Indian education

Indian Education Indian educational system is one of the largest and oldest ones in the world. The history of Indian education started even from the first century (Indian Education System). India is the second largest country as far as population size is concerned. India is a secular democratic country even though the majority of the population is Hindus. India consists of twenty eight states and six union territories. Culturally, most of the Indian states are different from other states. Even though Hindi is the official language in India, most of the Indian states have their own local languages. Indian educational system is entirely different from that of America or China because of the huge diversity in Indian culture. This paper compares Indian education system against American and Chinese educational system. India has made lot of legislatures in the educational sector immediately after achieving independence in 1947. “ The 86th constitutional amendment has made elementary education a fundamental right for the children between the age group- 6 to 14” (India Education). As per the 2001 statistics, the literacy is around 65% in India. The rural people are comparatively less educated than the urban people in India. The present education system in India is divided into four major categories; primary education, secondary education, senior secondary education and higher education. After the nursery school training, children start their formal education at the age of five in primary schools. The primary educational sector is divided into two categories; lower primary and upper primary. Lowe r primary education is from 1st standard to 4 th standard whereas upper primary education is from 5 th standard to 7 th standard. Secondary education starts in the 8 th standard and ends in the 10 th standard. Senior secondary education which is the last stage of school education starts from 10 standard and ends at 12 th standard. After senior secondary education, higher education or college education begins. Bachelor degree courses will be of three years duration whereas master degree courses will be of two years duration in India. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), The Council of Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE), The State Government Boards etc are the major educational governing bodies of school education India (Maps of India). On the other hand, the university grant commission (UGC) which is established in 1953 is controlling the higher educational sector in India. Indian educational sector consists of both private and public institutions. The quality of education in private sector is better in India compared to that in the public sector. This is because of the fact that private sector employs only bright teachers and it provides better infrastructure facilities to education. On the other hand, the infrastructure is not adequate enough in the public educational institutions in India and most of the students and studying in the private sector. The ‘ EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010’ (UNESCO), ranks India 105 among 128 countries, and it continues to figure alongside a cluster of African and a couple of Asian countries, such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, in the group of countries with a low educational development index (EDI) (How good is Indian education system?) Because of the huge population size, India is still unable to provide quality education to its people even though, Indian economy is developing rapidly. On the other hand, the quality of education in America is one among the bests in the world. China is also facing similar problems like India as far as the quality of education is concerned. “ India has about 550 million people under the age of 25 years out of which only 11% are enrolled in tertiary institutions compared to the world average of 23%” (Education System of India: Its Functions, Drawbacks and Its Contribution). The above statistics clearly shows that India is far below on world averages as far as the educational levels of the youths are concerned. “ The draught of education in India has reached the extreme as it ranks sixth among the seven emerging economies of the world, in terms of education quality in 2008” (SiliconIndia). The major reason for the poor quality of Indian education is the higher teacher student ratio. In primary schools it is 1: 43 whereas in secondary and higher secondary schools it is 1: 34 (Agarwal, p. 7). Even amidst all these disturbing statistics about Indian education, it should be noted that even countries like America is currently taking some lessons from Indian educational sector. In India, it is must to study three languages at the school level; mother tongue, national language and English. At the same time such requirements were not enforced either in China or America. However, at present people realized the importance of learning more languages. “ More than 200 million children in China are studying English, a compulsory subject for all Chinese primary school students” (Teaching Language for National Security and American Competitiveness). Americans were not much keen in learning languages other than English. However, globalization and internationalization of business forced even Americans now to think in terms of learning additional languages. References 1. Agarwal, Rakesh. “ Improving India’s Educational System Through Information Technology”. Web. 12 March 2011. http://rakesh. agrawal-family. com/papers/IndiaEducation. pdf 2. “ Education System of India: Its Functions, Drawbacks and Its Contribution”. 2009. Web. 12 March 2011. 3. “ How good is Indian education system?”. Web. 12 March 2011. http://www. merinews. com/article/how-good-is-indian-education-system/15802234. shtml 4. “ India Education”. Web. 12 March 2011. 5. “ Indian Education System”. Web. 12 March 2011. 6. Maps of India. “ India Education”. Web. 12 March 2011. 7. SiliconIndia. “ India Ranks Second Last in Quality Education”. 2008. Web. 12 March 2011. 8. “ Teaching Language for National Security and American Competitiveness”. 2006, Web. 12 March 2011. http://www. ed. gov/teachers/how/academic/foreign-language/teaching-language. html