Career Guidance & Job Opportunities

Structure of Education In Modern India:

India follows a primary, 10 +2 secondary and higher secondary education system. There are options of vocational training and education in English or any vernacular Indian languages. This may be followed by 3-5 years professional undergraduate education (3 years for Science/Humanities/Business degrees, B. Sc/B. Stat/BA/B. Com; 4 years Engineering degrees, B. Tech; 5 years Medical degrees, MBBS). Graduate studies comprise of Masters degree (M. Sc/ MA/M. tech/M. stat/M. com/MD) usually of 2 years and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in different disciplines. There are numerous excellent research centers (both private and government funded) all over the country, which cater to the research need.

Development in Education:

There have been some success stories after the independence. The literacy rate has risen from 18% (1951) to 52% (1991). The investments in the field of education have increased from 1.2% of GDP to 3.9% of GDP. 94.5% of rural population now has a primary school within a walking distance of 1 km. Computer and Technical Education are emphasized at all levels, and the private investment in this field is also very substantial. Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), Science (IISc) and Management (IIM) have assumed international reputation for their quality professional courses. The result of the gains of high quality technical education has been evident in the facts that India now has the third largest pool of technical manpower in the world, its scientists and engineers are sought after throughout the world, and India's performance in software exports is doubling every three years. India is now one of the largest exporters of computer software in the world, and it has the largest trained manpower in the field of computer technology. In this field of high technology and advanced learning, it is to the credit of the country that it has been able to produce world quality professionals. However, despite all these progresses, illiteracy continued to be a major hindrance to the development in India and even after 55 years of independence, India has not been able to mobilize the modest resources required to finish this fundamental job.

Hindrance / Problems:

Though, statistics show a fabulous growth in the Education Scenario of the country, the fact is that the education system is still inadequate to cater for the needs of the preset day of the country.

The problem needs an address under various variables: (1) Primary Education (Children’s Basic Education) (2) Woman’s Education (3) Secondary Education (4) Higher Education, etc. The root cause of the problem is not one but ca be assigned to Socio – Cultural – Economic – Geographical – Political factors. The problem (s) in middle education stems out from the problems in primary education. Hence, it is pertinent to analyze the problems of primary education to understand properly the dynamics of the problems of middle education. Some hindering factors are discussed below:

Hindrance of Primary Education:

· School Dropout: Nearly 1.4 crore children are out of school; this situation is especially worse in Bihar, Rajashtan and Jharkand, where 10% or more of school-age children are not enrolled.

· Gender Gap: The gender gap in the percentage of children out of school, however, has dropped. In 2001, it was estimated that 2 out of 3 dropouts were girls, but study in 2006 finds that only a little more than half (52-55%) of the children out of school are girls.

· Teachers Absenteeism: Teacher absenteeism was high in Kerala, where 3 out of 10 schools visited did not have any teacher present.

· Level of Learning: The tests of reading ability applied in survey of 2006 were quite simple (a short paragraph at the grade 2 level), but even then 35% of children aged 7-14 could not pass this test, and 60% of the children could not read a simple story, also at grade 2 level. This situation was in fact worse in states like Tamilnadu and Gujarat, where the usual indicators (school availability, enrolment, teachers, etc.) are all good. Students in Bihar and Chhatisgarh fared better, despite really poor education infrastructure indicators for their states.

Hindrance of Women’s Education:

Women Education: Some Indicators, which are responsible for lop – sided imbalanced education to females in India

• 34 % Female Adult Literacy
• 38 % Female secondary school enrollment
• 44% Female Youth Illiteracy
• 36 % of Tertiary students are female
• 30.4 % of Tertiary students in natural sciences are female
• 19 % Female Teaching staff at tertiary

The traditionally lower value placed on girls and women in Indian society contribute to families' decision not to invest in their daughter's education. Moreover, for many poorer communities, girls are most valued as wage earners for families, so schooling girls is seen as double the investment.

Education and literacy are low for both men and women, with women's literacy rate at only 51.4%, compared to men's 74.5%. While enrollment rates have increased at the primary level for boys and girls, upper primary enrollment drops off, particularly for girls. Moreover, only 48% of girls stay in the system until the secondary level. These statistics also vary widely between specific states within the country, where particularly the Northern and Eastern states have the lowest health and education indicators.

Secondary and Higher Education

Secondary and higher education though experienced impressive quantitative growth since independence: enrolments in secondary (including senior secondary) education have increased from 1.5 million in 1950-51 to 33 million in 2002-03. There were in 2002-03, 137 thousand secondary/senior secondary schools with about 1.8 million teachers. But despite seemingly impressive growth in enrolments, the size of enrolment is not proportionate to the population. For instance, only 35 per cent of the children of the age-group 14-17, according to official estimates, were enrolled in secondary education in 2002-03, compared to above 90 per cent in developed countries and 40-50 per cent in several developing counties. Inequalities by gender, caste and economic groups are high. Secondary education rarely serves as a meaningful effective terminal level of education.

The most significant setback in secondary education refers to the growth of vocational and technical education at snail's pace, though development of technical education as it relates to industrial development has been one of the foremost long term national tasks of development in India, as proposed by the Radhakrishnan Commission on higher education in 1948 and the Mudaliar Commission on secondary education in 1952 immediately after independence; and though the government desired to offer vocational and technical education to 10 per cent of the students in higher secondary education by 1990 and to 25 per cent by 1995. But vocational education has not received any serious attention of anyone, partly because of the need for heavy investments on the one hand, and lack of sufficient demand for such education on the other. Vocational education particularly in secondary schools did not really take-off, as it was planned to be of second rate, meant for the poor and as a terminal one having inter-connectivity neither with higher education nor with the industrial or agricultural sector. It was also viewed as a strategy to reduce demand for higher education. But it has served no purpose, as it did not take-off at all. It did not take off, partly because adequate investments are not made. Vocational education is costly, costlier than general secondary education. Employment opportunities have not been particularly better for vocational school graduates and as a result, economic rates to return to vocational education were generally less than those to secondary general education (see Tilak, 1988). This would explain the lack of sufficient demand for vocational education. However, in recent years, a number of vocational courses have been introduced in the undergraduate level in the colleges. Secondly, some kind of connectivity of vocational school education with post secondary education is also enabled, giving a chance to the vocational school graduates to go for higher education. Yet the formal vocational school system has not grown much. But vocational and technical skill training is also offered in postsecondary institutions like industrial technical institutes and polytechnics. While they offer job-relevant skills, they are also considered as second best choice for many.

The quantitative growth of educational system in India is very impressive. But at the same time the progress has been far from satisfactory. The gross enrolment ratio in secondary education is around 35 per cent and that in higher education less than 9 per cent.

Other Hindrance To Education In India:

Apart from these factors there are numerous other factors hat can be considered as hindrance to Education in India.

a) Now Link between education and job: Today the job market requires skill sets, which are not developed in the college education. The traditional colleges are following the old syllabi which have not been revised since long. This makes this education archaic for the present job market and students face problems in getting desired employment.

b) Economic Factors: The higher professional Education in some of the Institutes are too costly to afford for the average middle class family. Hence, the higher relevant education is available to a limited class of people in the society.

c) Lack of Trained Teachers (Student – Teacher Ratio): There is increasing gap in the ratio of trained and qualified teachers per student. This gap is creating problems in proper grooming of the students. The problem is not only contained with the gap of qualified teachers only, but is manifested to the fact that this gap is increasing for the general students – teacher ratio as well.

d) Regulatory Problems: There has been in recent times, mushrooming growth of private institutions, many of which are charging high fees but are not providing quality education.

e) Education causing Stress: Students today are more stressed in comparison to students of 50’s and 60’s not only competition is too tough; students are trying to do more than two or more things at a time. It has become the need of the hour and hence some amount of breakdown is expected.

f) Corruption: The modern education system is facing the problem of deep rooted political interference causing in corruption in Educational Institutions.

g) Non – Standardized Education: Education system in also not standardized in India.

h) Lack of Proper Infrastructure: Infrastructure development is not a high priority.

i) Value Based Education: Value based education receives just lip services.

j) Competency Development: Competency based education is mostly missing.

k) Commercialization: Commercial orientation is slowly and erratically emerging.

l) Inappropriate Distribution: Distribution of education in India is skewed and different regions of the country have different accessibility to various kinds of education. This is evident from the figures given below:

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References

1) Magazine Aalochana, December 17, 2006 Issue

2) Data Press Information Bureau, Government of India

3) Data First Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER) Report

4) Article Health of Education System In India by Dr Ashok Sahni

5) UNESCO 1999 Statistical Yearbook

6) Research Paper: Post‐Elementary By Jandhyala BG Tilak