What we need to do to up our education standards...

Deepak Mehrotra, Managing Director, Pearson India shares his views on what our country needs to do to be globally relevant

Despite its rich cultural and intellectual heritage, for decades now, our country has been working on improving basic human development parameters, including educational needs and standards. According to ASSOCHAM, an industry body, though the Indian education system is the largest in the world in terms of institutions, and third largest in terms of enrollment, it lacks modernisation and innovation, hence the ability to create human capital.

However, the current government at the Centre seems to have hit the nail on the head on this core issue — how to improve the quality of education at the institutional level — as seen by some landmark announcements in the Union Budget 2016-17 which were aptly followed by a series of strategic initiatives by the new Minister of HRD, Prakash Javadekar. Though the course-charting seems promising, allocating more resources or focussing more on higher education would not solve some of the gripping issues; the situation calls for a holistic review of the standard of education, involving all the stakeholders, improving the infrastructure, imparting essential faculty training and including a greater role for the private sector.

The Union Budget 2016-17 — which gave a huge thrust to higher education, opportunities for skill development and focus on quality education — rightly picked the lack of job creation as well as poor skill upgradation as two of the key shortcomings of the current education system. Digital literacy in rural India should get a lift through the National Digital Literacy Mission that would cover six crore rural households in the next three years, while the National Skill Development Mission would now intensify training provided to the youth.
However, some of the issues that plagued previous skill development programmes such as quality assurance, career progression mapping, and emphasis on placement must be addressed, principally. Besides, the youth will have to be trained competitively to fit into a global market, not just for the domestic industries.

Among the HRD Ministry’s key initiatives, was the passage of the National Institutes of Technology, Science Education and Research (Amendment) Bill, 2016 which sought to improve the quality of education at higher levels, like the NITs, through more faculty recruitment and better training for them. Equally, several schemes would be introduced to promote research, especially customised research for industries across technology institutes, by allocating a separate funding of `1,000 crore. Any Time Learning (ATL) was another initiative to mobilise education for all through online media. The mission of the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) project is to open up at least 2,000 new courses to all. Subject experts would be available for lectures, while material would be accessible, exams conducted and certifications handed out in real-time, benefitting all those who are out of school.

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The New Indian Express
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