As I write these words, lacs of students from across India and even outside are writing their NEET retest! The retest was ordered as numerous leaks of question papers were discovered after the initial exam. Paper leaks are not new. They have been happening for years with impunity. Often instigated by the coaching industry who would go to any level to ensure their students pass the said examination.
In the past few weeks, there have been many articles about the state of our education each one more horrifying than the other. There is only one common denominator :nobody really cares about children! Education has been in the news for more reason than one. First and foremost this year marks a sea change as new books have been introduced in line with the NEP (New Education Policy 2020) and require the teaching fraternity to adopt new and challenging changes in their approach towards education. What was/is hoped is that education will transition from rote learning to comprehending and acquiring skills that relate to the XXIst century employment scenario. Laudable indeed but is it feasible in the present state of our education system.
New books I said! Well first of all the school year commenced on April 1st but many books are still not available. In Odisha books are filled with aberrations and have, hold your breath, 1678 errors! Sample some: Sir Isaac Newton is described as the greatest pilot, a photo of the Karnataka Assembly was identified as the Odisha assembly, the Hampi temple was labelled as the Konark Sun Temple. Temperature is labelled as pressure. Equinox is replaced by Equator!!
Class VII books have the most errors: 705.
As always a high level committee has been formed to look inti the matter. Wonder what they will say?
So much for books.
Now let us look at the ground situation of schools across the land. The Niti Ayog Repor, titled ‘School Education System in India — Temporal Analysis and Policy Roadmap for Quality Enhancement’, highlights the ‘pyramid’ problem.
The education system currently resembles a sharp pyramid, housing 14.71 lakh schools and 24.69 crore students. The drop our rates are still very high. While the country boasts of 7.3 lakh primary schools, that number plummets to 1.64 lakh at the higher secondary level. Four out of every 10 children who enter the system drop out before completing higher secondary education. only 5.4% of schools offer a continuous journey from Grade 1 to 12. For the vast majority of students, moving up through the grades requires changing institutions multiple times. Girls are the first to drop out as high schools are often located far from their homes and parents are reluctant to send their daughters alone.
To add to this, close to 7,993 schools across the country reported zero enrolment. While these schools appear operational in administrative records, they no longer serve any student population. These schools, despite zero enrolment, continue to receive financial and human resources due to the lack of updating of records, showing the difference between on-ground reality and planning, Many schools do not have water facility or electricity. You may wish to read the article.
The reason I share all these facts is twofold. One is to highlight the sate of schools, and the other to show that implementation of the NEP looks like a long way happening.The new education policy wants to teach AI from class III. My simple questions is: are the 7.3 lac primary schools and their teachers ready to do it?
Children are our future and education that meets the challenges of today is the only way out. It is sad to see the way students are treated. Because of paper leaks lacs of students have to study again for their exam resulting in unnecessary stress and mental distress. Six students committed suicide. Recently a new form of marking in class XII resulted in students wanting heir papers rechecked. The problem was that they would miss some admissions schedules. But who cares.
We do at Project Why.
We have begun computer skills and English from class I ! The children are also introduced to AI but are also taught to use AI responsibly by making them aware of the amounts of water and electricity the ginormous data centres use. We teach our children to think out of the box and be creative. We teach them critical thinking and communication in order to maker them ready for the job market that awaits them.