‘Dialogue India Survey’ for the year 2016-17 shows that the education sector of the country is passing through rapid transformation. Extensive changes have been introduced not only in higher education, but also at the intermediate and primary level. The institutions, which grabbed big headlines in the media till a few years back have now vanished from the scene, while those institutions which silently and honestly continued to work focussing on quality are now shining on top. Fact is that, barring a few top players among the private institutions, the position of all the institutions has substantially changed. For the first time the impact of government control over the institutions, colleges and schools is visible.
Mushrooming of institutions, uncontrolled admission of students there like cattle and their promotion in next standards after certain ‘nautankis’ and formalities has been nothing but an organised loot. Observation of this pathetic situation and widespread cheating on the part of the institutions highly painful for our survey teams. Like the high powered various committees, expert groups or the studies conducted in the past, our findings about the education system too are disappointing. Our findings support the studies that the degree holders being produced in the country every year by majority of the institutions are armed with the fake certificates and about 80 to 90 per cent of those who have genuine degrees too are unemployable. If this is the situation, we have indeed jumped into a dark well. The country is crawling on the strength of 10 per cent qualified persons or the traditional knowledge of the rest 90 per cent ‘qualified’ but unemployable people.
A good number of students who are shown studying in the government schools in most of the small towns, cities or villages by government agencies actually study in unrecognised or recognised private schools after paying hefty fees. But the English medium education received at these so-called public schools does not help them much after they completes 12th standard and appear for any competitive exam for job or higher studies. They have to depend upon the tuition or coaching syndicates where they are taught the techniques to qualify the exam by adopting shortcuts. Hence, some of them become part of any reputed government institution or some land in any higher education institution.
Despite that, the story that the above facts state force us to think deeper. During the survey, we experienced an earthquake type situation in the field of private education. Since the courts and regulatory bodies have started acting tough during, for the last two-three years the admissions in hundreds of higher educational institutions have drastically decreased or some institutions have reached the verge of closer. Mandatory use of Aadhar Card, biometric attendance of staff and students, pan card, tough admission rules based on standards, single entrance, curb on charging capitation fees, online monitoring and extensive use of IT etc have all changed the rules of the game. Now nobody is seen advising to open educational institution to make money. The continuous closer of some of the institutions indicate to the same situation.
In fact, about two third of the engineering, management, medical or dental institutions are in very poor condition. Many have been closed down or are at the verge of closer. Not only this, many so-called reputed private universities also are at the verge of closer. During the last a few years, the engineering, management, medical or dental collages that have shown good results are fast converting into deemed universities. Many big industrial and business groups have also opened their own universities. Comparatively, it is a welcome trend, because earlier the institutions were run either by some builders, liquor mafias, corrupt politicians or bureaucrats. They used the education sector only to make money by adopting unfair means.
Fortunately, that disappointing era seems to be over and those players who have been serious remain in the race. But now some new challenges are knocking the door. It needs no elaboration that our entire education model has been copied from the West. It has neither originality nor the indigenous sprit. It also does not develop the feeling of nationality. The youth who get education through the country’s state funded system easily hand over their knowledge, skills or talent to the multi-national companies. And after doing that they feel proud! It needs immediate action, because such youth are swiftly adopting the alien culture also and have inferiority complex towards their own country, language and culture.
Another fact is that majority of the industries or business houses are fast adopting IT and automation. Almost all the successful institutions are today changing their syllabus, labs or faculty members accordingly. But in this process, the use of human resources is gradually decreasing, which is adversely affecting the employment generation. The work which used to be done by 10, 20 or 30 engineers till some time back is now done by 1 or 2 engineers only. This indicates to the grave situation of unemployment, which will be before us in coming days. Additionally, there is a campaign against our IT professionals across the world. In this situation, the big challenge before the policymakers is how to transform the education system so that it generates more avenues of employment. Apart from research, we will have to speedily focus on innovations and entrepreneurship. Otherwise, all the efforts of rankings, conducting studies or surveys will prove to be unfruitful.
Anuj Agrawal
Editor
