THE CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT at the Centre has generated hope and enthusiasm in all sectors of the economy, including education. Prime minister Narendra Modi™s intent to invest œskills, speed and scale into the national development effort is as applicable to the education sector as to any other, perhaps more so. As the new BJP-led NDA government which received a massive mandate to implement its progressive development programme embarks on this mission, it could draw some useful lessons from experiences of the past. Submitting the Report of the National Commission on Education to the then education minister M.C. Chagla on June 29, 1966, the commission™s chairperson, Prof. D.S. Kothari, wrote a memorable conclusion: œIn the rapidly changing world of today, one thing is certain: yesterday™s educational system will not meet today™s, and even less so, the need of tomorrow. Five decades on, these words contain valuable advice to the new government which has inherited a disoriented and dysfunctional education system suffering serious loss of credibility. Universal access to elementary education is perhaps the only achievement of Indian education these past 67 years, extending school education to over 90 percent of the country™s children. But access is of no value if not supported by adequate inputs to raise teaching-learning standards and improve learner attainments in the nation™s classrooms. India can justifiably claim to have a few schools and professional institutions of higher education on a par with the best anywhere. But the great majority of our schools, colleges and universities are deficient on almost every parameter. The hard task of the new government in Delhi is to build and sustain an environment of faith and trust that a great change is indeed imminent in Indian education. Will the new government really budget the long-promised 6 percent of GDP to education? It™s mesmerising to visualise an India in which every school is functioning smoothly with adequate infrastructural support, qualified and committed teachers, and a supportive community! But for this dream to be realised the system has to be jolted out of its pervasive lethargy which scotches every initiative at the implementation stage, the Right to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 being a poignant example. Teacher recruitment on a massive scale across the spectrum ” from schools to universities ” deserves primacy in priority delineation. But multiplication of model teacher education institutions is a necessary precondition. Moreover, special incentives are needed to attract brilliant youth to enter the teaching profession and portals of academia. We need to prepare teachers for the increased number of higher education institutions such as additional IITs, IIMs and Central universities promised by the new government. Elected representatives in village panchayats all the way to Parliament need to understand the education system and strive to remove its numerous deficiences. Private schools and institutions of higher learning, a significant number of which are promoted by politicians, need guidance and assistance. Even regulatory mechanisms require revision to become answerable to the aspirations of students and learners rather than of teachers,…
