Essay on “The State of Education in India” Complete Essay, Paragraph, Speech for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

The State of Education in India

Since Independence, India has made great progress in industrialization, food grains production, international trade, and to a lesser extent, in eradicating social evils like untouchability and casteism. But for many reasons, the enthusiasm that helped us realize such progress has been lacking in our efforts to create a useful and effective education system. It is indeed surprising that, a region where such famous seats of learning as Nalanda and Taxila once flourished; from where pioneering ideas relevant to every aspect of human life evolved; from where signal contributions to the development of the arts and sciences were made, should now be under the pall of ignorance.

Large sections of our population remained illiterate and ignorant because of a variety of prejudices and superstitions. The belief that the pursuit of knowledge was the exclusive right of the privileged castes was quite prevalent until about a century ago. Though the British were the first to subvert this belief of exclusivity, they did nothing much to spread the idea of education. They were lax, partly because universalizing education was not high among their priorities, and partly because they faced stiff opposition to it from the privileged castes. The British priority was to train Indians to serve the administration, not to expose them to the benefits of knowledge. But nevertheless, many Indians who availed of the means for education the British provided, used their learning to fight for independence, and to encourage others to do so. Education, thus played a modest but crucial role in our freedom struggle.

However, after we won independence, successive governments, despite their best efforts, failed to achieve a level of progress in education, comparable to that in other fields. Though education initiated the struggle for social justice and individual honour, it did not spread within the society, to liberate the people from their ignorance. The main reason why we failed to universalize education is that, unlike in the case of other developmental efforts, government initiative alone was insufficient to ensure its success. In the education sector, governments rarely did anything more than provide books and learning aids; build schools and train teachers. Surprisingly, even after fifty years of independence, the governments are unwilling to modify their priorities. Furthermore, the problems of the sector are getting more complex and increasingly difficult to solve, because the governments have always thought of direct solutions, ignoring related issues like unemployment, poverty and poor healthcare facilities.

The poor interest of the people towards education is generally considered an important factor hampering the spread of education. But such lack of interest is not deliberate. It is mainly due to the poverty of the people, and their misconception that education is a time-consuming and expensive process. Even now, the main priority of most Indian families is to earn enough to provide each of their members with at least one meal a day. Other needs, like healthcare and clothing, are so low in priority, that in most cases, they may be considered non-existent. In this scenario, many people naturally do not place education amongst their list of priorities at all. Thus, from caste dogma and social discrimination, to poverty and deprivation, several factors are responsible for making the state of education in the country as dismal as it is. Besides these, the mismatch between the policies of the governments and the priorities of the people adds to the complexity of the situation. It is high time that the governments appreciated that more needs to be done in the education sector, than mere framing of policies and spending of money.

Governments have been trying to make amends for their generally poor show in the education sector by investing heavily in the higher and specialized education scene. Public money is helping create new universities and premier institutions, like the IITs and IIMs, but not many basic education institutions or properly trained teachers. As in the case of industry, governments only have to make the necessary investment for higher education, they do not have to run around inviting students to utilize the investment. In other words, governments only meet the demand for higher education; they do not, as they are required to do in the case of primary education, create such a demand.

However, all is not lost yet. We have the means and the ability to make our programmes succeed. A heartening aspect is that the trend for success has already been set by states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Maharashtra. Kerala’s has been an especially pioneering and trail-blazing achievement, because of which the state is now at par, in the aspects of social welfare and education, with the advanced nations of the world. Kerala’s achievement of total literacy in the early nineties has spurred other states to emulate it. Though literacy alone does not mean education, it is certainly a substantial step towards education. All that we need to do is make a realistic assessment of our accomplishments and aims. As long as we take care not to mix ounces of success with gallons of complacency, we can hope to succeed.