India’s Education Scenario

Education in rural India is suffering because of many factors. There is a severe shortage of teachers forcing the schools to combine children of different grades into a single classroom. The teachers are invariably overworked and underpaid. The attrition of good teachers from government rural schools to private schools in nearby towns is on the rise. Schools are incapable of imbibing newfangled ways to teach young children. Owing to all these, our children in rural India are falling behind in reading, writing and arithmetic abilities.

TechnoPak analysis for the year 2011 showed that the reading ability of our rural children was less than 50% and arithmetic ability was ~ 30%. Year after year this number is only degrading further. Plus, a lack of affordability has only increased the gap in exposure to new technologies between rural and urban children. If this trend continues, India, which has the largest youth population in the world, will also end up having the largest percentage of its youth unfit for most new-age jobs. This augurs ill for the progress of the country, thereby, the dignity of its citizens. As a nation, we have the responsibility to enhance the dignity of all our citizens. This can be achieved only through quality education.

Excerpts from

Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2012

• The All India figure for the proportion of children in Std V who are NOT able to read a Std II level text has increased from 52% in 2011 to 53.2% in 2012
• Nationally, more than 70% of children studying in Std V in Government schools can not even perform 2-digit subtraction with borrow. More than 75% of children studying in Std V in Government schools cannot do problems with division

Education Outlook, July 2012 by Aurobindo Saxena et al.

• The Indian literacy rate currently stands at 74% compared to 12% at the end of British rule in 1947. Although there has been a six-fold growth, the level is well below the world average literacy rate of 84%, and India currently has the largest illiterate population compared to any other nation in the world
• During the financial year 2011-12, the Central Government allocated USD 8 billion to the Department of School Education and Literacy itself, which is the main department dealing with primary education in India. Yet, there exists a huge demand and supply gap … 
• The big question that crops up is “Are our schools keeping pace with the changing times?
• The enrolment ratio drops to 81% after primary schooling and to 31% in grades 9 to 12

-UNESCO Institute for Statistics, DISE, MHRD, Technopak Analysis

• Private schools account for 20% of the total number of schools (1.3 million), they provide education to more than 30% of students. (So approx 70% of students go to Govt run / aided schools)
• India will require 6 mn more teachers by 2020 to attain the world average in terms of student-teacher ratio. This would mean a requirement to train 0.75mn teachers p.a., as against this the total capacity of all B.Ed. Colleges currently are only 0.25mn p.a. (Severe shortage of teachers, 1:3)
• Most schools still follow rote learning practices, which hamper the quality of education severely. This is further supplemented by an ineffective assessment of students.

SUIT exists because of a deep belief that every child can and must attain an excellent education.

SUIT exists to prove that no child’s demographics should determine his or her destiny. To us, the end of educational inequity is the freedom for all children to have the opportunity to reach their potential. And the day that all children reach their potential is the day that India reaches her potential.

SUIT believes to certainly see that day in its lifetime.

SUIT believes that it will take a movement of leaders with the idealism, belief, skills and commitment to actualize this vision. We are committed to finding, developing and supporting India’s brightest, most promising leaders to make this happen.