledge Companion to Primary Education in India  by Prof R Govinda, former vice chancellor of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA). The event, held at Delhi’s India International Centre, was more than just a book launch—it was a clarion call for reform.

The panellists included distinguished scholars, policymakers, and educators—such as historian Irfan Habib, academic and Routledge publishing director Shashank Sekhar Sinha, and educationalist NV Varghese—who peppered the serious discussion with friendly banter.

Moderated by political scientist Manoranjan Mohanty, the conversation flowed naturally, allowing for an organic and insightful exchange. The panellists explored various dimensions of the crisis in primary education, from the erosion of critical thinking in the curricula to the widening gap between policy and practice. As they spoke, many in the audience responded with questions and nods of agreement.

Govinda’s  Companion to Primary Education in India traces the evolution of primary education across colonial, post-colonial, and contemporary India. The book looks beyond the surface of policy goals to explore the processes involved in implementing positive change, while also addressing the socio-political factors that have shaped education in India.

Understanding this history, emphasised the panellists, is important for future generations too. Audience member Jyoti Oberoi Khanna, a PhD student at JNU, agreed, saying that even though her research was related to higher education, she and her peers “must learn about the trends persisting in primary education”.

The book’s subtitle—‘From Compulsion to Fundamental Right’—references the Right to Education Act, which came into force in 2010. But, as Khanna pointed out, many challenges remain.

“India is still struggling,” she said, “There are a lot of children who are out of school, which stops us from having a larger secondary and higher education base, therefore leading to a smaller and less capable working class.”

Also Read: New book sees Delhi not through the eyes of its rulers—but 35,000 workers who come every day

‘Education system used to be better’

  The event opened with Nitya Nanda, an expert in environmental economics, who set the tone by highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of the discussions ahead.

“We are here to discuss something as fundamental as education, but from diverse vantage points—political, historical, economic,” he said. Nanda’s introductory remarks underscored a central theme of the evening: the complex, interconnected issues plaguing India’s primary education system and their impact on every facet of society.

Deepak Nayyar followed with a sobering analysis of the current landscape and its shaky foundation.

“Our past shapes our future, and unfortunately, the past we’ve built in primary education is a fragile one,” he said.

A sense of urgency was palpable in the room as he spoke about the pressing need to address the systemic failures that have led to the current state of disrepair and its ripple effects.

“In the quest for development, primary education is extremely important,” he said. “It gives us a base for higher education, and that has provided a lot of economic development.”

Nayyar pointed out the irony of political players striving to boost India’s soft power on the global stage, while at the same time interfering with education and thus undermining it.

“The future of our education system has become mortgaged—it has become about what is to be read and what is not to be read,” he added.

The discussion then turned to the realities on the ground, with Shantha Sinha, a prominent child rights activist, offering a powerful account of the diminishing quality of education in India.

“It was curious for me to find out, as a specialist in this field, that India’s education used to be far better than it is today—there has been a regression” she said.

Historian S Irfan Habib provided a historical perspective, explaining how gaps between policy and implementation have consistently hindered India’s educational goals.

“Free and universal education for all children was a dream we fought for, but today it remains just that—a dream,” he lamented.

Habib also elaborated on how Govinda’s book isn’t divided chronologically into pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial period, but is instead organised thematically, based on when challenges arose.

“The neglect of primary education in post-colonial India is perhaps our greatest failure,” he said. “We must understand the historical mistakes to avoid repeating them.”

Also Read: Small anti-caste publisher Navayana is a stone-thrower in the big publishing world

Intact frame, broken mirror

Govinda’s book offers not just an analytical narrative but also a roadmap for the future, paying close attention to the social and political forces that have driven changes over time.

As the event drew to a close, he reflected on the themes discussed.

“The processes involved in implementing positive change are as important as the outcomes,” he said.

Deep structural issues must be tackled if meaningful reform is to be achieved, according to him.

“The education system today is like a big broken mirror—intact in its original frame, but fragmented within,” he said.

The atmosphere in the room was one of shared determination, bound by a sense of collective responsibility. In the end, the launch of  The Routledge Companion to Primary Education in India  was not just a celebration of a new book; it was a powerful reminder that the future of India’s education system hangs in the balance.

(Edited by Asavari Singh)

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Essay on Indian Education System in English for Children and Students

Table of Contents

Essay on Indian Education System: Indian education system has changed over the time. A major change in our education system came with the colonization of the country by the Britishers. It was the British Government who introduced modern education in India, as they wanted some educated Indians to assist them in administering the state. Indian education system is mainly divided into four stages – lower primary, upper primary, high school and higher secondary.

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Students follow a fixed curriculum up to 10 th standard; though, in higher secondary they get to choose from various streams i.e. science, commerce, etc. Apart from certain textual changes and over time rectifications, nothing much has changed in Indian Education system. The need to reform and restructure our education system has been felt many time. However, no concrete steps have yet been taken in this direction.

Long and Short Essays on Indian Education System in English

Here are Long and Short Essays on Indian Education system in English of varying lengths to help you with the topic in your exam.

After going through this Indian Education System Essay you will be well versed with the Indian Education system and its shortcomings.

Also, you would be able to assess it and make suggestions for its improvement.

These Essays will help you in your school essay writing competition and also in several debate competitions.

Short Essay on Indian Education System – Essay 1 (200 words)

Indian education system is quite different from that of the foreign nations. The curriculum in the western countries is known to be quite light and based on practical knowledge whereas in India the focus is on theoretical knowledge and acquiring marks by hook or crook.

Students are expected to mug up chapter after chapter and fetch good grades in the class. The marking system in the Indian schools begins from the primary classes thereby burdening little kids. The competition is growing by the day. Parents want their children to outperform their peers and teachers want their class to do better than the other classes.

They are so blinded by the urge of staying ahead of the competition that they do not realize that they are pushing the children in the wrong direction. At an age when the students should be given the chance to explore their interests and hone their creative side, they are pressurized to follow a set curriculum and slog day and night to get good marks.

Instead of making the students understand various concepts of mathematics, physics and other subjects so that they can use them at different stages in their life, the focus is on blindly learning the chapters whether or not the concepts are understood just so that one can get good marks. So, the very basis of the Indian education system is inappropriate.

Essay on Indian Education System Needs Serious Reforms – Essay 2 (300 words)

Introduction

Indian education system is said to be old and mundane. In the times, when the organizations are looking for creative and enthusiastic individuals, the Indian schools train the young minds, to follow a set curriculum and behave as they are told for almost fifteen years of their lives. There is no freedom to provide suggestions or share ideas. There is a serious need to reform the Indian education system which in turn helps in developing smarter individuals.

Need to Think Out of the Box

There is a dire need to think out of the box if we want to make new inventions, bring positive changes in the society and prosper at a personal level. However, unfortunately our schools train us otherwise. They tie us to a set study schedule and keep us so busy with completing the assignments and learning theoretical lessons that there is no room left for creativity.

The Indian education system must be changed to make way for creative thinking. Schools must focus on activities that challenge the student’s mind, hone their analytical skills and invoke their creative thinking ability. This will help them perform better in different fields as they grow up.

Need for All Round Development

The primary focus of the Indian education system is on academics. Here also the focus is not on understanding the concept and enhancing knowledge but only on mugging up the lessons with or without understanding them with the sole aim of attaining good marks. Even though some schools have extra-curricular activities, there is hardly one class per week for these activities.

Education in the Indian schools has just been reduced to gaining theoretical knowledge which is not enough to raise an intelligent and responsible individual. The system must be changed to ensure the all round development of the students.

The people in power must understand that the Indian education system requires serious reforms. The system must change to develop students spiritually, morally, physically as well as mentally.

Essay on Indian Education System and Its Development – Essay 3 (400 words)

Indian Education System has seen quite a few changes ever since its inception. It has changed with the changing times and with the changes in the society. However, whether these changes and developments are for good or not is still a question.

The Gurukul

The Indian education system dates back several centuries. From the ancient times, children are being sent to the teachers to learn lessons on different subjects and to add value to their lives and make them skilled to live a self dependent life. During the ancient times, the gurukuls were set up in various parts of the country.

Children went to gurukuls to seek education. They stayed with their guru (teacher) in their ashram until they completed their education. The students were taught various skills, given lessons in different subjects and were even involved in doing the household chores to ensure their all round development.

British Brought About Changes in the Indian Education System

As the Britishers colonized India, the Gurukul system began to fade away as the Britishers set up schools that followed a different education system. The subjects taught in these schools were quite different from that taught in the gurukuls and so was the way the study sessions were conducted.

There was a sudden change in the entire education system of India. The focus shifted from the all round development of the students to the academic performance. This was not a very good change. However, one thing that changed for good during this time was that girls also began to seek education and were enrolled in schools.

Introduction of Educomp Smart Classes

The education system introduced by the British is still prevalent in India. However, with the advancement in technology many schools have adopted to newer means to impart education to the students. Educomp smart classes have been introduced in the schools. These classes have brought about a positive change. Unlike the earlier times when the students only learned from the books, they now get to see their lessons on a big wide screen installed in their class rooms. This makes the learning experience interesting and helps the students grasp better.

In addition to it, many extra-curricular activities are also being introduced by the schools for the all round development of the students. However, the marking system still remains as stringent and the students have to focus largely on their academics.

So, there has been a major shift in the Indian education system since the ancient times. However, we require further reforms in the system for the proper development of the students.

Essay on Education System in India is Good or Bad – Essay 4 (500 words)

The Indian education system is said to be largely flawed. It does more harm than good to the young minds. However, some people may argue that it gives a good platform to the students as it challenges their mind and focuses on increasing their grasping power. The debate on whether the Indian education system is good or bad is ongoing.

The Good and Bad of the Indian Education System

While the people in power discuss the good and the bad in the Indian education system and whether there is a need to bring in reforms or not, here is a look at the pros and cons of the same.

Cons of Indian Education System

Indian education system has many cons. Here is a look at some of the main cons in the system:

Lack of Practical Knowledge

Focus of the Indian education system is on the theoretical part. Teachers read out from the book during the classes and explain the concepts verbally. Students expected to understand even the intricate concepts theoretically. The need to impart practical knowledge is not felt even though it is highly essential.

Focus on Grades

The focus of the Indian schools is on mugging up the chapters to get good grades. Teachers do not bother if the students have understood the concept or not, all they look at is the marks they have obtained.

No Significance to All Round Development

The focus is only on studies. No effort is made to build a student’s character or his physical health. The schools do not contribute in the all round development of their students.

Over Burdening

The students are over burdened with studies. They study for long hours in the school and are given a pile of home work to complete at home. In addition to it, the regular class tests, first term examination, weekly examination and mid-term examination puts a lot of pressure on the young minds.

Pros of Indian Education System

Here are some of the pros of the Indian education system:

Provides Knowledge on Different Subjects

The Indian education system includes a vast curriculum and imparts knowledge on various subjects including maths, environmental science, moral science, social science, English, Hindi and computer science to name a few. All these subjects form a part of the curriculum from the primary classes itself. So, the students gain knowledge about different subjects from an early age.

Inculcates Discipline

The schools in India are very particular about their timings, time table, ethical code, marking system and study schedule. Students need to follow the rules set by the school else they punished. This is a good way to inculcate discipline in the students.

Increases Grasping Power

Owing to the marking and ranking system in the Indian schools, the students required to learn their lessons thoroughly. They need to do so in order to fetch good marks and rank higher than their classmates. They look for different ways to concentrate and grasp better. Those who identify the tools that help them grasp better are able to enhance their grasping power which helps them throughout their lives.

Indian education system has criticized time and again. There is a tremendous need to change this system to ensure proper development of our young generation.

Long Essay on Indian Education System – Essay 5 (600 words)

Indian education system is one of the oldest education systems around the globe. It is unfortunate that while the education systems of the other nations have undergone major changes with the changing times and technological advancement we are still stuck with the old and mundane system. Neither has our system seen any major change in the curriculum nor has there any significant change in the way the education imparted.

Problems with Indian Education System

The Indian education system has numerous problems that hinder the proper growth and development of an individual. One of the main problems with the Indian education system is its marking system. The intelligence of the students judged by the way they perform in a 3 hour theoretical paper rather than by their overall performance in the class. In such a scenario, learning lessons to get good marks becomes the sole aim of the students. They are not able to think beyond it. They not bothered about understanding concepts or enhancing their knowledge all they think about is to look for ways to get good marks.

Another problem is that the focus is only on theory. No importance given to practical learning. Our education system encourages the students to become bookworms and does not prepare them for handling the real problems and challenges of life.

Academics given so much importance that the need to involve the students in sports and art activities overlooked. Students also overburdened with studies. Regular exams held and students scrutinized at every step. This creates acute stress among the students. The stress level of the students continues to grow as they advance to higher classes.

Ways to Improve Indian Education System

Many ideas and suggestions have shared to improve the Indian education system. Some of the ways to change our education system for good include:

Focus on Skill Development

It is the time for the Indian schools and colleges to stop putting so much importance to the marks and ranks of the students and focus on skill development instead. The cognitive, problem solving, analytical and creative thinking skills of the students must enhanced. In order to do so they must involved in various academic as well as extra-curricular activities instead of caging them in the dull class room sessions.

Impart Practical Knowledge

Practical knowledge is very important to develop a thorough understanding of any subject. However, our Indian education system focuses mainly on theoretical knowledge. This needs to changed. Students must imparted practical knowledge for better understanding and application.

Revise the Curriculum

The curriculum of our schools and colleges is the same since decades. It is the time to change it as per the changing times so that the students learn things more relevant to their times. For instance, computer should become one of the main subjects in schools so that students learn how to work efficiently on the same from the very beginning. Similarly, there should classes on developing good communication skills as it is the need of the hour.

Hire Better Teaching Staff

In order to save a few bucks, the educational institutes in our country hire teachers who demand less salary even if they not highly skilled and experienced. This approach must changed. Good teaching staff must hired in order to nurture the young minds well.

Look Beyond Academics

The education system of our country must look beyond academics. Sports, arts and other activities must also given importance to ensure the all round development of students.

While the need to change the Indian education system has emphasized several times nothing much has done in this regard. It is the time to understand the importance of changing this old system for the better future of the children as well as the country as a whole.

More on Education:

• Article on Importance of Education in our Life
• Importance of Education in Society
• Article on Importance of Education for Children
• Importance of Education for Women

Related Information:

• Importance of Education Essay
• Speech on Indian Education System
• Slogans on Education
• Paragraph on Education

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