Educational Policies

The Constitution of India, in its various Articles, gives a prominent place its various Articles, gives a prominent place to the development of human resources. The 93rd Amendment makes education to all those between and years of as a. Fundamental Right.

Overall, as brought out by the Planning Commissions National Human Development Report, 2002, HDI has improved significantly between 1980 and 2001. at the national level, during the 1900S the index improved by nearly 26 per cent and by another 24 per cent during the 19908. no went up from 0.302 in 1981 to 0.472 in 2001. There has been an improvement both in rural, areas. Though the rural-urban gap in the level of human development continues to be significant, it has declined during the period. At the state level, there are wide disparities in the level of human development. In the carry Silke Bihar, UP, MP. Rajasthan and Orissa had HDI close to just half that of Kerala. The situation has improved since then. An analysis of the data further brings out that:

The economically less developed states are also the states with low HDI.
The economically better-off states are also the ones with relatively better performance on HDI.
The relation between the HDI and the level of development does not show any correspondence among the middle-income states in the country.
The development of human resources requires the adequate provision of health services, water supply, education, housing, nutrition and family welfare facilities which are essential determinants of the quality of life.
The provision of one without the other is bound to affect life adversely, hence the strategy of human capital formation is to take an integrated view of these factors.

But given the role of education in human capital formation, we are, for our purpose here, taking education as a proxy for the latter.

Achievements Of The Educational Sector

Over the past six decades, there has been a very significant expansion of the educational sector as a whole in India. The sector has the following positive achievements to its credit:

It has thrown open the doors of education at the point of admission at every level-primary: secondary and higher levels-to all the people of India. Education is no more elitist; it is somewhat ‘democratised’ with a large proportion of socioeconomic weaker sections participating in education at all levels, including higher education. sa There has been explosive growth in education. Indian educational system is now colossal, teeming with almost 100 million students and three million teachers, and costing billions of rupees each year. This colossus is the result of conscious public policy in independent Indiabasic features of this policy have been (a) Access-based strategy, and (b) Incentive-based strategy.

The principal focus of educational policy has been to increase access to educe all levels. Now, almost everyone in rural areas (over 93 per cent) lives within 1 km of a primary school. Similarly, over 92 per cent of the people in rural areas have a middle och about 5 km, and 82 per cent of the rural population now, lives within 8 km of a high district headquarter town without at least an art college is now an anomaly in most cases Colleges have proliferated at an even faster rate than have schools. India has the second-largest (next only to China) pool of educated and skilled men and women in the world.

There has been the development of institutions of excellence at every level, 0 An increase in literacy rate is generally accepted as an indicator of growing education in the country, The literacy rate in India has gone up from 16.6 per cent in 1951 to about 65.38 per cent presently. According to the 2001 census, Kerala has the highest literacy rate, 92.0 per cent. In the country as a whole 75.85 per cent of the male population is literate. Despite the rise in literacy rate, the number of illiterates has increased due to the fast-growing population. The National Policy on Education (1985) envisaged the universalisation of primary education and adult literacy by 1990.

All this contributed to self-dependency for manpower in every area, including policy planning, administration and governance of the huge economy. Weaknesses of the Educational Sector: The educational sector of the economy has demonstrated some weaknesses, among which the more important are as follows:

Narrow Coverage

It has a very narrow coverage of the entire population of the country. Only. 2.5 per cent of the Indian population in the relevant age group attends colleges and universities, compared with 66 per cent in the US and Canada, 47 per cent in the OECD countries, 37.7 per cent in Korea and over 20 per cent in countries such as Cuba, Costa Rica and Venezuela. Moreover, it has a very low retention rate. Of 100 children entering class 1, only 60 make it to the end of primary school (class V). In contrast, 68 per cent of the world’s children complete primary education. Further, less than 3 children complete class XTI. The extremely poor retention rate at the primary level has been traced to the general neglect of the sector. (Nevertheless, there has been a significant improvement during the last few decades, the dropout ratio in primary schools has fallen sharply from 70 per cent in the fifties to 40 per cent presently).

Iniquitous:

It is highly iniquitous in respect of access to facilities, utilisation of these facilities and finally realisation of the benefit from education. A recent World Bank study on the. subject has established that 10 per cent of the best-educated Indians received 61 per cent of the total resources, as against 36 per cent across ‘Asia, reflecting an amazing degree of inequality in the system. The Ginni Coefficient for India (on a scale of 0 to 100 representing a progressive inequity) is 66, against a regional average of 43. Only Bangladesh does worse.

High Cost of Education:

The cost of education, higher education, has been relatively high. Unit cost, defined as the percentage of per capita GNP spent on each pupil, ranges from 6 for primary education to 231 for higher education. Though higher education would have much larger unit costs, cross country comparisons show that India’s outlays on higher education are much above the norm. Spending on higher education is 1.55 times the Asian average; whereas it is only 0.61 times for primary education. This means that given the overall adequacy of funds invested in the education sector, expenditure on higher education has crowded out the growth of primary education.

Low Quality:

The quality of the education is fairly low and the content less relevant to the ‘needs of the individual and the society: The educational system suffers from what has been called ‘diploma disease’, i.e., it does not aim at conveying knowledge and skills at all, but is more concerned with certification and credentialing. As such, its contribution to the growth of human capital is minimal. Another related aspect •is that we have one of the most rigid educational systems in the world. At every stage in one’s educational career, doors are being shut, rather than opened.

Here are the notes for Measures To Reform Educational System.