Primary education

Education in India

Primary education

Education in India is provided by the public sector as well as the private sector, with control and funding coming from three levels: central, state, and local.Takshasila was the earliest recorded centre of higher learning in India from at least 5th century BCE and it is debatable whether it could be regarded a university or not. The Nalanda University was the oldest university-system of education in the world in the modern sense of university.[2] Western education became ingrained into Indian society with the establishment of the British Raj.

Education in India falls under the control of both the Union Government and theState Governments, with some responsibilities lying with the Union and the states having autonomy for others. The various articles of the Indian Constitution provide for education as a fundamental right. Most universities in India are controlled by the Union or the State Government.

India has made progress in terms of increasing the primary education attendance rate and expanding literacy to approximately three quarters of the population.[3]India's improved education system is often cited as one of the main contributors to the economic rise of India.[4] Much of the progress, especially in higher education and scientific research, has been credited to various public institutions. The private education market in India was 5%[citation needed] and in terms of value was estimated to be worth US$40 billion in 2008 but had increased to US$68–70 billion by 2012.[5]

As per the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2012, 96.5% of all rural children between the ages of 6-14 were enrolled in school. This is the fourth annual survey to report enrollment above 96%. 83% of all rural 15-16 year olds were enrolled in school. However, going forward, India will need to focus more on quality.

Gross enrollment at the tertiary level has crossed 20% (as per an Ernst & Young Report cited in Jan 2013 in Education News/minglebox.com)

As per the latest (2013) report issued by the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), there are more than 3524 diploma and post-diploma offering institutions in the country with an annual intake capacity of over 1.2 million.

The AICTE also reported 3495 degree-granting engineering colleges in India with an annual student intake capacity of over 1.76 million with actual enrollment crossing 1.2 million..

Capacity for Management Education crossed 385000, and post graduate degree slots in Computer Science crossed 100,000. Pharmacy slots reached over 121,000.

Total annual intake capacity for technical diplomas and degrees exceeded 3.4 million in 2012.

According to the University Grants Commission (UGC) total enrollment in Science, Medicine, Agriculture and Engineering crossed 6.5 million in 2010.

Charu Sudan Kasturi reported in the Hindustan Times (New Delhi, 10 January 2011) that the number of women choosing engineering has more than doubled since 2001.

In the India education system, a significant number of seats are reserved under affirmative action policies for the historically disadvantaged Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. In universities/Colleges/Institutions affiliated to the federal government there is a minimum 50% of reservations applicable to these disadvantaged groups. At state level it can vary. Andhra Pradesh had 83.33% reservation in 2012, which is the highest percentage of reservations in India.

Primary education

58% of children do not complete primary education in India.

i

According to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2012, 10 crore children in India

are two or more years below their grade level.

ii

As of 2012, only 30% of standard three students could read a standard 1 text a drop from

50% in 2009iii

.

The ASER report also estimates that only 50% of rural children enrolled in standard five can

fluently read a standard two text book.

40% of standard five students in rural India cannot solve simple two-digit subtractions.

Primary education 29.3% of India’s population falls in the age group of 0-14 yearsv . Primary education lays the foundation towards building a pool of capable and empowered citizens. Investment in education will enable the citizens to participate in the growth process through improved productivity, employment, and wages. This would drive sustained economic growth for decades. Hence, primary education should be a critical component of the inclusive growth agenda of the Indian Government. The past decade has seen substantial increase in education investments under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the Right to Education Act 2010 as well as the Mid Day Meals Scheme. The Right to Education (RTE) Act makes education a fundamental right. The Mid Day Meals Scheme provides free cooked lunch to children from both primary and upper primary classes studying in government schools to tackle the dual issue of food security as well as give them an incentive to go to school. Analysis of both administrative and survey data shows considerable improvements in most input-based measures of schooling quality but research suggests very little impact of these improvements in school facilities on learning outcomesvi . The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) which tests literacy levels of Math and English, placed India at the bottom just above Kyrgyzstan. According to PISA this is because of “lack of application-oriented math in schools

In India today, 4% of our children never start school. 58% don’t complete primary schools. And 90% don’t complete school. At Teach For India, the fact that only 10% of our children go on to college both saddens and angers us.

Teach For India exists because of a deep belief that every child can and must attain an excellent education. Teach For India exists to prove that no child’s demographics should determine their destiny. To us, the end of educational inequity is the freedom for all children to have the opportunity to reach their potential. And the day that all children reach their potential is the day that India reaches her potential.

Teach For India believes that that day will come in our lifetime.

Teach For India believes that it will take a movement of leaders with the idealism, belief, skills and commitment to actualize this vision. We are committed to finding, developing and supporting India’s brightest, most promising leaders for this to happen.

Primary education Importantly, the report notes that the decline is cumulative, which means that the “learning decline” gets accumulated because of neglect over the years. The poor quality of education from Std 1 pulls down their rate of learning progressively so that by the time they are in Std 5, their level of learning is not even comparable to that of Std 2. The private schools are “relatively unaffected” but their low standards remain low. They have also shown a “downturn” in maths beyond number recognition. The poor quality of education and rate of decline are however not uniform across India. Some states are low in quality, but are staying where they are (Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh) while some have higher levels of education, which are neither improving nor deteriorating (Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Punjab). It also says that the decline is more noticeable since 2010, when the RTE came into effect, indicating targets of blanket coverage compromising quality and standards.

Primary education The report notes that the private sector is

making huge inroads into education in rural India. By 2019, when the RTE would have done a decade, it will be the majority service provider. The private sector involvement will also be strengthened by 25 percent quota of the government (under the RTE Act). Quoting DISE (District Information System of Education) data, it says that Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Goa have more than 60% of private enrollment in primary schools. Andhra, Maharashtra and Karnataka are at 40 percent, while UP is at 50%. Ironically, the highest private sector enrollment is in Kerala, where successive governments claim commitment to welfare policies, particularly on education and health. Besides private schools, parents also spend considerable amount of money on private tuitions, making quality education more inaccessible to people without money.

That the country is in a serious crisis – its quality of school education is startlingly low and is in free fall, while the private sector is exploiting this weakness even in rural India. Although the study doesn’t throw considerable light on the reasons of the decline and possible corrective steps, it does indicate a correlation between the acceleration of the deterioration and the implementation of the RTE Act. If the correlation is correct, it is clear yet again that a populist and insincere political instrument does more harm than good. When the Act was passed, there were misgivings by many – particularly on the haste, lack of appropriate consultation with all stakeholders and also on the logic of applying a uniform principle across states with huge disparity in coverage and quality of education. In some states such as Kerala, Himachal and Punjab it was evidently superfluous. Even after two years, it’s still not clear, how the finances are met and if the states are committed at all. The estimates in 2010 for the implementation of RTE was pegged at about Rs 210,000 crores with centre shouldering 68 percent of the burden. Whether the RTE is being implemented or not, it’s abundantly clear that it is certainly not working. “There has been a feeling that RTE may have led to relaxation of classroom teaching since all exams and assessments are scrapped and no child is to be kept back. Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation(CCE) is now a part of the law and several states are attempting to implement some form of CCE as they understand it,” says the report. “Does CCE catch this decline? Are teachers equipped to take corrective action as the law prescribes? Is corrective action going to be taken? Given the magnitude of the problem, it will be a good idea to focus just on basics at every standard and not treat it as a “remedial” measure. At this stage, teaching-learning of basic foundational skills should be the main agenda for primary education in India.” As the report notes there is a national crisis in learning. The quality of education and performance of the students in both government and private schools have to improve and the government has to check the invasion of the sector by private capital. Higher education has long since been sold out and today it is only the preserve of those with money. With or our without RTE, even the primary school education is moving in the same direction. If markets are to run the country, why do we need government

mentions is the achievement of the Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti, an autonomous organisation under the ministry of human resources development. The Samiti runs

Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, which have outperformed CBSE schools in terms of Class 10 and 12 exam marks by a large extent. The report recommends that grants be extended

to set up these schools all over India. But unless the problems of declining grades and the paucity of teachers are addressed, all

these initiatives may remain moot. The problem with primary education in India is a familiar one: several states still lag far

behind in meeting RTE norms in critical areas such as the number of primary schools built, the provision of drinking water and toilet facilities and the number of teachers, etc.

According to the demand for grants 2012-13 of the department of school education and literacy, presented in the Rajya Sabha on May 3, while the percentage of completion of

infrastructural facilities is high (between 90-96%), the progress made in getting the required number of teachers still lags behind, at 62.4%. Further, shockingly, the report

finds that several states, including Delhi, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra saw a reducing number of teachers between 2009-10 and 2010-11. States like Bihar, Uttar

Pradesh and West Bengal have the highest number of untrained teachers, although the number is high for several other states as well.

The report does find that enrollment in primary and upper primary schools has become more inclusive, with the proportion of girls and SC/STs having gone up between 2005-06

and 2009-10. But, alongside that, it finds that student performance is declining as they progress to higher classes. For example, while 61.89% of the students in class 3 passed in

mathematics, only 42.71% passed the subject in class 8. This shows the quality of education remains a problem, perhaps due to the paucity of qualified teachers.

Primary Education

There’s an urgent need to improve children’s knowledge of concepts rather than rote learning. For that to happen, teaching systems at the primary level must be overhauled

hen Devanik Saha started teaching in 2011, Nishika was three years behind her grade level. Despite numerous assignments and standardised tests over two academic years, she made only a tiny progress of 0.7 years (about eight-and-a-half months) in maths and 0.5 years (six months)

in English.

“She was never taught properly in school due to lack of invested teachers,” says Saha who teaches maths, English and science at Pratibha Nigam Vidyalaya, a public school in Delhi. “The progress, although tiny, is not a measure of her true abilities and potential, which I believe is

in arts.”

There are other students in the school run by the city municipal corporation who made big jumps of 1.6 years (about a year and seven months) or 1.9 years (a year and almost 11 months) but Saha doubts the quality of education they get. He calls it more a training to do well in skewed assessments rather than instilling conceptual understanding. “The focus is on procedural fluency to raise their scores, which leads to

curriculum deformation,” says Saha, who describes the school as one of the most “unfortunate” with no infrastructure, not even proper toilets for the 1,500 girls who study there.

The quality of primary education in India has been a cause for concern for quite some time. While the current policy, including a new

legislation for universal education, lays out a grand vision of raising children’s education profile, it barely lays emphasis on developing their skills to learn.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) ranks India almost at the bottom of the pack in terms of maths and English

literacy. This, according to its test, is attributed to the “lack of application-oriented maths in schools”.

However, the PISA test was conducted in only two states in India and theoretically cannot be extrapolated to the rest of the country. It could also be that local students find the test patterns difficult to recognise.

Nevertheless, Dana Kelly, US representative on PISA’s governing board, says the test helps identify variation in performance and the

resources available. “In developing economies such as India, the lack of investment in facilities and educational resources could be a reason for the low performance,” says Kelly.

Broader studies have also found similar results.

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) released earlier this year had some startling observations on reading and maths levels in all

Indian states. In 2010, nationally, 46.3 percent of all children in Class V could not read a Class II-level text. This proportion increased to 51.8 percent in 2011 and further to 53.2 percent in 2012. This decline in reading levels is mainly in states such as Haryana, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh,

Maharashtra and Kerala, which happens to be the most literate state in the country. In maths, the situation seems as grim, especially in government schools. In 2012, only 11-20 percent of Class V students could do division in states such as Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.

Primary Education The World Education Forum, held in 2000 set an ambitious goal: universal

primary education by the year 2015. Schooling all children until they reach young

adulthood is recognized as important because it leads to many substantial positive effects:

better family health, lower birth rate, higher productivity, higher earnings, and improved

economics of the country as a whole. Globally, however, more than 115 million children of

primary school age do not attend school. The constitution of India supports the right of universal education until age 14

and has had a longstanding goal of free and compulsory education for all children between the ages of six and 14.

However, India remains a land of contradictions. Despite a vibrant emerging economy and a string of

excellent colleges that produce high caliber professionals, India has not made the grade yet on

primary education. Current status of primary education in India About 20% of Indian children between the ages of six and 14 are not enrolled in

school. Even among enrolled children, attendance rates are low and 26% of pupils enrolled in

primary school drop out before Grade 5. The situation is worse in certain sectors of the population: the

poor, those living in rural areas, girls, and those living in some states, such as Bihar and Rajasthan. Barriers to universal primary education in India The reasons for the situation are many and complex. India is a developing country with a population of over one billion. A

significant portion of that population lives in poverty: 26% live on less than US $1 a day and 35% are

considered illiterate. In a large country, physical distance can be an issue. In rural areas, some

communities do not have a school nearby. In urban settings, unsafe travel conditions, such as traveling

alone or crossing bus

Social distance can be an even greater hurdle. Some communities do not see the value of school

education � they feel the things learned at school are not relevant to their lives. In some cases, the

school may be in another community of a different socio-economic class, caste, or religion, making

it difficult for the child to cross that invisible but effective barrier. While discrimination on the basis

of caste is now illegal, attitudes of thousands of years are difficult to change quickly.

Gender gaps exist. Literacy rates are 21% lower for females than for males. Among those children

aged six to 14 not enrolled in school, more than 60% are girls. Some communities do not see the

need to educate daughters because they will be married off at an early age and live and work with

their in-laws, mostly doing housework and raising children. Child labour is prevalent. Many children need to work and earn in order to

supplement a meager family income and therefore do not attend school. Schools often lack facilities and teaching aids including classroom space,

toilets, drinking water, blackboards, and chalk. Teachers lack training and motivation. Improving primary education in India Realizing the importance and the critical state of primary education in India

today, many organizations on many levels are focusing on this issue. International agencies, such as UNESCO and UNICEF, are deeply involved.

UNESCO has pledged to work with national governments and development partners to achieve universal

free primary

education by 2015, as was agreed upon at the World Education Forum in Dakar. UNICEF also has primary education as part of its mission. Both are supporting the Government of India in its task with

funds and expertise. The Government of India began a program for improving the status of primary education in 2001, with

the following areas of focus: Increase in teacher appointments and training

Improvement in elementary education content and techniques Provision of teaching materials Improvements in infrastructure

Education for disadvantaged groups: girls, disadvantaged castes, and the disabled The Indian national government is hoping to achieve universal primary education by 2010, five years earlier than the goal set in Dakar. This is an ambitious goal, and much depends on the will to make it

happen at the national and international level, and on the thousands of NGOs involved in education. Many NGOs in India run schools for poor children. Some organizations, such as Katha, Pratham, and Prayas, have made universal primary education their focus and operate education centers for children in slum areas. Others NGOs are niche players that target particular segments of the child population with innovative programs. For example, Ruchika School Social Service runs 20 schools in the eastern

state of Orissa on train platforms so that the many homeless children who live in the train stations, begging and working, can learn something as well. Hole-in-the-Wall Education has set up computers in

slums and rural areas throughout India. These computers are easily accessible to children and are loaded with simple children�s education software. There is little supervision or intervention and the children learn at their own speed and in their own way. The program has been so successful that there

are plans to try it in Cambodia and some African countries.

Primary Education The future of primary education in India

The importance of universal primary education has now been widely recognized by everyone involved.

Policies and pledges are easy to make but implementation can be difficult and goals hard to achieve,

especially in a vast and populous country such as India. International agencies, the government of

India, and the numerous NGOs will have to work together � with will, wisdom and tremendous energy

� to make their desire for universal primary education by 2015 a reality in India.

Primary education is the foundation on which the development of every citizen and the nation as a whole built on. In recent past, India has made a huge progress in terms of

increasing primary education enrolment, retention, regular attendance rate and expanding literacy to approximately two thirds of the population. India’s improved

education system is often cited as one of the main contributors to the economic development of India. At the same time, the quality of elementary education in India has

also been a major concern. In ancient times, India had the Gurukula system of education in which anyone who

wished to study went to a teacher's (Guru) house and requested to be taught. If accepted as a student by the guru, he would then stay at the guru's place and help in all activities at

home. This not only created a strong tie between the teacher and the student, but also taught the student everything about running a house. The guru taught everything the

child wanted to learn, from Sanskrit to the holy scriptures and from Mathematics to Metaphysics. The student stayed as long as she wished or until the guru felt that he had

taught everything he could teach. All learning was closely linked to nature and to life, and not confined to memorizing some information.

The modern school system was brought to India, including the English language, originally by Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay in the 1830s. The curriculum was

confined to “modern” subjects such as science and mathematics, and subjects like metaphysics and philosophy were considered unnecessary. Teaching was confined to

classrooms and the link with nature was broken, as also the close relationship between the teacher and the student.

Education in India Podcast

In the first episode of the Education in India podcast, Subir Shukla, Principal Co-ordinator at IGNUS-ERG, talks about a wide range of topics relating to education in India. Subir has worked for over 25 years in school education in India in the areas of quality improvement, curriculum and textbook development and teacher training, amongst many other things.

THIS IS PRESENTATION BY PRAVEEN KUMAR AND GROUP we wanted to give awareness to the our people in this country today’s every one studying, but they don’t no what they are studying, whey they wanted to study, how long ago we wanted to study, after that what he can do, what he can doo possibilities. in this meenviled they are losing their interest, drop outs, adducting drugs, loosing self confidence, getting to trying youth subsides, they are adducting to hilliness people - mentally, psychologically and they are becoming useless and crimes, and they are wasting their time and parents also losing their interests with children, because their breaking relationship also. That’s way just we can think once atlatl our education system prosier and syllabus, ads time. Today education is become a big business in India. why youth unrest, un-employment, and youth subsides, crimes, parents & family getting financial and health, and psychological problems - these all increasing day by day. Whey it is happening in this country. if Rates are tax will be increment in the world, World saying China and India is reesonbull , If Things will be shortage any ware , World saying India and China is Reason, why it's will be coming like this, If any one thicken this topic, In this time India getting more Changes. India Education system Wanted to Change - whey because if there is need for History for everyone, there is no need for all science subjects in the academic year, there is no need for locally language some extra Subjects. Our locally language is important and at the same time English language also important, in High School level we r giving local language, after that in Subjects including with English, that time People are suffering with language defenses.