A plethora of education commissions and committees have been set up from time to time to look into the problems in the system of education, a great number of experiments in the process of education have been taken, but the real needs of the people and the country have not been fulfilled so far.
It requires mention that according to 7th All India Survey Report, less than half of India's children between the age of 6 to 14 go to school, over one-third of all children who enroll in school never reach grade 8, at least 35 million children aged 6-14 years do not attend school, 53 percent of girls in the age group of 5-19 years are illiterate. This presents a grim picture.
To encounter this, many schemes have been launched including a number of development programmes in the rural areas by the government in the Eleventh Five Year Plan to eradicate illiteracy. Moreover, the present education policy also only ensures that students attend classes regularly, more and more children get admitted and there be less drop-outs. In order to ensure regular attendances, the government has introduced several measures such as mid-day meals and no failures upto class 8. Obviously, here the stress is on the quantity of students in school, not the quality. Simultaneously, there is an uproar from academics, leaders and thinkers stressing on imparting quality education and promotion of skill development which is the crying need of the hour. According to them, technical and vocational education if imparted on an extensive scale to the youth of our country, will not only make our masses self-sufficient and raise the standard of living but also will solve to a large extent the problem of growing unemployment which our country is currently facing.
But there are certain common factors, not far to seek, which hindrance in the path of fast approaching towards so called quality education. They are:-
1. Problems start when an agrarian society skips the intervening phase of industrialization and tries to jump straight into the Information Age.
2. We have to pursue and cannot neglect the idea of integrated development in which economic, educational, social and cultural factors are commonly linked and contributed towards progress
3. The dimension of rural poverty is varied and linked with unemployment, under-employment, low levels of productivity, sever demographic pressure and illiteracy.
4. It is essential that qualitative and quantitative education should go together in uniformity throughout the country but it is hardly feasible.
5. 'Value Education' component in the curriculum have not been still introduced. Our education system had hardly changed and there is hardly any vocational orientation explored in the system.
6. There is a clear demarcation found between the rich and the poor in respect of education. The children of the rich read in private schools with good infrastructure and teaching environment, big building, laboratories, libraries, playgrounds and other amenities, but the poor send their children to ill-equipped village schools where there is a common lack of interest in the teaching-learning process also. Obviously, the children belonging to the high-class get an improved or a good quality of education. On the other hand, the poor have to be contented with the poor standards.
7. It is imperative to do away with the conventional system, to plan out a radical changed educational pattern in recent years and to follow a diversification of educational curriculum after the junior high school stage or elementary education.
8. In order to fulfill the criteria, we need qualified teachers equipped with relevant skills and competencies to find out the inclination and ability of young children and to respond to the needs and expectations accordingly. I feel reluctant to comment here that such kind of qualified teachers are few and far between at present. In conclusion it may be stated that Indian educational scene today presents a picture of bewildering contradictions in the fast changing scenario. However, there is no denying the fact that education should be modernized for the survival of our teeming millions. Man, no doubt, does not live by bread alone, but he must have his belly full before he can indulge in the more exalted pursuits of art, literature and philosophy.
S. Ghose Landmark Colony, Dimapur
