Against the depressing backdrop of plunging learning outcomes in primary, secondary and higher education, a silver lining is the multiplying number of young highly-qualified educationists investing fresh energy, management expertise and inherited knowledge in Indian education across the spectrum – Summiya Yasmeen India’s “traitorous academics” — a description coined by US-based former financial journalist Martin Hutchinson — are well aware that the country’s education system is fast racing towards the abyss. The latest Annual Status of Education Report 2016 published by the Mumbai-based, globally-respected Pratham Education Foundation (estb.1994), which deployed over 25,000 volunteers (mainly college/university students) to test the learning outcomes of 562,305 children in the 3-16 year age group in 589 rural districts countrywide, records that the number of class V children who cannot read or comprehend class II texts, is rising as is the percentage of children in class VIII who cannot get simple division and subtraction sums right. Likewise, real learning outcomes of children in secondary education are way below world standards as testified by the first and only batch of 15-year-olds who wrote PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) in 2010 — a tri-annual test conducted by industrially developed OECD countries — and were ranked #73 out of 74. Even the National Achievement Survey 2015 conducted by the Delhi-based National Council of Educational Research & Training (NCERT), a subsidiary of the Union human resource development ministry, tested a representative sample of 277,416 class X students of 7,216 schools affiliated with 33 examination boards countrywide, indicates that real learning outcomes (measured by standardised testing) are below 50 percent in four subjects (English, maths, science and social sciences). In higher education, the picture is equally bleak. Not even one of India’s 800 universities — some of them established over 150 years ago — is ranked among the Top 200 in the World University Rankings league tables published annually by the globally-respected, London-based higher education rating agencies Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and Times Higher Education (THE). And although government spokespersons and middle-class citizens take great pride in the success of IIT and IIM graduates in Silicon Valley and in American industry, a NASSCOM-McKinsey World Institute study (2005) indicated that 70 percent of Indian engineering graduates are unqualified for employment in Western and multinational companies. Likewise, a more recent (2016) study conducted by the Delhi-based Aspiring Minds Assessment Pvt. Ltd reveals that only 21.64 percent of the estimated 1.5 million engineers certified by the country’s 3,470-plus engineering and technical colleges are qualified for employment in the IT (information technology) industry. Moreover, both studies indicate that over 80 percent of arts, commerce and science graduates of India’s 38,000 undergrad colleges are unfit for employment in multinational companies. Despite this dismal scenario, education of the world’s largest child and youth population (550 million) is a low priority for the country’s politician-bureaucrat (neta-babu) brotherhood. Together, India’s spendthrift Central and state governments invest a mere 3.25-3.50 percent of GDP annually in education against the global annual average of 5 percent and 7-10 percent in industrially…
