It's a rising irreversible tide. Though not a few within the political class and the nation's powerful bureaucracy are in denial, there is an emerging consensus within India's 5 million-strong academic community that the nation's moribund, mouth-eaten education system fashioned by Lord Macaulay over a century ago, needs an urgent makeover.

With 21st century India burdened with the world's largest population of illiterate citizens, an estimated 59 million children in the 6-14 age group out of school, and the aggregate number of names and addresses of job-seekers in the registers of employment exchanges across the country having swollen to 41 million — not because there aren't sufficient jobs, but because youth streaming out of the obsolete education system are unemployable — alarm sirens are wailing in all sections of Indian society.

This is due to the lack of diversification of subjects at common schooling. The choice of courses is compelling in order to get a gainful employment and acquire skills and competence at large.

The starkest evidence of the rising tide of anxiety about the quantity and quality of education being provided to GeNext is indicated by the unprecedented provision made in the Union budget 2008 presented to Parliament, to impose a 2 percent cess on all Central taxes to raise additional resources for elementary education. Moreover in his budget speech, Union finance minister P. Chidambaram committed the 100-days-old United Progressive Alliance Government at the Centre to raising the national outlay for education from the current 3.5-4 percent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) to 6 percent in the near future.

Conterminously up gradation of the nation's languishing public education systems is top priority on the agenda of the National Advisory Council (NAC) chaired by Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi.

Inevitably, there is considerable scepticism about the declarations of intent and grand pronouncements made by governments at the Centre and in the states which are seldom followed up with policy implementation programmes. But even within the civic society and general public, there is a never-before, new millennium awareness that quality education is the best social leveller and passport to gainful employment, affluence and social respect. Hence, despite the rigorous and travails of license-permit raj which has migrated from industry to education, there's a flurry of activity in terms of promotion of new schools, colleges and institutes of professional education, particularly in the private sector.

This urgent flurry of activity within the hitherto somnolent education sector has ensured that the vital importance of qualitative education has permeated down to the lowest income groups across the subcontinent — a development accentuated by the promotion of the country's 517 urban benchmarked Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya residential schools in rural India.

Simultaneously, it has focussed public attention upon hitherto arcane subjects such as syllabus design and curriculum development and shifted national attention from ritual to real education. Suddenly paper degrees and qualifications are not as important as professional and life skills which school leavers and college graduates must acquire within their institutions of learning.

Therefore the newly emergent consensus that reform of India's Macaulayan system of education based on rote learning and memorisation rather than development of problem-solving, conflict-resolution skills and Information technology schemes requires urgent attention.

And even as several specialist committees constituted by the Union ministry of human resource development are currently engaged in the process, the public interest demands a wider ambit for the national debate on syllabus and curriculum reform.

We deemed it incumbent upon ourselves to ask several educationists and industry leaders with proven commitment to improving the education system by implementing the milestones and initiate multi pronged strategy.

To a greater or lesser degree, all the educationist and policy makers are in favour of addressing the supply side of education to eliminate capacity shortages which are the root cause of the overwhelming majority of the hundreds, if not thousands, of rackets which plague post-independence India's education system.

The learned justices of the Supreme Court agree. In its historic 2002 judgment in the TMA Pai Foundation Case (8 SCC 481), a full bench of the court expanded the right of minorities to "establish and administer educational institutions of their choice" as mandated by Article 30 of the Constitution of India, to all citizens.

The education sector urgently needs to be set free. Let every child learn by its own environment, and let every body should have a right to be a torch bearer for spreading education in any mean. This will facilitate entry of private firms offering short courses that equip young people for vocations and professions — be it plumbing, or banking into the education sector. The three R's can also be easily taught by them using computers.

There is a general consensus that having failed miserably during the past half century to upgrade education standards, the Central and state governments themselves should exit from syllabus design and mandate school examination boards to design syllabuses which test more than memory and rote learning ability.

Comments Kabir Mustafi, former headmaster of Bishop Cotton School, Shimla who advocates that the Centre should promulgate a new National Education Policy: "The NEP should mandate 'free-fall' curriculums from nursery to class VIII and direct all school examination boards to revise their syllabuses to test research, analysis, memory, comprehension and expression capabilities of students

Government must retreat from syllabus design. Central and state governments have to dissociate from dictating syllabi and curriculums to ascertaining whether or not government schools and institutions of higher education are delivering learning in their classrooms.

A new National Education Policy needs to be written. It should: (i) Empower local bodies such as SDMCs (School Development Monitoring Committees) and panchayats so that teachers and boards are accountable to the public; (ii) Upgrade teacher skills by establishing NDA (National Defence Academy) or ASCI (Administrative Staff College of India) type academies for three-five year training and refresher courses with stipends; (iii) Ban arbitrary teacher transfers; (iv) Draw up stringent but transparent recognition and accreditation norms as per CISCE/ CBSE/ NAAC/ AICTE standards while de-licensing private initiatives in education.

Revise school syllabi. The NEP should direct all school examination boards to revise their syllabuses to test research, analysis, memory, comprehension and expression capabilities of students.

Standardise college admissions. The new NEP needs to mandate a single SAT type examination for college admission and a GRE/ GMAT version for postgraduate admissions. Modifications to existing successful models are entirely feasible.

Targetted subsidies in higher education. The blanket subsidisation of tertiary education needs to be replaced with need-based scholarships, grants and financial aid.
Involve local communities. The upgradation of teacher salaries and infrastructure for schools not well endowed should be entrusted to local communities including corporates, against tax holidays and other fiscal benefits.

A comprehensive education policy for the country for all levels of education, taking into account the recent changes and requirements of a globalized environment is urgently required. It should be drafted by an expert committee drawn from India and abroad. Central and state governments should draw up incentive and grants-in-aid programmes to promote centres of quality education in rural areas across the country. Education opportunities need to be spread out rather than concentrated in isolated geographic locations.

Upgradation of tertiary level syllabuses and curriculums. Higher education should be made relevant to meet industry requirements, so that students make a smooth transition from academics to industry.

Industry needs employable graduates. Diverse rules and regulations prescribed by monitoring agencies in higher education inhibit growth and excellence in educational institutions. They should be given full autonomy for self-development while the national accreditation process must become more stringent

If there is one question that we need to ask now, it is this: have we as a nation reflected on the policy choices that we are faced with now? If we are unable to answer this question with enough conviction, we may end up losing another generation to poor quality education for the majority of the people in the country. Is that something that we can afford? We all know that India lives in rural areas and without making these areas literate, we can't make India a prosperous nation.

Hopefully, the central and state governments will wake up now to make the educational schemes and funds fruitful. Last but not the least, the parents and wards should also understand the importance of education and cooperate with the government to make the educational schemes successful.

If we fail to make a choice of courses after senior secondary school, the following quote stands appropriate for us - "A Poet can not become a Chemical Engineer"

By - Sadaket Malik
The author is a freelance columnist based in Jammu.