Alternate System of Education for India - or NOT?

The edifice of education we have built in India may be compared to a giant tree with thick log-like universities and promising school cum college offshoots branching out of its bole. The fruits of this tree, when it ripens, are juicy and bright …for everyone to see today! What our students get are the endless openings that our degrees and certificates provide. For the elite students of India... the World has become an open play-field.

Today, our students not only compete among the world’s best but also, bag the top positions in Management, Engineering, Medicine, Administration … you name it and they’ve achieved it.

What do you think has made this possible? Those of you who think that our education system is a failure or becoming obsolete, think again! It is this very education system of ours which has made present-day India the super-power in terms of education and qualified manpower, thus threatening to takeover the world in terms of intelligentsia and brain-power. So much so that the amount of outsourcing business which India has cornered has made even the mighty United States and other European countries feel insecure about their future global economic status.

Ever since the British left us totally hollow and helpless in 1947, one single factor that has helped made India the power to reckon with today is its education system. The education system provided an opportunity for millions of students from across a wide range of societies, classes and castes to forget about the wide gap between the urban and rural areas, get to know the world, and to enter into the functioning of the nation’s machinery.

The progress we have made today in industrialization, food-grain production, international-trade, technology and in infra-structural development within our country has been made possible through the trained and educated manpower only. Social evils like the caste system, sati, child-marriage, untouchability, dowry system have been to a great extent eradicated through education and awareness. The overall improvement in the health status of Indians especially the rural poor have been made possible through the education process of India.

No doubt every system has its strengths and weaknesses. We must change with time and keep our system flexible to incorporate newer ideas and methodology. To a great extent our system too has welcome the necessary reforms from time to time, but has retained the basic structure.

Yes, developing skills in the fields of sports and talent is important, but I believe that it simply cannot take the place of the current system of education, which, even though it may seem a little hard and sometimes irrational, leads to the proper development of the thinking skills of a person.