JOIN USAn equitable future for all
The present century is often described as the ‘knowledge century’. The ‘knowledge century’ label is open to discussion and is not incontestable. Indeed, self-perceptions of human civilisations can change quite radically over a relatively short temporal span. But if at all the present century can be viewed as a unique era in human history, marking a new kind of engagement with what is considered ‘knowledge’, where would Indian education be in 2047 when the centenary of independence will be celebrated?
Numerically speaking, in 2022, nearly one in every six human beings is an Indian. This number, a staggering 1.38 billion out of an estimated world total of 7.8 billion, is unprecedented in scale and is neck to neck with the Chinese — 1.38 billion.
In a few years, India will surpass China’s population level. Also, the demographic proportion of the younger population in India at present is the largest ever in India’s history, with more than half of the population below the age of twenty-five. Of the entire global population, nearly one in every twelve humans is a young Indian for whom meaningful education is the most assured means of finding a decent livelihood.
In 2047, India will require several thousand universities, several lakh institutes of tertiary education and several million high schools in order to meet the rising aspirations of the generation born in the 2030s. India will also require nearly seven million trained high school teachers and a million college teachers. The acute shortage of education infrastructure against the rapidly increasing demand for education will no doubt lead the state and central governments to open all windows and doors to education vendors from other continents. The increased flow of student population to other destinations is but to be expected.
This scenario implies that extremely complex educational regulators and apex bodies will emerge. It also implies that the larger sections of the society will have to stay content with ‘inexpensive’ and therefore sub-standard education, resulting in further widening the class divide and the economic polarization.
All three, the infrastructure shortfall, the need for trained manpower and the complexity of regulators may eventually make education a more stressful experience for students, more expensive an affair for parents and more challenging a task for teachers. There are no signs of building a consensus of all stakeholders on how to meet the unprecedented challenge. A move in that direction is overdue as India’s preparedness to face the situation.
Without getting into presenting a catalogue of the woes with which the domain of education is beset at present, I would like to offer the following as a few top priority suggestions for bringing in at least some improvement:
♦ Stemming the financial corruption that has spread across the field. If the recruitment of teachers, professors, principals and VCs are not freed from them having to pay huge bribes, education in India will soon take India back to the dark ages.
♦ Non-state-funded higher schools will require massive infrastructure assistance. They are functioning without playgrounds, laboratories, hostels and libraries. Perhaps, on the lines of SEZs, Special Educational Zones need to be created for every city with a population above 10 lacs. That will save the precious years of youth not being wasted in eating junk food, living in sub-human PGs and suffocating classrooms.
♦ Restoring the importance of reason and scientific thought. The present dispensation is fast dismantling the secular basis of knowledge by introducing superstition into institutions in the name of national pride. This will leave an entire generation with truncated sensibilities.
These three to my mind appear the first priorities at present calling for urgent and united action by all of us.
(The author is a critic and Chair, People's Linguistic Survey of India.)