The demographic dividend that was talked about as a winning hand for India for many years is now mostly gone. Instead, what we now have is a looming demographic nightmare, with hundreds of millions of people having no option but to live out their lives in subsistence. Hands and legs dont make a productive economy, without proper training. Our education system has been busy chalking up attendance and calling it learning. And if children arent given a reasonable chance to learn and grow in those schooling years, then there is very little chance of creating opportunities for them in later life. The really scary part is that there is no sign of any reform on the horizon. Were still plodding along in a more of the same path, with no radical rethink of the foolish policies that have brought us to the lowest quartile of the world in social and economic indicators. And the madcaps who created it have figured out how to make money off their madness too, which doubles their resistance to change. What is needed, is what has always been needed, but which we endlessly avoid - (a) government should fund students, and let the money be used in whichever learning institutions the parents choose for their children, including institutions of vocational learning (b) Introduce standardised testing to judge how students are actually performing, rather than silly notions of enrollment, attendance, promotion by default etc. Employers dont recognise any of these scams. (c) Make public education a district-level matter (or a metropolitan one, in large cities), and not be run by a department of the State government. Reward public school administrators for performance, and fire those who are in the bottom 2% every year. (d) End the monopoly of the school boards and let high-performing institutions set up their own standards for curriculum, methods, etc. Judge their performance against the Boards (which will be a real eye-opener). (e) Rescind the law that says every university has to be set up by an Act of legislature or parliament. Surely, elected reps have more important things to do that create private universities by legislative action. Its just a rent-seeking racket, anyway. (f) Allow private companies to start schools and colleges, but keep these outside the ambit of government support (i.e. no subsidies, no concessions on taxes, .... just treat these as proper businesses). This will end the wink-wink that now goes on, with everyone pretending that education can be a non-profit activity of the market in scale. (g) Close UGC. Reconstitute it as National Research Foundations in different topics, with peer-led decision making on what research to fund.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 02:24:30 +0000
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