An Exam Centric Education System of India
Introduction
India’s education system turns out millions of graduates each year, many skilled in IT and engineering. This manpower advantage underpins India’s recent economic advances but masks deep-seated problems within India’s education system. Education has been made too easy for the students so that more and more students can enter into the scope of the education system of the country. The present-day education system in India has come a long way and the age-old traditions have undergone a new makeover. The government of India is doing lots of efforts in this field so that the objective of inclusive growth can be achieved very soon by this. A great achievement of the Indian government is a big jump in the literacy rate from 18.3% in 1950–51 to 74.04% in 2010–11. Such an achievement is the result of a lot of efforts by the Indian government in the education sector. The government is improving the country’s education status to enhance the standard of living of the people and also to achieve other goals like, overcoming the problem of poverty and unemployment, social equality, equal income distribution, etc. Education contributes to the individual’s wellbeing as well as the overall development of the country. Education is not only an instrument of enhancing efficiency but is also an effective tool of widening and augmenting. Thus, the importance of education can’t be ignored.
Education system in India lays more stress on studies. It is an exam system not an education system. Why is it so that we can remember the movies and not our chapters? Indian education system needs a lot of changes. The system of education in India should be learning-centric rather than exam-centric. Children must be allowed to choose subjects according to their interests. Instead of gaining knowledge from voluminous books and lectures, children must be made to interact in groups and express their views on various topics. Rather than taking notes from the teacher and textbooks, children must be made to research information on their own from library books and the Internet and share them in the class. This will help them develop good reading habits, self-confidence and openness to criticism. It will also help them in developing critical reading and analytical skills. Children will be able to remember what they learn when they apply it practically. They must be taken on field trips to museums, labs, planetariums, excavation sites, botanical gardens, etc. where they can learn by interacting with knowledgeable and experienced people in varied fields. It will also help them improve their communication skills.
The aim of this article to bring the focus of India’s education system on learning and knowledge rather than exams and marks/grades.
Education in India is provided by the public sector as well as the private sector, with control and funding coming from three levels: central, state, and local. Taxila was the earliest recorded center of higher learning in India from at least 5th century BCE and it is debatable whether it could be regarded a university or not. The Nalanda University was the oldest university-system of education in the world in the modern sense of university. Western education became ingrained into Indian society with the establishment of the British Raj. Education in India falls under the control of both the Union Government and the states, with some responsibilities lying with the Union and the states having autonomy for others. The various articles of the Indian Constitution provide for education as a fundamental right. Most universities in India are controlled by the Union or the State Government. India has made progress in terms of increasing primary education attendance rate and expanding literacy to approximately two thirds of the population. India’s improved education system is often cited as one of the main contributors to the economic rise of India. Much of the progress, especially in higher education and scientific research, has been credited to various public institutions. The private education market in India is merely 5% although in terms of value is estimated to be worth $40 billion in 2008 and will increase to $68–70 billion by 2012. However, India continues to face stern challenges. Despite growing investment in education, 25% of its population is still illiterate; only 15% of Indian students reach high school, and just 7% graduate. The quality of education whether at primary or higher education is significantly poor as compared with major developing nations. As of 2008, India’s post-secondary institutions offer only enough seats for 7% of India’s college-age population, 25% of teaching positions nationwide are vacant, and 57% of college professors lack either a master’s or PhD degree. As of 2011, there are 1522 degree-granting engineering colleges in India with an annual student intake of 582,000, plus 1,244 polytechnics with an annual intake of 265,000. However, these institutions face shortage of faculty and concerns have been raised over the quality of education. In India education system is not based on pure merit, but it’s based on caste based reservations. In universities/Colleges/Institutions affiliated to federal government there is minimum 50% of reservations applicable to various castes. At state level it varies. State of Andhra Pradesh has 83.33% of reservations as on 2012, which is highest percentage of reservations in India. So the state is popularly known as the state that killed merit.
India’s education system is divided into different levels such as pre-primary level, primary level, elementary education, secondary education, undergraduate level and postgraduate level. Thus, improvement in the Indian system of schooling is an elephantine task and has become very important .What our students are learning now is mostly redundant. Syllabus needs to be skill based rather than mugging up of large chunks of theory. I am shocked to see that student’s even mug up mathematical sums before the exams. Learning by doing should be our primary focus and they need to be taught what is relevant. Invalid information in textbooks take away a lot of productive learning time. We also do not have any system in traditional schools to tap the talents of students apart from academic achievement as we lay so much importance on marks and grades.
Sanjit Bakshi
Director at the “Oriental Infrastructure Engineers”. Well-known for exceptionally unique and the visionary insights for conceptualizing, idealizing, and analyzing the business models and projects.
