State of Education in Rural India

What is the issue?

Despite the improvements in the educational condition, there are problems that still persist, especially in rural India.

What is the current scenario?

• As late as 2001, only a little over 25% of all rural 18-year-olds were attending schools.
• The rest dropped out earlier.
• By 2016, the share of 18-year-olds in schools and colleges had gone up to 70%.
• Girls have closed the gap with boys in rural areas.
• At age 14, 94% of girls and 95% of boys are enrolled in school.
• By age 18, 68% of girls and 72% of boys are still in school.

What are the downsides?

• The quality of education in rural schools is dismal.
• Among 14-18-year-olds, only 43% could solve a class IV mathematics problem.
• This proportion was roughly the same among 14-year-olds as among 18-year-olds.
• This shows that the problem of low learning outcomes was not resolved by remaining in school.
• Only 40% of 18-year-olds could take 10% off a given number.
• Most could not locate their state on a map of India.
• 27% of 14-year-olds, and 21% of 18-year-olds could not read a class II textbook in the regional language, and more than 40% in each age group could not read a simple sentence in English.

How will this affect the society?

• The belief has gained ground in rural India that education will be the road out their livelihood.
• Most of the students are first-generation learners.
• Soon this younger generation will be graduating from high schools and colleges and then they will find that there are very few good jobs.
• This might kindle reaction against education.

What should be done?

• Raising the quality of education in rural schools is essential.
• Privatizing the government system is not a viable solution.
• The market for education performs poorly in situations where information flows are sparse and competition is limited or non-existent.
• The essential problem is one of a broken governance system.
• There are few rewards for being a good teacher and few punishments for being a careless one.
• A system should be put in place, where teachers are innovative in the classroom and parents are involved as co-decision-makers.

Source: Livemint