The Study of the Progress of School Education In India

A high value is placed on education, as it ensures a stable future. All parents want their children to attend the best private English schools, but places are limited. The admission process is therefore highly competitive. Most Indian schools have a strong focus on academic subjects, with little scope for creativity and few or no extra-curricular activities. Traditional schooling methods tend to emphasize rote learning and memorization, rather than encouraging independent or creative thinking. There is a strong focus on examinations from an early age. This makes the atmosphere at Indian schools competitive.

Each state in the country has its own Department of Education that runs its own school system with its own textbooks and evaluation system. As mentioned earlier, the curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation method are largely decided by the SCERT in the state, following the national guidelines prescribed by the NCERT. Each state has three kinds of schools that follow the state curriculum. The government runs its own schools in land and buildings owned by the government and paying the staff from its own resources. These are generally known as government schools. The fees are quite low in such schools. Then there are privately owned schools with their own land and buildings. Here the fees are high and the teachers are paid by the management. Such schools mostly cater to the urban middle class families. The third kind consists of schools that are provided grant-in-aid by the government, though the school was started by a private agency in their own land and buildings. The grant-in-aid is meant to help reduce the fees and make it possible for poor families to send their children. In some states like Kerala, these schools are very similar to government schools since the teachers are paid by the government and the fees are the same as in government schools.

The Government of India has assigned high priority to the education sector not only to achieve the universalization of Elementary Education by 2010 but also to improve the quality of education at all levels. Also due to policy of economic liberalization and globalization it becomes all the more necessary to improve the quality of human capital to face the new challenges and competition in the world of work (Annual Report 2005-06, National Council of Education Research and Training, New Delhi, 2006). Many researchers had conceptualized parameters to measure the changing profile of educational development (Singh 2002, 2006). Some of the initiatives such as District Primary Education Programme (1994), the Mid Day Meal Scheme (1995) and the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (2001) have led some positive impact in elementary education, specifically in rural areas. “India has made the largest progress in absolute terms of any country in the world over the past five years, reducing out-of-school numbers from 20 million in 2000 to 2.3 million in 2006, and 1.7 million by latest data,” according to the Unesco findings. India brought down out-of-school The report lauded the Indian government for providing aid to the sector. “India also receives the largest share of aid to basic education of any country in the world (10 percent). It received almost 50 percent more aid to basic education in 2011 than in 2010, making it the seventh country for the largest increase in aid to basic education over the course of that year,” said the report but the largely-cheering report has a warning too. “India has moved up a position from third bottom place in 2004-2006 for the most out of school children to fourth bottom place in 2011. (Ethiopia took its place),” the report says. And that is very little progress.

The Indian education system is structured as follows:

• Pre-school: Education at this level is not compulsory. The Montessori system is especially popular at the pre-school level

• Private playschools: Catering for children between the ages of 18 months and three

• Primary school: First to fifth standard/class/grade (for six- to ten-year-olds)

• Middle school: Fifth to eighth standard/class/grade (for 11- to 14-year-olds)

• Secondary school: Ninth and tenth standard/class/grade (for 14- to 16-year-olds)

• Higher secondary or pre-university: 11th and 12th standard/class/grade (for 16- to 17-year-olds). This is when students choose an academic area on which to focus

• Undergraduate: A BA is a three-year degree. Specialised courses such as medicine and engineering can be longer

• Postgraduate: A one-year course

• Public/government schools: Most schools in India are funded and run by the government. However, the public education system faces serious challenges including a lack of adequate infrastructure, insufficient funding, a shortage of staff and scarce facilities

• Private schools: Since many government schools do not provide adequate education, Indian parents aspire to send their children to a private school. Some expats choose to send their children to private Indian schools

• International schools: There are international schools in all major cities. They are attended by expat and Indian children

• National open schools: Provide education up to the higher secondary level for children whose schooling has been interrupted and have been unable to complete formal education

• Special-needs schools: Provide non-formal education and vocational training to children with disabilities

In this paper we found that Primary education is a fundamental right in India, and at the international level an important Millennium Development Goal to which India are totally committed. GOI and States increasingly recognized that education as a critical input for human capital development,

relatively high contribution in increasing the enrolment at elementary phases in schools, an attempt would have to be made to change the school education by provided that additional facilities such as school building, school teachers etc.

1. Riboud ,savchenkoand Tan(2006) “The knowledge economy and education and training in south asia: A mapping exercise od available survey data”,mimeo,world bank,sept,2006 2. Singh VP 2002. Some conceptual issues on measures of educational development in India. National Journal of Education, 7(2): 79-87. 3. National Council of Education Research and Training 2006. Annual Report 2005-2006. New Delhi: NCERT, Chapter – 12, pages 83 – 85. 4. Singh VP, Raju BMK 2006. Manual on Statistics and Indicators of School Education. New Delhi: National Council of Educational Research and Training.

5. http://india.angloinfo.com/family/schooling-education/school-system/ 6. https://www.gnu.org/education/edu-system-india.html 7. http://www.governancenow.com/views/think-tanks/india-has-made-considerable-progress-education-unesco#sthash.PoP81Jed.dpuf