What this is about: Education in India is in crisis, and having long felt concerned about it, I want to create a space where I can document all the problems—big or small—that plague the education system in India at all levels.
At a very high level, these are problems related to structural issues such as access and reach, affordability, and basic infrastructure. There are also clear challenges we face with curriculum, teaching methodology, and pedagogy in general. In fact, a strong debate needs to happen regarding what our education system is for, what purpose it serves, and what benefits we’re looking to deliver our learners as well as the society in general.
Beyond that, we have significant challenges related to teachers: budget and salary constraint, teacher motivation and commitment, overall teacher shortages, as well as lack of continuous support and training for teachers.
And of course, assessment, evaluation, and certification are major challenges of their own. Our education system on this front has historically been brutal and ruthless, but some things have now perhaps changed. Regardless, we need to have a debate about what kinds of assessments are the most beneficial to learners, and this perhaps ties into the core debate regarding what our education system is for in the first place.
And, of course, we are faced with major challenges (and that’s understating it) in terms of pupil mental health and well being. Our learners tend to live with a lot of stress, and we see far too many suicides among students due to a lack of performance in learning (which is an assessment issue, among other things), as well as due to pressure from the society which leads to depression, low self-esteem, and so on.
And this is just scratching the surface. These are fundamental, critical problem that our country is faced with, and addressing them effectively and soon is critical for not just the future prosperity of our country, but perhaps its very survival.
So this blog will be a place where we’ll try and summarise all relevant reports, news, updates, and so on.