Education has been a problem in our country and lack of it has been blamed for all sorts of evil for hundreds of years. Funny thing is that from the colonial times, few things have changed. We have established IITs, IIMs, law schools and other institutions of excellence; students now routinely score 90% marks so that even students with 90+ percentage find it difficult to get into the colleges of their choice; but we do more of the same old stuff.

Rote learning still plagues our system, students study only to score marks in exams. The colonial masters introduced education systems in India to create clerks and civil servants, and we have not deviated much from that pattern till today. If there are a few centres of educational excellence, for each of those there are thousands of mediocre and terrible schools, colleges and now even universities that do not meet even minimum standards.

Creating a few more schools or allowing hundreds of colleges and private universities to mushroom is not going to solve the crisis of education in India. And a crisis it is – we are in a country where people are spending their parent’s life savings and borrowed money on education – and even then not getting standard education, and struggling to find employment of their choice.

Today’s competitive world demands trained, certified and skilled manpower to address the challenges of growth and converting them into opportunities. 

A huge chunk of youth population well versed in the English Language exists in India signifying immense potential to meet the skill needs of other countries and also cater to its own demand for skilled manpower. But ironically, most industries in India are currently struggling with scarcity of skilled labour.

Our education system is largely responsible for this catch-22. The current education system does not focus on training young people in employable skills that can provide them with employment opportunities.

Our education system is still a colonial education system geared towards generating babus and pen-pushers under the newly acquired skin of modernity. We may have the most number of engineering graduates in the world, but that certainly has not translated into much technological innovation here. Rather, we are busy running the call centres of the rest of the world – that is where our engineering skills end.

The goal of our new education system should be to create entrepreneurs, innovators, artists, scientists, thinkers and writers who can establish the foundation of a knowledge based economy rather than the low-quality service provider nation that we are turning into.

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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