INDIA HAS THE LARGEST POPULATION of children and youth worldwide. Its young manpower, if educated and skilled, could help and support several ageing nations in the near future. A favourable demography comprising 650 million citizens below 35 years of age, or 54 percent of a massive 1.2 billion population below 25 years, are indeed astonishing numbers for manpower planners, particularly of developed nations confronted with the prospect of shortages of working age people.
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According to one estimate, an additional 300 million Indian youth will enter the labour force by 2025, and 25 percent of the global labour force will comprise Indian youth. Another UN estimate projects the percentage of the 15-34 age group would peak at 64 in 2035. Obviously, the demographic edge won’t last forever! Nevertheless currently, there’s a huge opportunity for Indian youth in foreign job markets. But to encash the nation’s demographic dividend, we have to ensure our system of education and skilling is well-equipped and ready to avail this opportunity.
For a start, we need to frankly assess whether our schools and institutions of higher learning are meeting the manpower requirements of domestic industry, agriculture and services sector. With only 30-35 percent of Indian children able to access acceptable school education (20-25 percent of them are in private education), it’s glaringly obvious that our formal and vocational education systems are pathetically inadequate. Private schools contribute significantly in achieving appropriate learning levels, as they don’t suffer the infrastructure and professional inadequacies which are a permanent drag on government schools. While brochures and annual reports of government departments and ministries regularly paint a rosy picture of the ‘achievements’ of education institutions under their management, hardly anyone trusts the credibility of such claims.
Who can believe that para teachers employed in millions by state governments can impart education of adequate quality to prepare young people for jobs demanding high levels of skills? Who would believe that the majority of government schools really have sufficient resources and regular teachers? For decades it’s been known that functional separate toilets are a basic necessity in schools for educating girls. But this basic necessity has been denied — and is still being denied — to a majority of girl children countrywide. Claims to the contrary are totally unreliable. For instance, the Uttar Pradesh government claims to have functional toilets in 84 percent of its schools. No one even remotely familiar with conditions in schools in UP would believe this. On the other hand the neighbouring state of Bihar admits that it has no toilets in 70 percent of its schools, a grim but credible reality. Under such conditions how can quality education be dispensed to children and youth?
Lethargic, insensitive and teacher-centric primary-secondary education is depriving millions of youth of diverse employment opportunities opening up globally. Despite its grandiose title, the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 in actual practice, is making millions of children ineligible for dignified employment. Without professionally trained teachers and unchecked teacher absenteeism, children waste time in distracting school environments, with those who drop out receiving little assistance by way of remedial or vocational education and training. With no examinations up to class VIII — the brilliant ‘liberal’ contribution of former Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal — life has become a bed of roses for primary school teachers, especially in government schools.
The implementation of continuous comprehensive evaluation (CCE) mandated by the RTE Act in government schools can only sadden anyone even peripherally familiar with the basic nuances of teaching and learning. Little wonder that while 130 million children enroll in primary school every year, only 12 million graduate from colleges and universities. Or that of the annual certification of 400,000 engineers, only 20 percent are good enough for private corporates which assess them on technical skills, fluency in English, teamwork abilities and presentation skills. Stagnation in syllabus advancement, aversion to innovation and resistance to introducing new courses and pedagogies have stunted India’s cognitive capital.
Yet despite emerging from this stagnant education system, not a few Indians have ‘conquered’ NASA and Silicon Valley.
Imagine what would be the cognitive capital if 85-90 percent of schools become truly functional! The young and aspirational want change. Now with a new, determined and decisive government at the Centre, India has the opportunity to revamp education from K-PhD with new vigour. It needs to initiate a comprehensive policy review, equip government schools as per RTE Act norms, upgrade teacher training institutes on priority basis, give due weightage to vocational education and skills development, and infuse dynamism into curriculum renewal processes at each stage, with regulatory bodies overhauled to regain their credibility.
In industry and the professions in India and abroad, privately schooled youth have demonstrated capability to succeed in complex new-age environments. Now the benefit of quality education needs to be universalised expeditiously for the nation to leverage its demographic asset.
(J.S. Rajput is former director of NCERT and NCTE)