Indian education bill which guarantee free and compulsory education for children between the age of 4 and 16 definitely came in a time it is most needed. Successful implementation of this and a re-hauling of Indian education system is the need of the hour, else our country will move into a bigger social unrest and imbalance in near future.
Think back to the old time, not very old few years back when, allover India education system was mostly under the responsibility of state governments and each state had some variation in the system, still in totality the system was comparable. Majority of the Indian children went to the nearby school which may be a government or aided (schools where the facility is given by private and salary and other infrastructure by government) school, the syllabus and method of teaching in all these schools where more or less similar. There were not many private schools except for few which function from the famous hill resorts, and the number was negligible.
So ten to twenty years back India had an education system which was accessible and acceptable to most of the population and people did depend on that system, and same provided a level playing field for the younger generation of that time on competitive examinations and higher studies. This definitely fuelled the growth in India. The new breed of entrepreneurs and all other so called knowledge workers are developed in this education system. What the advantage they had when most of them where from middle to lower middle class family, definitely the education system where all or most had gone through the same education system. It was a fair play given for a population.
Now the scene is changing drastically, and it may look bit scary if you analyze it in detail, the so called people moved from villages to small to bigger cities for better jobs and they have a better life style and affordability. This leads to the demand for better education system in India, instead of government stepping in and re-structuring the system, private players came into the field and education become the big business next to real estate.
The affect of it, those who are above middle class send the children to these private schools where they have better facilities and are exposed to multiple things (start from the hi tech class rooms to well equipped laboratories and play grounds) which definitely will fuel the growth and confidence of these children, and this percentage of population going to private schools are not anymore negligible portion of our society. (Yes that’s a sign of growth, as more can afford this, I am happy about it). What about the rest of Indian kids, who can’t afford this education system? They go to the same old government schools, where the facilities are deteriorating year by year because of lack of demanding public; they still use the facilities which are 50 year old and never heard of any hi-tech teaching aids. This definitely put lot of India’s young generation at risk, because they are losing on a level playing field once they complete the schooling to go for higher studies. How can a brilliant student from a government school compete with an average student from the private school, because of the differences in exposure and confidence level (mostly due to the command over language and general awareness).
This makes me concerned/sad when I see the state of our government schools, there will be lot of intelligent kids out there, and they are getting pushed to the back seat over a period just because of the difference in education provided. Will India make another APJ, or many like people who created their own destiny? I doubt if we don’t do something immediate to regularize the education system where everyone is provided same kind of education environment.
Government need to bring back the glory of state run schools which can compete with the private schools and I hope for a day in Indian very soon, where people will say going to a private school is only an option if your kid didn’t get admitted to the government school. Hope this education bill and reforms will do that, else as said we will lose lot of great minds and end up in a bigger social imbalance.
