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A View On The Quality of Education in India

The growing need for quality education and the lack of it in India has been a nagging problem for decades. While we can confidently talk of the advancements we've made in the field of education, we continue to ask ourselves – is this enough? The appalling statistics show that close to 90% of the students do not complete their basic education. While family pressure, lack of funds, societal norms and plenty more of such reasons are responsible for the dire situation we face, the most notable cause of poor education is the education system itself. Low quality of education is a stumbling block for the development of our nation. Why are we still called a developing nation and not a developed one? India has been a developing country for decades. Year on year we see articles, we hear experts talking of how India will supercede even America to become the next superpower. Why hasn't that happened yet? I don’t need to be an expert to say it – it’s the lack of quality education. We as a nation are being deprived of the most essential ingredient of success. We have the smarts, we just need the right kind of guidance to get to the developed stage as opposed to the constant tag associated with our country i.e. developing nation.

With the introduction of the RTE Act in 2009, India was one amongst 135 nations to make education a fundamental right of every child between the age of 6 and 14. While this can be seen a huge stride in the long walk to development, we can only hope and pray that it won’t just be on paper and become one of the many ways  for corrupt politicians to count their bundles of black money. While statistics show that the RTE Act has allowed hundreds of thousands of children to go to school, we also see the depressing statistics of lack of qualified teachers, pathetic quality of education and a rising number of dropouts. The main reason for lack of qualified teachers has been the ever present problem of low salaries and pathetic infrastructure along with lack of basic necessities to work with. With the Modi fever catching on in a manner that can only be described as fast and furious, I can only hope as a fellow citizen that NaMo fever catches on the education field too. By allocating appropriate funds for education in the country and also making it a priority, quality of education in India can actually be on par with those of the advanced countries. Providing quality education in India is the single most effective solution to the brain drain we are facing as a nation. More importantly, education can single handedly help reduce the income inequalities that our nation is bogged down with. Education will drastically reduce the dire consequences of the rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer.  All this being said I will end with a famous quote by none other than Nelson Mandela – “ Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world”.

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