Education in India has come a long way from gurukulas in the ancient times to digital mediums in the modern period. As the country leaps to greater heights of development, education remains one of the crucial facets of this progress. Amid the fast-growing society of the 21st-century, the real question stands – Has India actually succeeded in creating a better education for its people?

A Promise to Reform Education

The Prime Minister of India, on a note of developmental reform, announced to fund ₹10,000 crores to 20 universities for the next 5 years. This declaration came in his address at the celebration of Patna University’s centenary. The investment, he believes, is to take the country’s top educational institutions to a world-class level and to promote excellence beyond par. Prime Minister’s words presented a vision of an enhanced education system; a vision India has been struggling to fulfill for years under the reigns of 14 Prime Ministers.
“Top 10 public and private universities will be freed from all government control and get Rs 10,000 crore over five years. All these universities have to do is to demonstrate their potential to become world-class institutions”, he was quoted saying during his speech.

The promise to reform education is not unprecedented in our society. With the same spirit of reformation and change, the Government of India has numerous times endeavored to provide the basic right to education through several schemes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Saakshar Bharat, Skill India, and Shiksha Sahyog Yojana. All of these programmes have worked towards taking education to every child and every adult over the years. But the prime question that prevails is – Has India actually succeeded in creating a better education for its people?

How True Does It Stand?

Promises to revolutionize education have come and gone with the wind for 70 years now and the plethora of schemes launched for improvisation still wait to realize their goals. The state of education in the country presents a lamentable picture of utter failure, both on the part of the government and the citizens.

These schemes, on the one hand, seem to have worked wonders towards enrolling the children to the schools. The ground reality, on the other hand, is visible in the major drop in the percentage of students’ attendance ratio. Similar failures are visible when it comes to the young population, over 30% of which is continually graduating with degrees and sadly landing up with no jobs. The nexus of mass education and reforms has somewhere mingled the society in itself.

Need of the Hour

The necessity of a completely new framework for the Indian education system cannot be stressed upon more now than ever. The pervasive failure of so many schemes signals towards the need for liberation from the same old paths we’ve been treading on i.e. the education introduced by the British and for creating a system suitable to our own populace.

Commendable changes have come up in attempts to improvise in this state of education. The introduction of means like SmartClass is changing the teaching setup with multimedia and visual learning. Holistic Education School system is focusing on the overall growth of the students. Edu India is a YouTube channel which is emphasizing on innovative education and curating the same.
In the present-day society, there isn’t any lack of policies for educational development, what seems to be wrong is the direction they’re driven towards. It is with grit and determination that the Government and the people can together reform the reality of education in India.