This is the sixth part in this series

Improved Primary and Secondary Education all over India

What is the current position?

We have to begin this part by making an assumption that the market for talent is national and global. You may study some where and work somewhere else. Secondly the talent market is becoming extremely competitive. For any aspiring student, the quality of primary and secondary education is the foundation for entering this market. Based on this what is the situation today? We have several institutions managing primary and secondary education starting from central level, to state level. Each of them follow different standards for the school infrastructure, teaching and curriculum. So we hear that some students of higher classes are not able to solve basic subtraction problems! We are now having an education system which is fragmented, of different standards and quality, making it difficult for the students. Imagine student of a school joining a private university with much higher level of education. How will he or she survive? This may be one cause for unemployment, since many of the students may find it difficult to fit the market requirements. I was recently seeing a TV program where college students were being asked about the coming elections. A student studying for Dr. could not speak English properly and some students speak only the local language. Is this feasible? The curriculum for core subjects must be common across India with flexibility to learn local languages and history. Student of one State must be equal to the Student of another State assuming both of them have performed the same in their examinations. Further why are parents always chasing private run schools and not putting the children in public schools? This is not an acceptable situation.

What do we want?

An Indian Primary and Secondary Education Policy and Standard which is adopted all over India with flexibility for meeting each States requirement. As said earlier all students coming out of any school in India must be of the same standard. Secondly an excellent public schooling system so that most Indian citizens would prefer to put their children in such schools, as it happens in some other countries.

What needs to be done?

We have to transform our primary and secondary education system, increase the public education infrastructure, make it of the highest quality, bring uniform standards and curriculum, provide flexibility for covering local languages and history etc. and create a brilliant talent pool for meeting the countries future ambitions and requirements. This is possible.