Education & Economic Independence for all hold key for the progress of a nation. Education is the most important tool for making of a nation with equal playing field and empowerment of all the sections of society, including the underprivileged,deprived and minority sections ,women as well as youth of the society. Education in our country is suffering from following diseases-
· For many marginalized sections of the society ,specially in the remote corners of nation, there are no educational opportunities at all.
· For many, educational opportunities have been made available but it is not quality education. As a result many a times we find such students at the H S Level who don’t have basic language skills and mathematical ability.
· Education has to fulfill the objective of producing responsible citizens . If we find that the secular fabric of the country is under strain, it means education is not helping our national objectives.
· There are such educational institutions in the country which have fundamentalism as one of their objectives.
· Education is not employment oriented therefore it is producing unemployable graduates. It is also failing in the objective of making people economically independent.
Solutions-
(1) Education has to be universal in the country available to everyone within 5 Km radius of his house and within 2-3 Km radius of a house at the primary level.
(2)Education means quality education with the help of committed and qualified teachers.In the educational field Govt. offers better salary structure and therefore boasts of better qualified teachers yet their performance is lackadaisical and those who can afford, prefer private educational institutions. To make teachers of Govt. Schools performance oriented, carrot and stick policy should be adopted whereby good performance has to be rewarded with incentives whereas penalties have to be imposed for non-performance. Govt. Schools should become model institutions with high standards . These should be utilized as Nodal Agencies for achieving educational objectives.
(3) Curriculum should be such that it inculcate moral and national values including democratic values, secularism, tolerance,equality of gender ,religion and caste as well as mutual respect for different sections and communities,shunning stereotypes & prejudices.
(4)All the educational institutions whether Govt., private & dependent on Govt. aid or totally private have to abide by core values of the nation and make efforts to inculcate these in the students. Schools which don’t follow it and encourage fundamentalism of any kind have to be penalized and ultimately to be shut down if don’t fall in line.
(5) After imparting basic and middle level education only those should be encouraged to go for higher education who are really interested. Others have to be diverted towards Skill development so that they can have some gainful employment or become able for self employment. I.T.I.s (Industrial Training Institutes) have to be made nodal agency for skill development. A lot of changes have taken place in the society in last twenty years and many new professions have come into being so new trades like mobile repairing and computer maintenance have to be included in the curriculum of I.T.I.s.Regular refresher courses should be conducted for the instructors of I.T. I.s to keep them abreast of new technological developments and up-to-date so that students trained by them are fit for the modern day industry.
(6) I.T.I.s impart skill training to only those who have a minimum level of education. But there are many who don’t have even minimum level of education ,yet they acquire some skill in the unorganized sector by their private efforts like as automobile repairing,tailoring,embroidery etc. This has contributed a lot in gainful as well as self- employment. Such efforts have to be encouraged and some sort of institutional support should be given for the purpose . NGOs can be included in a scheme to encourage and streamline such efforts.
(7) Higher education also has to be streamlined. It can be devided in two categories- (i) Professional : Profession oriented degrees related to Management ,Law,Medical ,Engineering, Accountancy should fall in this category. Professional education has to be quality oriented and of international standards so that our professionals are of world level. We certainly have some world level institutions yet with the recent proliferation of professional degree distributing private institutes it has become difficult to ensure quality standards in the sphere of professional education. This has to be curbed and only genuine institutions which ensure quality and excellence should be allowed. (ii) Academic:Purely acedemic institutions should be a hub of equiping the knowledge seekers with the best of their chosen field,with best Research facilities and standards. It is sad that while China has its several professional and educational institutions as well as universities enumerated among best of the world we can count our such institutions and universities on fingers only.
Emphasis on growth of manufacturing sector-
As a corollary of skill development we have to put emphasize upon growth of manufacturing sector. For a robust growth of manufacturing sector we have to create suitable business atmosphere with the help regarding planning, know how, capital arrangement,tax rebate , labour laws and other appropriate policies . Further we have to look for export opportunities in addition to our own internal market . We should look for exploiting even small opportunities for export. China has successfully been doing this.
The above mentioned educational reforms along with the growth of manufacturing sector will help in harnessing potential of the youth for innovation and economic self dependence which is the key for progress of a nation.
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