It’s a very old saying that- to live three things are most important, those are- food, cloth & shelter. And every citizen of a country should get at least these three things as their basic need. And it’s the responsibility of the government of that country to make sure that its people are getting these things. But I strongly believe that the most important thing is missing in the list, which is Education. Because, once people get educated, then they can arrange those other three requirements by their own.
It has been 50 years since we got our independence. But till now, we have not given enough value to our education system. What our education system lacks is quality. I know everyone of us is realizing this. But no one of us is trying to find a solution to this problem. What we are doing is only playing blame game with each other. As all know, we Indians are very good at this. I believe, rather than hockey, blame game should be made national game of India. Because, we are not that much good at taking the responsibility to change something. But we people love to pass the blame on, absolving ourselves of responsibility for the issue.
If students fail to do well in exams, then their parents blame their teacher for not securing good marks in exam. Teacher blames govt. for not giving them the infrastructure that is required. Government gives explanation that we have a plan to improve our infrastructure, but we don’t have money to execute it. We may think that how can this be possible that Indian government doesn’t have money, as we spent 28400cr of rupees on common wealth games arrangement, as one of our chief minister spent Rupees 834 cr on making a park etc. Then How Indian government is saying that it does not have money. Yes Indian government does not have money although our politicians have it lot. But is it intelligent of us to think that, our politicians will spend money from their Swiss bank accounts to build infrastructure for education in India. Which is going to give them nothing in return. Because according to our constitution minimum age to vote is 18 years. So our school & college students are not eligible to vote in elections. So do you think our uneducated intelligent politician will spend so much of money on something which is not going to help their cause? And also it will harm them, because if majority people of our country will be educated, then why they will choose such uneducated people to represent them. So according to me, Mr. Anna Hazare should raise his voice for making the voting age to reduce to 10 years rather than trying to get the lokpal bill pass. Once the student will get the voting rights, then only our politicians will try to improve our education. Because they will try to woo those voters who are in schools & colleges, as they believe in vote bank politics. And also in my point of view, in today’s world school going kids are also intelligent enough to decide what will be good for them. At least they are more intelligent than us to understand what voting right actually means to a citizen. So that unlike us they will at least cast their vote.
In India 80% of schools are run by Govt & 20% are private. We all know what is the condition of those 80% schools run by govt. & we all know how much it costs to study in a private school although quality of education there is better. So how a common man will deal with this? I don’t think he has any other option left, except leaving everything in god’s hand & his child’s destiny.
The main reason behind the failure of education system in India is lack of qualified people in this system. Actually how can we expect those people having good knowledge to enter into teaching profession? We all know what is the cost of living in India now. But do we know what the teachers in govt schools in India are getting now. In India, Primary schools teacher’s salary range is Rs 61,208 – Rs 243,003 per year. So do we really believe that this much salary is enough to bring a qualified person into this field? I don’t think so. A teacher deserves much more than this. Because, he is not working with any machines or not developing software, but he is developing a human brain. Yes I agree that lots of talented people are still there in this field. But that much number of people is not enough to run education system of a country having more than 1.2 billion population. As in India, the number of students under the age of 14 is 134 million.
Another reason for failure of education system in India, which I experienced is that here teachers only help those students who according to them is talented. They are not ready to help those people who have the desire to perform, but they can’t due to some reason or other. I believe a very few number of people are born talented. So is it right to judge someone at such a young age that whether he/she is talented or not? A teacher’s job is to nourish a young brain. Not to examine it, its job of a doctor. So the exam oriented education system in India must be changed. What’s the point in increasing competition levels in school & colleges? Let’s give those young people some time to gain knowledge without the fear of the fact that someone or other is going to judge them according to the marks they secured in exams. We need to make them understand, that nobody is perfect. But practice improves perfection in a human being. So they will get the confidence that, yes they can also survive in this world.
Last but not the least, we the common people like me & u are also responsible for this whole thing. We all know how much marks we secured in our school & college days. Still majority of us, want our brothers, sisters or children’s to score at least more than 90% marks in their exams. Yes we may give a reason that, in today’s world the attitude should be like this only. Yes we can motivate them to achieve that, but we must not put extra pressure on them by keep on reminding them what we expect from them.
So rather then playing blame game with each other, if we all will do our bit to help in improving the education in India. Then for sure it will work. If Teachers will do their job honestly & to the best of their capabilities, without caring much about other aspects like what is lacking for them; if politicians will provide adequate infrastructure for education & if we the common men will vote for educated people to represent us, who can understand what change education can bring to our country; then for sure education system in India is going to improve. At least we can hope that it will improve.
Being Arindam.. 
Pragya Gupta
October 2, 2011
Interesting Perspective, and yes, education does change all dynamics of the society, it empowers.
Arindam
October 2, 2011
yes education is the only thing that can bring a change in the society.