Populist Governments ; The ill fate of India’s Education.

In a recent Job opening by Indian Railways more than 28 Million people applied for 90,000 jobs of Grade C which includes jobs like Gangman, Repairsman, Lineman and Engine Driver. Most applicants here are Graduates or even post Graduates.

If anything this event is hallmark of low reliability of Letter Grades and Paper Degrees; universities across India are churning. So let’s look at this problem from it’s inception.

Post Independence policy

In 1947 when India gained Independence from the British it’s literacy rate was a partly 12%. This has since shot up to 74% in 2011. This phenomenal growth has come at a cost of quality of education.

Rapid increase in schools and pupils through the compulsory education policy of the government means that people were educated to flaunt literacy rate figures each election and wether they actually received any education or become capable of trade or skill of any kind. Incidents where pupils of class 7 were unable to solve simple math problem are not uncommon in recent past. This actually puts into question wether the people marked educated actually received,any.

It should be noted that schools are run by teachers and not infrastructure alone. We see that many villages in our country have grand school building but lack teachers altogether or don’t have the required strength. Many schools only act as a mess for students and they are sent only to enjoy free food from the mid-day meal scheme. Education is never the primary motive.

Policy of compulsory Promotion.

Most state governments in our country have the policy of promoting students to higher grades till the class 8 irrespective of their academic performance. For most parents this is perceived as an act of generosity by the ruling government. A populist act indeed.

Such policy in long run will enable students to gain a school certificate without actual education. This is extremely damaging as few people who have misused this policy will undermine the credibility of all the students.

Fee regulation and the case of Double Spend.

The taxpayers of our country are burdened with a classic case of double spend. When they pay their taxes they are paying for the education of their wards. This service is to be provided by the government free of cost to all citizens. The poor state of government schools is nothing to boast about and it evident that most taxpayers send their children to private school as substitute to government schools.

All middle class parents are burdened by this double spend. To make things worse the state governments in Gujarat and Karnataka have decided to regulate fees in private schools and Subsidies education in private universities through government scholarships. This only means the government institutions will remain poor and Private Institutions are made handicapped to provide good education by caping their financial ability.

The right approach to this problem is what is employed by the Delhi Government by building world class Schools in the state and not fee regulation.

Resistance to National Level Exams.

Due to poor education in most schools the distribution of the students with respect to their academic performance is bottom heavy that is to say most students score just above the pass grade. The no of students scoring a particular mark decreases exponentially with increase in grades. Example : in the exam IIT-JAM Physics out of 13.5k examinees around 11k failed to surpass the cutoff of 17/100 Marks. With 24/100 you can get a AIR of 1000 and with 50/100 you can get AIR 100. This is the case in most National Level Competitive exams.

This disappointment among students that they have failed to clear an exam is also represented to the State governments. The clear solution to this problem is to make the students more capable, provide them with better curriculum, policies and teachers.

Alas! Here too populist governments find it more easy to replace the National level exam with an easier State Level one. This keeps the electorate happy, Students handicapped and government intact. All this does is blows a double whammy to deserving and hard working students.

1) They will turn to private coaching to crack the exam. Double Spend for services they must receive from government.

2) Be additionally burdened with a state level exam for security of a seat while working to crack the National level Exam to fulfil their academic aspiration as students .

It is an irony that the ones who are studying are also the ones whose future is least cared about by the government.

An IIT a State, Keeps the flak away

The only silver lining here are the institutions of national importance. Populist Governments are increasingly leveraging them to show to the public all is well. They also are symbol of a progressing India and their placements marketing material for abundant employment in our country.

These institutions are suffering from solution of quality due to rampant expansion and lack of availability of quality faculties.. No college from these now stand even in the top 200 universities in world. While the best colleges in other countries are driving cutting edge research that even dedicated research institutions of our country fail to achieve.

All this lopsidedness when IIT’s in our country are currently understaffed by 33%. If this is the case of premier institutions in our country those who fail to secure a seat in these institutions have a hopeless chance of success.

Poor Paper-Setting and Evaluation

How and what a student studies is largely governed by what will be asked in their end exam or how will their answers be evaluated. In an ideal system a student is required to critically analyse the concept, understand it thoroughly and be able to explain it in least possible words with simplicity.

Ideally a question paper in a university or board exam must test this skills. Instead the questions asked are always direct and students are asked to reproduce a certain theory to score. This is a populist decision inspired by the top management to ensure that all students pass. These keeps them academically poor even after university education. Here to losers are again the diligent students as their inner conscious will not allow them to take up rote learning but the system will not allow them to pass unless.

Concluding Thoughts

Here one must ask who this system is really for ? The ones who actually care about it and endeavouring for excellence or the ones who use their electorate majority to steer it to their comfort zone at the cost of our country’s future.

One must really ask how much can you trust a certificate from an institution that fails to set an error free exam paper, that fails to protects their Question papers before exam, fails to correctly distribute admit cards and oversees the concerns of people who care and work in fulfilling their common goal in lieu of being Populist.

It is rightly said Students in India excel despite its education system and not because of it.