Essay
SHOULD EDUCATION BE NATIONALISED
The greatest knowledge and the greatest riches man can possess are by inheritance.... But the full soul rich with the inheritance of the past, the widening gains of the present, and the large potentiality of the future, can come only by a system of National Education Sri Aurobindo
Education- a fundamental rightof every childreads our constitution, reminding us about our contemporary system of education- its polarised state and steps that must follow, for a sustainable future of our country. Because more and more people view education as a key factor in the development of economy and society, the reform of education itself is becoming the focus for more and more people. The importance of education can be derived from the role it has played, starting from the ancient proto-languages to the modern Indian languages, in shaping our nation. It has been proved that education is very closely related to the public life of the nation. Education builds the man so it builds the nation. Today we claim to be the biggest human resources supplier for the world, but are we concerned; what quality of human capital we are building and for whose needs?
It is true that the educational system in India has faced a basic dilemma ever since its introduction by the British. The essence of this problem was summed up by Mahatma Gandhi in his historic statement at Chatham House, London; in 1931- The British administrators, when they came to India, instead of taking hold of things as they were, began to root them out.and the schools established after the European pattern were too expensive to fulfil a programme of compulsory primary education of these inside of a century. This very poor country of mine is ill able to sustain such an expensive method of education.
If we peep into the progress in the post-Independence Era, the subject of education was put in the state list keeping in view the diversity and cultural diversity & ethnic differences in the different states of India. In fact, whatever system of education existed before independence was simply distributed to the Union, State and the local administrative units with some changes. It was thought that the respective state government will be able to monitor process of education at micro level and provide quality education and thus it was put in the State list. In fact, the entire system of education was based on the mutual cooperation of the 3 units, but practically it is absent. Now almost sixty year down the line the question arises, whether we have achieved the goal we set for ourselves on the subject of education?
One may say we had few. Yes, we had. M. S. Swaminathan who made India self-reliant in food grains, Dhiru Bhai Ambani who proved a common man can become a billionaire, Dr. Varghese Kurien who is the father of Amul milk movement, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam who dared to build missiles for India. Such people though in small numbers, were always there. But can we consider them as the products of this education system? This system did not teach them how to become innovators or entrepreneurs. Had it done so, there would have been millions in numbers.
Contemporary Situation
Education System in India today went through a lot of changes before it emerged in its present form. Today our education system is governed by number of policies and schemes considering that Successful population policy is directly linked to successful education policy. Today we are trying to correlate raising literacy rates and school enrolment rates with the delayed onset of marriage and child birth, improved mortality for both mothers and children, and reduction in family size. Yes it is indeed true that successful education policy forms the bedrock of all fields of national development- political, economic, technical, scientific, social, and environmental. Recently India became one of 135 countries to make education a fundamental right of every child when the act came into force on 1st April 2010, thus strengthening the above cause. But the quality of education provided by the government system remains in question, as the Union government is mainly concerned with financial help and specific education.
While in India, the number count of the implemented policies is rising, it suffers from shortages of teachers and infrastructural. There are also frequent allegations of government schools being riddled with absenteeism and mismanagement and appointments are based on political convenience. Despite the charm of free lunch-food in the government schools, many parents send their children to private schools as children attending the private schools are seen to be at an advantage. But a recent findings of a Quality Education Study' (QES) by Wipro and Educational Initiatives (EI) shows that even the country's top schools exhibit signs of rote learning. And in their formative years, children in primary and upper primary classes show lower sensitivity and demonstrate lack of progressive thought on issues related to gender equality, acceptance of diversity and in civic responsibilities.
Should Education Be Nationalised
Though we empowered the state government to handle the issue of education during the initial days of the post- Independence era, their lack of imagination and innovative ideas has turned Indian Education system into an inferior quality school education system (considering most of the cases); where there is discrimination between childrens whose parents are rich and childrens whose parents are poor, children who resides in the rural area and those who lives in metros. And this gap is widening with every passing day. It is the right time to nationalize the education system and make it uniform throughout the country. The Right to Education Bill is one such step, although a small initiative, to provide access as well as quality education to all children irrespective of caste and class.
The ideology of Nationalisation is given by Communist or Socialist philosophy. According to it, Nationalisation of education of education is the most powerful means of providing equality of educational opportunities. It removes bad practices and mismanagement in the field of education. As our nation is a Socialistic in nature, the above philosophy can be engraved in our system of education. The advantages of following a nationalised system of education can be as discussed below:
* It will help in making performance comparable across classes and schools throughout India. It makes it easier to tell whether a given students poor performance is an exception within a class or whether the whole class is doing poorly relative to the country as a whole. In other words, centralized exams make it obvious whether it is the student or the teacher who is to blame.
* It also makes the whole system transparent: parents can assess the performance of children, teachers, and schools; heads of schools can assess the performance of teachers; and the government and administration can assess the performance of different schools.
* Also, nationalisation of text books can help in achieving national integration and in generating a sense of international goodwill. It will affect the uniformity in the standard of textbooks which is lacking in the present system where we come across lots of study materials that may not have the threshold standards but are published for the sole aim of earning money. The government can also provide textbooks, free of charge, to poor and deserving students if the system is nationalised.
* It will also reduce the regional disparity and thus will create a common platform for the launch of ones career. For example, it will be easier for the companies and higher educational institutions to choose the students based on a common performance indicator.
* Giving schools the power to set their own budgets, performance goals, and standards of what to teach will have an adverse impact on student achievement. Such powers are probably best left to central authorities when the whole system is nationalised.
Some of the present day examples supporting the above views are:
* The central universities administered by the Centre are better than others in organisation and standard of education.
* All India institutions and Research facilities by the centre like IITs, IISc, IIMs, etc. are making important contributions in the field of education, environment, etc.
* The state governments and other local administrative councils depend more and more on the suggestions and assistance by the centre.
Yes, it is true that Rome was not built in a day. Sudden changes may not be acceptable to the people but, slowly injecting the changes with positive outcome will gather more support. For example, showing inclination towards nationalisation, the Kothari Commission (1964-66) has suggested opt for a Common School System and to establish advisory committees and boards at the central level. Governments need social programs to create equality and freedom. Though Government has set certain standards of qualification of teachers and implemented the Mid-Day Meal scheme, etc. for encouraging primary education, this should only be a beginning in the direction of more nationalized policies and not be an isolated act.
Thus, centralisation is necessary for better and satisfactory organisation, prompt administration and coordination in the educational sphere. Even the father of neoliberalism, Milton Friedman, said, Education is a simple case The public purpose is to provide education If you subsidize the student you will have competition. The student could choose the school he attends and that would force schools to improve and to meet the demands of their students.
Name: Eswar Prasad Choudhury
