Short essay on the Crisis in Education in India

There is an increasing realisation all over the world that only through the right type of education can human beings be made good citizens, and a better order of society be built. It is also common knowledge that real and effective education must be based on the actual environment and ex­periences, and it must fit the student for the type of work he or she is expected to do in life.

Perhaps, in no other area of human activity has there been such widespread and fully warranted realisation of the futility of the existing system.

Every now and then, the country’s leaders, including educationists of various hues and disciplines, talk of the deficiencies of the present system, and plead for reforms.

No wonder, there has been a plethora of education reform committees and commissions. There has also been considerable ex­perimentation in the processes of education, but the basic problem of fitting the system to the real needs of the country and its people has remained unsolved.

There need be no doubt that the type of education that concerns itself only with the study of a prescribed set of books and annual or term exami­nations in the traditional manner, or in the semester system, is not only incomplete, but also wasteful and a failure.

The cynics often argue that Indians are traditionally inefficient, lazy and fatalistic and that no amount of education and training will make them proficient and in a position to compete with enlightened people in the advanced countries. But, this impression is unwarranted. Given the right type of training and opportunities, India can produce hundreds of thousands of first class people in all branches of work and knowledge. The tragedy is that the people do not have such opportunities.

Moreover, the government itself, preoccupied as it generally is with political issues and the problems of survival in the seats of office, does seem to have the requisite will and inclination to concentrate on education.

No doubt, the Constitution lays down specific provisions for universal education, but this is one area in which totally inadequate expenditure been incurred. The adult education programs have also suffered bee of political prejudices; the ambitious programs drawn up after much effort, and launched with much fanfare by one political party, bypassed or replaced by other schemes under different labels, just out spite. The result is that the net progress in education is very slow.

Mass literacy drives turn out to be flop most of the time. The lessons of Russia and other countries, which concentrated on mass education as an item of the highest priority, and ensured the all-round progress of their country and the people, seem to have been forgotten.

If our children are denied education, what is our India of tomorrow going to be like? asked Jawaharlal Nehru. So, it is the duty of the State, whatever the political pattern under which it functions, to provide free and compulsory education for all children, to lay sound foundations for national progress.

It is obvious that the world educational crisis is basically a crisis of growth. While it is true that more and more people now have access to the modern techniques of acquiring knowledge, it cannot be denied that with the increase in population, the necessary facilities have not kept pace with the demands, with the result that there is an ever-widening gap between the opportunities and the seekers.

It is estimated that as the population increases, the human race practically doubles its number every 40 years. Since this trend is unlikely to be modified despite the highly publicised family limita­tion drives, it is obvious that a far more extensive campaign for expanding education and training facilities is necessary, if a proper balance is to be ensured.

The fact is that the accumulated problems (and occasional contradic­tions) in education, besides the social and allied problems, have created a definite educational crisis, which has affected almost all countries, regard­less of their socio-political systems and the degree of economic progress. It has been said that there is a virtual generation gap in education; there are barriers in the educational system in respect of the access to higher levels of education, for instance.

There is a monopoly of certain types of schools. Some think that the crisis has also been caused by such faults in the system as the question-answer emphasis to show examination results. There is also the problem of ensuring better integration of education with other spheres of human activity.

Actually, the problems that have contributed to the crisis in education are countless. Besides the factors already mentioned, there are the com­plexities created by the dismal phenomenon of drop-outs, i.e. the increasing number of young and not so young students who suddenly abandon their schools or other educational centers, either for economic reasons or because of the lack of time or interest, not to mention the indifference and inefficiency of the teachers and instructors, most of whom are poorly paid and have very limited interest in their assignments.

The goals have been partly achieved in advanced countries, where the education system at various levels has taken a great leap forward, but in the developed regions, the educational crisis has assumed other forms. There are maladjustments of various types, and there are manpower surpluses in some spheres, while there are shortages in others. The crisis in such countries has reached the university level.

Of course there cannot be full matching of supply and demand with minute and microscopic precision, but it is undeniable that more opportunities are needed to utilise the skills of the trained manpower. In this connection, the question is often raised whether the modern trend towards specialisation has paid enough dividends.

According to one viewpoint, specialisation after a course of general education is good for human welfare. But according to another school, the real aim of education should be to produce complete human beings. The technocrats should also be democrats, sympathisers and thinkers, and not confined to limited purposes attained at considerable cost to the country.

In India, in particular, specialisation hardly needs to be promoted at this stage when the country finds it difficult to spare adequate funds even for elementary and basic education. As in the medical profession, the need is to produce barefoot doctors having some basic training, not of M.D.s and D.Sc.s who can cater only to the needs of a fraction of the upper crust of society. The needs of the masses should be attended to first, before we think of catering to the requirements of a small, though vocal and affluent section of society.

Quite relevant to the crisis in education are the questions of the curricula, the syllabi and the much criticised system of examinations, which some people describe as the bane of the system in this country. The tragedy is that every time there is a revision of text-books and of the curricula, the changes worsen the position, the new and “revised” books being even worse and containing more errors than the discarded ones. These errors and faults, and the lopsided emphasis on certain facts are caused by inadequate atten­tion to the task, and general carelessness, which has cost the country heavily.

In part, it is the symptom of, and the sequel to, the general state of confused society, in which few take their duties seriously and everyone thinks only of cash rewards and, therefore, hurries through his assignments, quoting the examples of others. The infection, thus, spreads fast and extensively.

Moreover, the reforms in curricula are made by the very people who are products of the existing system and are, therefore, habitually conservative. Would it not be appropriate in such a disheartening context to seek educational revolution complete and total changes through a overhaul, instead of merely tinkering with the system which yields no results.

Additionally, there seems to be a tendency to prescribe more and more books for various types of study. Many psychologists and education experts have commented adversely on the sight of young school-going boys and girls carrying bulky satchels full of books on their backs, in many cases with backs bent by the load.

Is it possible for young children to acquire knowledge through books which are beyond their capacity to understand? Again, can we expedite the process of gaining knowledge by prescribing difficult books, fit only for high or higher secondary classes, for the middle classes? Such practices reflect faulty thinking and equally faulty planning. In many cases, these heavy loads of books and exercise-books on children’s backs smack of downright cruelty and callousness.

Can we hope to reform the system of education in this erroneous manner? Would it not be better to prescribe simpler and fewer books for school children, and to widen their knowledge by extensive lec­tures and by more conscientious teachers who would work earnestly, instead of merely performing formal functions and these too half-heartedly?

The system of examinations, especially in the traditional system of middle and high school instruction, has been repeatedly criticised, and rightly. Examinations are regarded as the bane of the present system of education and of the pupils’ lives. By common consent, most examinations involve cramming and superficial acquisition of knowledge in the form of questions and answers, to enable students to get through examinations by confining themselves to a few important questions which have not been asked in the previous examination.

This process of elimination of topics facilitates the task of those who prepare guess papers and publish guides, “notes” and shortcuts for getting pass marks, or even a good division in the annual ex­amination. Examinations also depress the students and at times erode their real mental capacity, besides deadening school education and making it dull and unattractive.

It is also no secret that examinations test only a certain type of skill. Those having a good memory, but lacking any capacity for original thinking, or even any concentrated thinking at all, can manage to get high marks in an examination.

Thus, these categories of students have an advantage over talented pupils who have the requisite capacity for thinking. It is well known that many of the worlds best scholars and Nobel Prize winners fared poorly m their school examinations, and some of them were third divisioners. There is also the difference in judging the standards of answer-books. It has been found that the same answers, assessed by different examiners on revaluation, are given sharply different marks. Which examiner is wrong and which one is a better judge becomes a difficult question to answer.

Assessment of the real worth of candidates becomes an uncertain process in the circumstances. Moreover, the examination system assumes that all the examinees have reached the same level of knowledge and of the capacity to express themselves correctly. As a competitive test, written examinations by themselves are seldom decisive; in fact, they are often unjust and misleading.

But then the alternatives suggested for the “pernicious examination system” seem to be no better. Examinations do provide occasions for judging the quality and knowledge of students in certain subjects, and in the courses prescribed for a class.

Secondly, examinations compel students to study, even if only in the pre-examination weeks; otherwise, they would not study at all and loaf about the whole year. The curriculum exercises a wholesome restraint on both teachers and the taught; the teachers get to know what they are supposed to teach and what courses they are required to complete in a fixed span of time.

The students know what they are to learn. This serves as a corrective on those teachers who talk of irrelevant themes and give general discourses in class-rooms, and do not study even the prescribed books. It has also been found that wherever the judgement about the merit of students is left to class teachers, on the basis of internal assessments or otherwise, there is a great deal of favouritism and corruption The faults of the traditional system of examinations have often been corrected by holding intelligence tests, which form an integral part of question paper- in many examinations, especially for high posts. The solutions suggested for the crisis in education have therefore to be carefully examined.