Education is important but Quality is not!?
By Janani.M.P, Neha Khanna, INN, Chennai & Delhi ;
A good education system is the foundation of any great nation. However, quality education is a serious problem in India. Here, millions of students are victim of an unrealistic, pointless, mindless rat race. The mind numbing competition and rote learning do not only crush the creativity and originality of millions of Indian students every year, it also drives brilliant students to commit suicide.
This is the nation where people see education as the means of climbing the social and economic ladder. Yet, the quality of education here is pitiful.
Education system in India is failing because of reasons which are ineffaceable. There are faults in the system that do not let our demand for good and quality education render into a great marketplace with excellent education services.
Our education system rarely rewards what deserves highest academic honor. Deviance is discouraged. Risk taking is mocked. Our testing and marking systems needs to be built to recognize genuine contributions, in form of creativity, problem solving, original research and innovation. Memorizing is no learning; the biggest flaw in our education system is perhaps that it encourages memorizing above originality.
We also cannot ignore the fact that a very large proportion of students from India choose to study abroad and the number is increasing year by year. Number of student mobility from India in the last decade has risen. According to data from a number of sources, seven top and emerging destination countries-including the United States, the U.K., Canada, Australia, China, New Zealand, and Germany- collectively saw Indian enrollments rise 103 percent between 2005-06 and 2014-15.
There is no short-term solution to this. But, significant number of changes are required in India’s academic culture to ensure the growth of students, to give them satisfactory education back at home. We have to understand the importance of investing in this sector. Education can be expensive, but the alternative is costlier.
