The 2011 census results have given encouraging news in respect of literacy in the country. However, a 10-percentagepoint increase to 74% is just not enough for us right now. We need to convert literacy to education and cover the country's youth immediately to make this century truly ours.
The facts are well-known: we have 570 million people below the age of 25. In fact, we have more people than all of Australia, or 20-27 million, at every age between 0 and 25. The problem that afflicts all of these people is the poor, variable and ineffective provision of education.
Government spending is low and the education results are poor. We are now all seized of the fact that while 98% of Indian children enrol in school, 24% drop out between standards I and V, another 24% drop out between standards VI and VIII, and a further 12% fall off between standards IX and XII. Thus, only 38% finish school and only 12% go on to complete college.
Currently, on an average, we provide five years of schooling compared to the over 9.5 years in developed countries such as the UK, Japan and Germany, and 12 years in the US. The Indian government spends Rs 1,80,000 crore on education, which is less than 4% of our Budget outlay compared to 5.3% for China and 6.6% in the US, both of which have bigger budgets.
The Indian private sector spends another Rs 1,00,000 crore and, though the total spend is still not sufficient, it is significant and, yet, the results and skew are simply bad. The 22 crore school-going-age children in the country have about 10 lakh schools to go to.
What is appalling is that about 9,50,000 of these schools are municipal schools that account for teaching only 60% of the students, and the remaining 40% are taught in just 75,000 private schools. On a typical day in these municipal schools, 25% of the teachers are absent, 50% of children in class V cannot read a story, and 21% of the children cannot recognise numbers.
The big problem is that the student-teacher ratio in the country is about the highest in the world. It is about 46 students per teacher at the primary level and 34 in the secondary level while this ratio in most other countries ranges between 15 and 25. We have about 55 lakh teachers and are short of about 20 lakh teachers to meet the right-toeducation guidelines that we as a nation espouse.
Even these guidelines are just suggesting a 1-to-30 teacher-student ratio and some training for these teachers. But we cannot seem to get that done. Thus, my two pleas on education. Currently, education in India has not taken advantage of the very things that the country is now famous for in the world. The penetration of digital media in schools is less than 5%.
The facts are well-known: we have 570 million people below the age of 25. In fact, we have more people than all of Australia, or 20-27 million, at every age between 0 and 25. The problem that afflicts all of these people is the poor, variable and ineffective provision of education.
Government spending is low and the education results are poor. We are now all seized of the fact that while 98% of Indian children enrol in school, 24% drop out between standards I and V, another 24% drop out between standards VI and VIII, and a further 12% fall off between standards IX and XII. Thus, only 38% finish school and only 12% go on to complete college.
Currently, on an average, we provide five years of schooling compared to the over 9.5 years in developed countries such as the UK, Japan and Germany, and 12 years in the US. The Indian government spends Rs 1,80,000 crore on education, which is less than 4% of our Budget outlay compared to 5.3% for China and 6.6% in the US, both of which have bigger budgets.
The Indian private sector spends another Rs 1,00,000 crore and, though the total spend is still not sufficient, it is significant and, yet, the results and skew are simply bad. The 22 crore school-going-age children in the country have about 10 lakh schools to go to.
What is appalling is that about 9,50,000 of these schools are municipal schools that account for teaching only 60% of the students, and the remaining 40% are taught in just 75,000 private schools. On a typical day in these municipal schools, 25% of the teachers are absent, 50% of children in class V cannot read a story, and 21% of the children cannot recognise numbers.
The big problem is that the student-teacher ratio in the country is about the highest in the world. It is about 46 students per teacher at the primary level and 34 in the secondary level while this ratio in most other countries ranges between 15 and 25. We have about 55 lakh teachers and are short of about 20 lakh teachers to meet the right-toeducation guidelines that we as a nation espouse.
Even these guidelines are just suggesting a 1-to-30 teacher-student ratio and some training for these teachers. But we cannot seem to get that done. Thus, my two pleas on education. Currently, education in India has not taken advantage of the very things that the country is now famous for in the world. The penetration of digital media in schools is less than 5%.
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