The document discusses the current state of education in India and ways to improve its quality. It notes that while access to education has increased, the quality remains low. Rural school education especially suffers from poor infrastructure, untrained teachers, and low learning outcomes. Several reforms are suggested such as improving teacher training, increasing vocational education, using technology in teaching, and rewarding creativity over rote learning. Overall, the education system needs widespread reforms to enhance quality and make students employable.

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This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY
TEAM KALAM
Authoredby: AnkitaMarkan
Head of Human Resource Department
QUALITY OF
EDUCATION IN
INDIA

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Introduction
Current Scenario of IndianEducation
India is young country with around 28% of the population in the 0-14 age group. Education
in India is provided by public schools (controlled and funded by three
levels: central, state and local) and private schools. Under various articles of the Indian
Constitution, free and compulsory education is provided as a fundamental right to children
between the ages of 6 and 14. The approximate ratio of public schools to private schools in
India is 7:5. India has made progress in increasing the attainment rate of primary education.
In 2011, Approximately 75% of the population, aged between 7 to 10 years, was
literate. India's improved education systemis often cited as one of the main contributors to
its economic development. Much of the progress, especially in higher education and
scientific research, has been credited to various public institutions. While enrollment
in higher education has increased steadily over the pastdecade, reaching a Gross
Enrollment Ratio of 24% in 2013, therestill remains a significantdistance to catch up
with tertiary education enrollment levels of developed nations, a challenge that will be
necessary to overcome in order to continue to reap a demographic dividend fromIndia's
comparatively young population. In January 2019, India had over 900 universities and
40,000 colleges. In India's higher education system, a significantnumber of seats are
reserved under affirmative action policies for the historically disadvantaged Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. In universities, colleges, and
similar institutions affiliated to the federal government, there is a maximum 50% of
reservations applicable to these disadvantaged groups, atthe state level it can vary.
The previously stated statistics are supported by the graph given below.
“Real education opens up the mind to the vast world
of possibilities and potential.”

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Although huge amounts of significant progress havebeen made since independence in the
arena of education, there is still a long way to go to make India one of the educated
countries of the world.
Quality of Education
Education is the backbone of our nation. Itis an instrumentto national human resource
development. Listed among the fastestgrowing economies in the world, India stands way
behind in the line, when it comes to education. Low quality education is crippling India’s
growth to cope with the demands of the 21stcentury economy. Itis still common to find
low educational levels among village residents who are 40 years old and older. Quality and
access to education is the major concern in rural schools as there are fewer committed
teachers, lack of proper text books and learning material in the schools. Following are some
of the conclusions derived after a brief analysis of the quality of the currenteducation
system in India:
 The quality of education in ruralschools is dismal, on average. Among 14-18-year-olds
surveyed by the Aser teams, only 43% could solvea class IV mathematics problem.
This proportion was roughly the sameamong 14-year-olds as among 18-year-olds,

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showing that the problem of low learning outcomes was not resolved by remaining in
school.
 Only 40% of 18-year-olds could take 10% off a given number.
 More than that percentage could not locate their state on a map of India.
 Twenty-seven percentof 14-year-olds, and 21% of 18-year-olds could notread a class
II textbook in the regional language, and more than 40% in each age group could not
read a simple sentence in English (such as “What is the time?
WAYS TO IMPROVE EDUCATION QUALITY
 Improved teaching faculty: For children to receive best-quality education, it is
imperative to attract the best and brightest into the teaching profession. Wemust
have a high bar for entry into the profession, with top-quality institutes for
developing their capacities. Itis essential to professionalizeteaching, such that
multiple career tracks and avenues for growth should be made available to our
teachers.
 Monitoring and regulating learning outcomes regularly: We musthold
our education systemaccountableto high standards of student’s development.
For this, we need to monitor our inputs and regulate our outcomes. Appointment
of a team responsiblefor the same would lead to improvement in student
learning.
 Building good assessment systems: Good assessments areusefulat the
classroomlevel for teachers to gauge their students’ understanding and also to
informpolicy. The need for regular and useful assessments in India is something
that Indian departments of education are focusing on at the central and state
level. The U.S. could sharelessons learned on how to make assessments as
effective as possiblein terms of assessmentdesign, implementation and
management of data.
 Selection process of school heads: The governmentschoolsystemappoints
principals based primarily on seniority. The process for selecting the head of
institutions should be based on merit. The governmentshould invest in equipping

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institution heads with skills that can enable administrative function and assume
leadership roles.
 Improvement of infrastructure of schools: In many ways schools arenot
equipped to handle the full population – there is a teacher shortageof 689,000
teachers in primary schools, only 53 percent of schools have functionalgirls’ toilets
and 74 percent have access to drinking water.
Also, there are not enough schools to accommodate over 250 million students all
over the country. Hence there is a need to increasethe number of schools with
new and improved infrastructure.
 Usage of better technology in teaching: Technology has the potential to
create new models of learning and achieve impact at scale. The government must
invest in a strong technology backbone, focusing on hardwareand software

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development across our schooland higher education institutions. At the same
time, educators mustbe trained enough to integrate technology in their learning
for effective classroomdelivery. Developing high-quality digital learning programs
and personalized learning resources in local languages can go a long way in
balancing the tension between equity and excellence at scale.
 Creating more awareness about education: Onecannot expect fromour
citizens to realize their full potential if they don't invest in every phase of their
education journey. For that, they need to realize the importance of education in
their lives. Conducting seminars, workshops, plays etc. ruralareas, advertising on
radio and television, engaging students of well-educated areas with children
deprived of education in ruralareas can rub off some essential skills and practices
within a community that gives more weight to the right kind of education. The
startmust be made by making people recognizethat early childhood education
lays a strong foundation and ensures that every child receives it as partof the
formalschooling system.
 Achievement of class appropriate learning levels: Ensuring that students
attain learning levels in accordancewith their class would help in reversing the
decline in enrollment in schools, and allow children to gain actual literacy.
 Increased number of vocational studies: Secondary Education should focus
on enhancing employability and college readiness through vocational education,
college preparation and career counseling. Good vocational study courses would
induce employability in the citizens of India and help them to stand on their own
feet and makea living for themselves, utilizing their education in the mostuseful
manner.
 Reward creativity, original thinking, research and innovation: Our
education systemrarely rewards whatdeserves highestacademic accolades.
Deviance is discouraged. Risk taking is mocked. Our testing and marking systems
need to be built to recognizeoriginal contributions, in form of creativity, problem
solving, valuable original research and innovation. If wecould do this successfully
Indian education systemwould have changed overnight. Memorizing is no
learning; the biggestflaw in our education systemis perhaps that it incentivizes
memorizing above originality.

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Teaching Staff Quality
In the Indian education system, a teacher's success is loosely defined. Itis either based
on a student's success or based on the years of teaching experience, both of which do
not necessarily correlateto a teacher's skill set or competencies. The management of
an institution could thereby be forced to promote teachers based on the grade level
they teach or their seniority, both of which are often not an indicator of a good
teacher. This means that either a primary schoolteacher is promoted to a higher grade,
or a teacher is promoted to take up other roles within the institution such as Head of
Department, coordinator, Vice Principalor Principal. However, the skills and
competencies that are required for each of them vary and a great teacher may not be a
great manager. Since teachers do not see their own growth and success in their own
hands, they often do not take up any professionaldevelopment. Thus, a framework
needs to be identified to help a teacher charta career path based on his/her own
competency and help him/her understand his/her own development.
Officially, the pupil to teacher ratio within the public-schoolsystemfor primary
education is 35:1. However, teacher absenteeism in India is exorbitant, with 25% never
showing up for work. TheWorld Bank estimates the costin salaries alone paid to such
teachers who havenever attended work is US $2 billion per year. Some of the other
stats and flaws in the quality and methodology of the teaching staff in Indian schools
are stated below:
 A study on teachers by Kremer etc. found out that 25% of privatesector
teachers and 40% of public sector medical workers wereabsentduring the
survey. Among teachers who were paid to teach, absence rates ranged from
14.6% in Maharashtra to 41.9% in Jharkhand.
 Only 1 in nearly 3,000 public schoolhead teachers had ever dismissed a teacher
for repeated absence. The same study found "only about half were teaching,
during unannounced visits to a nationally representativesample of government
primary schools in India.
“Only teachers can change education scenario of the
country and make education more relevant by their
innovative methods.”

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 Teachers also believe highly in private tutoring a practice identified by UNESCO
as unethical. Itdoes not complement learning at schooland leads to corruption
the reportsaid. The practice of ghostteachers and involvement of teachers in
mismanagement of schools were other gray areas identified in the Indian
education system.
 There are few rewards for being a good teacher and few punishments for being
a careless one. That is because of faulty designs which need to repaired or
replaced with more effective and accountable governancesystems.
 Non-teaching duties like election invigilation are allotted to teachers which
often keep them away fromschools. Furthermore, teachers often have to report
for duty far away fromtheir home. With an inadequate transportsystemin rural
India, the distance only adds to their woes and often results in absenteeism.
 Several states have exempted candidates from Teachers'Eligibility Test (TET) as
only 20 per cent of the aspirants clear it. This wrong move, in an attempt to
quickly fix the issueof dearth of teachers, has deteriorated the quality of
education in the states even further.
A major causeof such poor condition of the Indian education systemis corruption.
Corruption in Indian education systemhas been eroding the quality of education and
has been creating long-termnegative consequences for the society. Educational
corruption in India is considered as one of the major contributors to domestic black
money.
India’s education systemis mired in corruption and a high rate of teacher absenteeism
in the country was a key factor for it according to the new global study. The UNESCO’s
InternationalInstituteof Educational Planningstudyon corruptionin education released
recently says that 25% teacher absenteeism in India is among the highest in the world,
second only after Uganda that has a higher rate. The global average of teacher
absenteeism is about 20%.
Teacher absenteeism does not justaffect quality of education; it is also a huge drain on
resources resulting in the wastage of 22.5% of education funds in India the study said.
Politics in teacher appointments and transfersisa majorreasonfor teacher absenteeism
according to a professor at National University for Education Planning and
Administration. The study identifies the absence of well-established criteria for teacher

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recruitment a uniform policy on promotion, remuneration and deployment as some of
the main reasons identified for teacher absenteeism. However, the report found
married teachers to be more regular at job than unmarried teachers.
WAYS TO IMPROVE EDUCATION QUALITY
 Teacher education and training: The lack of learning in India’s
schools call for changes to teacher education. A collaboration between
American universities’ schools of education with Indian teacher training
institutes could help build capacity and upgradeteacher education both in
terms of curriculumand pedagogy, which is much needed in Indian
teacher education institutions like the District Institutes of Education and
Training. Such collaborations could be facilitated through technology,
collaborative research projects, teacher exchanges, and subsidized online
courses for teachers in India by universities in the United States.
 Proper selection procedure: Defects of selection procedurelead to
deterioration of the quality of teachers. Better selection procedurewould
not only improvethe quality of training but also savethe personaland
social wastage.
 Encouragement of permanent staff: Mostof the schools in rural
areas are run by the government. They appoint ad hoc teachers, instead
of permanent ones, who are poorly paid as compared to the huge
remuneration of a full-time Trained Graduate Teacher (TGT). Moreover,
promising career prospects, which is quite a motivation booster, is almost
nil for the non-permanent teachers. This leads to dissatisfaction,
eventually resulting in a dearth of teachers because they move away to
more permanent jobs.
 Late or blatantly absent: Lack of accountability of teachers and school
authorities has raised the rate of absenteeism. SchoolDevelopment and
Management Committees (SDMCs), comprising parents and members of
the local community, have been entrusted with the responsibility of
overseeing teachers and their duties. However, research suggests thatthe

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committee has hardly seen success. Improvements need to be made to
this committee and more such initiatives should be taken to regulate the
currentteaching staff.
 Establishment of a transportation system for teachers in rural
areas: Teachers often haveto reportfor duty far away fromtheir home.
With an inadequate transportsystemin ruralIndia, the distanceonly adds
to their woes and often results in absenteeism. A robusttransportation
systemwould ensurethat teachers come to schoolwithout any difficulty
faced.
 Tests to assess eligibility of teachers: Nationwide tests need to be
introduced for the teachers to check whether their knowledgeis up to
date with the currentscenario. Also, such tests would allow authorities to
assess whether the teacher is qualified enough to be performing a job like
that. Such tests would prevent news headlines such as “Bihar teacher fails
to name India's President, spells Apple as Apil”.
 Financial compensation: Teaching is one of the most underpaid jobs
barring someschools which strictly adhere to pay commission of scales.
Even appreciation in formof financial incentive is not a very popular
culture. These problems are not restricted to governmentor low-cost
private schools butalso to posh international schools werethe average
annual fee structureof a student ranges fromRs.6 Lakhs to 10 Lakhs. The
schoolmanagement and board of directors mostly prefer cheap labor.
Paying adequate financial compensation to teachers would ensure that
they stay committed to their job and would also attract more people to
the profession
 Empowerment of teachers: As teachers have to comply rather than
pitching in their ideas, the whole process seems like a mundane task
leading to disheartened and demotivated teachers. The issueof teacher
motivation also lies in the labyrinth of our complex education system
wheresteep growth rate in student enrolment has not kept in pace with
growth rate in number of teachers.

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