EDUCATION

EDUCATION

EDUCATION SYSTEM – SCHOOL

Challenges in Existing Education System: School

1. Access and Participation
   • Enrollment ratio decreases with higher education levels: as per the ASER Survey
   • Poor quality Infrastructure: Lack of IT facilities, necessary furniture, toilets for women etc.
   • Hallowing out effect: Despite increase in new public schools by 13,500, there has been 1 crore admissions less in public schools
   • High out of school children: Number of out of school children in the age group of 6 to 17 years is 3.22 crore [NSSO 2017-18].

1. Quality
   • Ill equipped teachers: Poor training, knowledge and capabilities
   • Curriculum: Rote learning based
   • Poor implementation on RTE Act: with more focus on inputs than on outputs
   • Poor learning outcomes: Only 16% of children in Class 1 can read the text at the prescribed level, while almost 40% cannot even recognize letters [ASER Report]
   • Under regulation: of education quality in schools
2. Equity (Education is hard to access for)
   • Disabled: About 1.1% of students belong to Differently abled children at primary level, but this fails to 0.25% at higher secondary level [U-DISE 2016-17].
   • Migrants: Due to seasonal nature of migration and lack of such schools often they are left out of formal education system.
   • Girls in School: In 2020-21 over 12.2 crore girls are enrolled in primary to higher secondary showing an increase of 11.8 lakh girls compared to the enrolment of girls in 2019-20.
   • Vulnerable sections: About 19.6% of students belong to Scheduled Castes at primary level, but this falls to 17.3% at higher secondary level. Amongst Scheduled Tribes it falls from 10.6% to 6.8% [U-DISE 2016-17].

Steps taken by government for School Education

• Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan: It focuses on improvement in quality of education by providing support for different interventions like in-service training of teachers and school heads, conduct of achievement surveys at state and national level, composite school grant to every school for providing a conducive learning environment, etc.
• National Education Policy, 2020: Centre & States will work together to increase the public investment in education sector to reach 6% of GDP at the earliest.
• Mid-Day Meal Scheme: In order to increase attendance in school as well as ensure nutritional status.
• STARS: It seeks to support the states in developing, implementing, evaluating and improving interventions with direct linkages to improved education outcomes and school to work transition strategies for improved labour market outcomes.
• Right to Education Act: The main objective of the RTE Act is to ensure that each child in India receives quality elementary education irrespective of their economic or caste background; this includes children who are forced to drop out of school.

Way Forward

1. Policy measures
   • Public Good: Treating education as a public good can ensure more policy focus and also investments
   • Nutrition: Midday meals have seen wide success thus, the link between nutrition and educational outcomes must be understood and utilized.
   • Extension of Mid-day meal scheme: Midday meals should extend to secondary students as well, as it can help reduce school drop out rates and better outcomes
   • PPP: Establishing schools based on this model can ensure quality and also address monetary and accessibility concerns
   • Incentivising private sector: With Land grants and tax rebates for establishing schools in underserved areas
   • Flexible approaches: Region-specific changes should be made rather than one size fit all approach
2. For Teachers
   • Teacher quality: An all-India school education service can be formulated for more uniform teacher quality
   • Teacher Training and skilling: Follow up training must be done throughout the career of the teacher
3. Hybrid Learning: Towards more application and out of classroom approaches
4. Infrastructure: Digital medium is seen as a leveller in terms of access, such infrastructure must be developed alongside physical infrastructure

EDUCATION SYSTEM – HIGHER EDUCATION

Challenges in Existing Education System: Higher Education

1. Access and Participation
   • Poor Research Infrastructure: India’s investment in R&D has remained constant at around 0.6% to 0.7% of India’s GDP far below than expenditure of countries like the US (2.8), China (2.1), Israel (4.3) and Korea (4.2).
   • Poor standards: No Indian universities in the Top 100 in QS rankings
   • Poor exploitation of ICT: Fewer universities with distance learning options through online classes.
     • Data: Distance Learning can be accessed by only 11 open universities in India
   • Over-regulation and Regulatory Ambiguity: By regulators such as UGC, and MCI, which decide on aspects of standards, appointments, fees structure and curriculum
     • Example: To what extent UGC can coordinate and determine standards in universities is not evident. E.g., it also includes power to prescribe what courses should be taught in universities and power to retrospectively withdraw course.
2. Quality
   • Teachers: Inadequate, improper training, recruitment of undergraduates as teachers, ad-hoc appointments and low pay scale, inadequate teacher training.
     • Data: According to UDISE data, only 1 in 4 teachers in India are trained to teach online classes. And, about 22% of teachers are not even trained in primary education in India.
   • Curriculum: Outdated and rote learning-based curricula do not reflect the current requirement of the industry both in India and abroad.
   • Poor Outcomes: ‘Degrees’ not turning into ‘Jobs’
     • Data: At least 47% of graduates in India are not employable for any industry role, according to the latest report by employability solutions firm Aspiring Minds.
   • Misaligned research orientation: Lack of prioritisation and high levels of outcomes where research is not need-based.
     • Scheme: IMPRESS scheme aims to encourage social science research in policy-relevant areas so as to provide vital inputs in policy formulation, implementation and evaluation.
   • Assessment and accreditation: Proliferation of substandard education universities with ‘fake’ degree
   • People to Teacher ratio:
     • Data: Pupil-Teacher Ratio in Universities & Colleges is 29 if regular mode enrolment is considered compared to 12.5:1 in the USA, 19.5:1 in India and 19:1 in Brazil.

1. Equity (Education is hard to access)
   • SC/ST: For Scheduled Castes, GER is 19.9% and for Scheduled Tribes, it is 14.2% as compared to the national GER of 24.5%.
   • Regional Disparities: College density varies from 7 in Bihar to 53 in Karnataka.
   • Gender-wise: Nearly 51.36% of enrolled are male & 48.64% are female.

Initiatives are taken by the Government

• National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT): In order to leverage the potential of ICT to make the best quality content accessible to all learners in the country free of cost.
• Rashtriya Uchhatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA): It aims at providing strategic funding to higher education institutions throughout the country.
• Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme (EQUIP): To put together an action plan to give a multi-pronged boost to the higher education system in India.
• Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship: It aims to attract the talent pool of the country to doctoral programmes for carrying out research in cutting-edge science and technology domains, with a focus on national priorities.
• Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC): It aims at improving the research ecosystem of India’s higher educational institutions by facilitating academic and research collaborations between Indian institutions and the best institutions in the world.
• Global Initiative for Academic Network (GIAN): Launched by MHRD, seeks to tap the talent pool of scientists and entrepreneurs from abroad.
• Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA): It has been formed to finance the creation of capital assets in premier educational institutions in India.
• Revitalising Infrastructure and Systems in Education (RISE) by 2022: It aims to qualitatively upgrade the research and academic infrastructure in India to global best standards to make India into an education hub.
• Learning Outcome-based Curriculum Framework (LOCF): Issued UGC in 2018, it aims to specify what graduates are expected to know, understand and be able to do at the end of their programme of study.
• National Institutional Ranking Framework: The rankings are published annually since 2016. It outlines a methodology to rank educational institutions across the country.

Way Forward

1. Academia-Industry link: To ensure better outcomes academia must understand and reorient itself to the demands of the industry. This can also be achieved through internships and training with government and industry bodies.
   • Data: Industry-academia linkage is only 4.7 out of 10 in India according to the PHD chamber of commerce and industry
2. Regulation: To curb illegal and unaffiliated colleges that fraud students
3. R&D: The budget for R&D must increase to incentivize more students to pursue research rather than filling up employment pools.
   • Data: Research and development expenditure (% of GDP) in India was reported at 0.65282% in 2018, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources.

1. Higher Education Promotion Commission: HEPC should be designed such that it cannot resurrect the Inspector Raj of the UGC regime.
2. Technology: Accelerating deployment of new technology for pedagogy and online delivery of courses.
   • Data: According to the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) report 2019-20, only 5.5 lakh schools (37%) have computers and 3.3 lakh (22%) have internet access out of 15 lakh schools across the country.
3. Revamping curriculum: More focus is needed on critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and problem-solving rather than memorizing and writing skills.
4. Internationalization: Inculcating strategies to attract more international students – apart from the laudable aims of making India’s curricula comparable to the world’s best.
   • Example: The Study in India (SII) programme is a flagship project introduced by the Ministry of Education (MoE), Government of India. The programme has been put together to facilitate and encourage international students to study in premier Indian institutes.
5. Diversifying finances: Exploring financing models, including more public-private partnerships and alumni funding.
6. Flexibility: Flexibility in pursuing multiple degrees at the same time or through distant courses.
7. Best practices:
   • Finland: In Finland, the municipality can change the policies of education for its region accordingly, meaning that a small body is free to make education policy there. Also, special teachers are appointed for weak children who do not have to pay any fees.
   • Switzerland: The education system in Switzerland promotes its students to acquire educational knowledge from some of its top-ranked universities in the country that focus on delivering knowledge of the individual’s desired course.
   • Sweden: Sweden also provides several vocational and professional in fields such as engineering, law and medicines. The Swedish education system is quite pleasant and with the statistics derived, the advanced educational practices in the country are highly reliable.

NEW EDUCATION POLICY 2020

Recently, New Education Policy-2020, for which draft was prepared by a panel of experts led by former ISRO chief K Kasturirangan, was announced. The NEP 2020 aims at making “India a global knowledge superpower”. This is the third National Education Policy announced after Independence.

Key provisions

1. School Education:

• Universalization of education from preschool to secondary level: The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, will be extended to cover children between 3 and 18 years
• Structure: The current 10+2 system will be divided into 5 (3 to 8 years) +3 (8 to 11 years) + 3 (11 to 14 years) + 4 (14 to 18 years) format
• Co-curriculum and vocational subjects: Like sports, arts, commerce, science will be treated at the same level

• Computer Skills: Students will be allowed to take up coding from class 6 onward.
• Vocational Education: To start from Class 6 with Internships.
• Additional Meal: Provision of an energy-filled breakfast, in addition to the nutritious mid-day meal, to help children achieve better learning outcomes.
• Regular Exams: To track progress, all students will take school examinations in grades 3, 5, and 8 which will be conducted by the appropriate authority.
• Class 10 and 12 board examinations: They are to be made easier, to test core competencies rather than memorized facts, with all students allowed to take the exam twice.
• Curriculum content: It will be reduced in each subject to its core essentials, and will make space for critical thinking and more holistic, inquiry-based, discovery-based, discussion-based, and analysis-based learning.
• Teacher Capabilities: A new and comprehensive National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education (NCFTE) 2021, will be formulated by the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) in consultation with NCERT.

2. Higher Education

• Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education: To be raised to 50% by 2035 (presently it is at 26.3%)
• Flexibility in Higher Education: NEP 2020 proposes a multi-disciplinary higher education framework with portable credits, and multiple exits with certificates, diplomas and degrees
• Common entrance exam: The common entrance exam for all higher education institutes to be held by NTA. The exam will be optional and not mandatory.
• Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities (MERUs): To be at par with IITs, IIMs, to be set up as models of best multidisciplinary education of global standards in the country.
• The National Research Foundation: It will be created as an apex body for fostering a strong research culture and building research capacity across higher education.
• M. Phil courses: They will be discontinued and all the courses at undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD level will now be interdisciplinary.
• Higher Education Commission of India (HECI): It will be set up as a single umbrella body for the entire higher education, excluding medical and legal education with 4 verticals for standard-setting, funding, accreditation and regulation so as to provide “light but tight” oversight.
• Affiliation of colleges: It is to be phased out in 15 years and a stage-wise mechanism to be established for granting graded autonomy to colleges.

3. Technology & Foreign Institutes

• National Educational Technology Forum (NETF): An autonomous body, to be created to provide a platform for the free exchange of ideas on the use of technology to enhance learning, assessment, planning, administration.
• National Assessment Centre: ‘PARAKH’ has been created to assess the students.
• Foreign universities: It also paves the way for foreign universities to set up campuses in India.

Significance

1. For Children
   • Systemic reform: Many children took education as a burden on them which resulted into baseless education. NEP seeks to change this approach by bringing a systematic reform in India’s education system.
   • Better learning: NEP focuses on Learning, Research and Innovation to make the school, college and university experience fruitful, broad-based and one that guides to one’s natural passions.
   • 360-degree report card: Under the new policy students will get 360-degree holistic report card, which will not only inform about the marks obtained by them in subjects, but also their skills and other important points.

1. For economy
   • Job creators: The NEP emphasizes on creating job creators rather than job seekers: a way an attempt to bring reform in our mindset and in our approach.
   • Infrastructure: The policy advocate education as a public service, and also emphasize on philanthropic private participation this can fill the fiscal gap in infrastructure building.
   • Hub of global education: NEP will also help in building world-class institutions in India, making India a hub of global education.
2. Onus on teachers: The policy is revolutionary in a way that it put onus on teachers to train themselves regularly, teachers will have to keep taking exams at every stage to keep them updated with the need of current time.
3. Increased spending: NEP set a target to spend 6% of GDP on Education

Challenges

1. Funding issues
   • Commitment: The Ministry set a target of expenditure to 6% of GDP. This is very difficult to attain in the near future.
   • Crunch: COVID-19 pandemic and global turmoil have created a funding crunch for the government with already (the 1968 NEP was also handicapped by a shortage of funds) and the provision of free breakfasts can only be considered in the next academic year if a budget allocation is made to cover it.
2. Language issue: The proposal to make the mother tongue the medium of instruction till Class 5, which has stirred up the fiercest debates, is dependent on state governments. This proposal is criticized by various states like Tamil Nadu.
3. Unrealistic Targets: “The goals of 50% Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education and 100% in secondary school are laudable.”
4. Lack of fee regulation: Fee regulations exist in some States even now, but the regulatory process is unable to rein in profiteering in the form of unaccounted donations.
5. Unfinished work: The government has yet to finalize the draft Higher Education Commission of India bill which has been languishing in the ministry for over a year.
6. Long Process: The process of converting affiliated colleges into degree granting autonomous institutions and then further into fully fledge universities is estimated to take at least 15 years.
7. Privatization of education: In the name of philanthropic schools and PPP, is laying the roadmap for entry of private players in education.

MOTHER TONGUE THE MEDIUM FOR HIGHER STUDIES

In sync with one of the focal points of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the promotion of Indian languages in higher education, the Union minister has suggested introducing Indian languages in the study of Engineering, law, and medicine in the country.

Arguments in Favor

1. Better understanding: It has been observed that the human mind is more receptive to communication in the language in which it is accustomed to thinking from childhood. Learning in one’s own language will help the student express himself/herself better.
2. Subject-Specific improvement: Performance in science and math, in particular, has been found to be better among students studying in their native language compared to English.
3. Increase in Gross-Enrolment Ratio (GER): This will help provide quality teaching to more students and thus increase Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education.
4. Higher motivation and support: Studying in the native language results in higher attendance, motivation, increased confidence for speaking up among students, and improved parental involvement and support in studies due to familiarity with the mother tongue.
5. Lesser dropout rate: Poor grasp of English has been tied by many educationists to dropout rates at the premier engineering education institutions as well as poor performance of some students.
   • Ex: Indian physicist and Nobel Laureate, Sir C.V. Raman observed – “We must teach science in our mother tongue. Otherwise, science will become a highbrow activity. It will not be an activity in which all people can participate”.
6. Targeting the majority: 95% of students, who receive primary education in their mother tongue, should not be left out in their pursuit of higher studies.
7. Equitable education culture: Teaching in the mother tongue/ regional language will help in building an equitable education system. The personal and social circumstances of students should in no way be obstacles to realising their full academic potential.
8. Promotes linguistic diversity: It will also promote the strength, usage, and vibrancy of all Indian languages. This way, private institutions too will be motivated to use Indian languages as a medium of instruction and/or offer bilingual programmes.
9. Benefits to disadvantaged: This is especially relevant for students who are first-generation learners (the first one in their entire generation to go to school and receive an education) or the ones coming from rural areas, who may feel intimidated by unfamiliar concepts in an alien language.
10. Global practices: Among the G20, most countries have state-of-the-art universities, with teaching being imparted in the dominant language of their people.
    • For example: In South Korea, nearly 70% of the universities teach in Korean, even as they aspire to play a role on the international stage. This trend is also observed in other countries like China, Japan, and Canada (in the majority of French-speaking Quebec Province).

1. Support NEP 2020: This will be in sync with one of the focal points of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, i.e., the promotion of Indian languages in higher education.
2. Increase economic productivity: Better understanding and practical knowledge in mother tongue will help in increase economic productivity of individual.
3. Preserves culture: Learning in a foreign language also brings a sense of alienation from one’s own culture and heritage. Education in the mother tongue will help the students in getting a better sense of their cultural background.

Challenges

• Lack of quality material in local languages: One of the biggest bottlenecks for more students to take up higher education in native languages is the lack of high-quality textbooks, especially in technical courses.
• Availability of faculty: Given the English-medium legacy of higher education in India, attracting and retaining quality teachers who are willing and able to teach in regional languages will be a challenge.
• Pan-India institution issue: A regional language focus is not meaningful in a scenario where the institutes see entrants from across the country such as IITs.
• Reliability of translations: Artificial intelligence-powered tools to translate books, academic journals, and videos may cause issues of reliabilities and irregularities with the quality of these translations.
• Maintaining Pace with Global Standards: Delivering technical courses in regional languages may prevent students from competing in global labour and education markets, where fluency in English yields a distinct edge.
• Counter-productive: A lack of opportunities for Indian students at the international level may prove counterproductive to the NEP, 2020’s aim of bridging the gap between elites and the rest.
• Proficient teaching staff: Providing technical education in regional languages requires teachers proficient in the vernacular medium along with English. Attracting and retaining quality teachers who are willing and able to teach in regional languages would be a challenge.
• Past failure: In Tamil Nadu, for instance, the bid to impart engineering education through the Tamil medium has not created any impact despite the principal political players using language as a political tool.
• Tuff global labour competition: Delivering technical courses in regional languages may prevent students from competing in global labour and education markets, where fluency in English yields a distinct edge.

Measures taken in this Direction

• Approval: Effective 2021-22, the AICTE granted approval to 19 engineering colleges in 10 States for having engineering courses in six Indian languages.
• Automation tool: The Council has also developed an “AICTE Translation Automation AI Tool” that translates English online courses into 12 Indian languages.
• SWAYAM: An open online courses platform of the Central government, has been offering some popular courses in Indian languages too. The import of this is that the goal of covering all sections as far as higher education is concerned should become a reality.

• New Education Policy: The NEP provides for higher education institutions and programs in higher education to use the mother tongue or local language as a medium of instruction, besides offering programs bilingually.

Way forward

• Develop a hybrid approach: While it may not be possible to translate technical terms verbatim in the regional languages, a hybrid approach can be developed. This will enable a local-global integration with the latest knowledge and technology and give students global exposure and expertise.
• Pre-planning: In the NEP 2020, the government has urged universities to create study material in regional languages to enhance students’ understanding and empower them.
• Develop physical infrastructure: If higher education programmes are offered in regional languages, there is no doubt that student enrolment will increase exponentially. Hence, infrastructure needs to be enhanced for more admissions.
• Encourage Digital Education: To make programmes in regional languages functional and useful, institutions will have to substantially improve and improvise.
• Field-specific targets: For example, in the field of law — before the subject is taught in the Indian languages — the Central government should try to impress upon the judiciary to allow the use of Indian languages in court proceedings.
• Retaining English: What should be made obvious is that the use of English, wherever desirable, should be retained, with no aversion shown on the ground that it is a “foreign” language.

LEARNING POVERTY

Learning Poverty is defined as the percentage of 10-year-olds who cannot read and understand a simple story – World Bank.

Importance/Advantages

1. Reading is the basis for learning
   • Easy to understand: Reading proficiency is an easily understood measure of learning.
   • Gateway: Reading is a student’s gateway to learning in every other area.
   • Proxy for foundational learning: Systems that ensure that all children can read are likely to succeed in helping them learn other subjects as well.
   • Unlocks the door to knowledge: When a child becomes proficient in reading, it unlocks the door to the vast knowledge codified in texts of all types.
2. Socio-economic factors
   • Language development: It is enhanced by reading skills, is nurtured along with the development of a child’s self-regulation, a fundamental socio-emotional skill.
   • Employment opportunities: Learning will lead to skill development and know-how needed for the jobs of the future.
   • Better quality workforce: Countries which have prioritised and invested in foundational learning have produced a better quality of workforce, enabling their economies to take off.
     • For example: Both South Korea and China did this in the 1970s, and the impact on their economies was tremendous.
   • End Poverty: Learning will lead to ability to generate higher employment and thereby end the cycle of poverty.
   • Indication of school system: Beyond 10 when children cannot read it’s usually a clear indication that school systems aren’t well organized to help children learn in other areas such as math, science, and the humanities either.
   • Human capital is the real global wealth: While human capital makes up 41% of wealth in poor countries, in high-income OECD countries, it makes up over 70% of wealth.
   • Benefits society: For societies, it can contribute to faster innovation and growth, better-functioning institutions, greater intergenerational social mobility, higher levels of social trust, and a lower likelihood of conflict.
3. Political factors
   • Improves individual freedom: For individuals and families, it can lead to higher productivity and earnings, poverty reduction, higher rates of employment, better health outcomes, and greater civic engagement.
   • Child Rights: All children have the right to read and learn.
4. International Factors
   • To meet SDGs: SDG4 provides for ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education. At the current rate of improvement, in 2030 about 43% of children will still be learning-poor. It also threatens achievement of SDG1 – ending poverty.
   • Global learning crisis: The world is in the midst of a global learning crisis that threatens countries’ efforts to build human capital.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Learning Poverty

• Twin unprecedented shocks to global education system: Extended school closures and unprecedented global economic contraction on family incomes, which increase the risk of school dropouts, and also results in the contraction of government budgets and strains on public education spending.
• Economic loss: Due to learning losses and increases in dropout rates, this generation of students stand to lose an estimated $10 trillion in earnings, or almost 10 percent of global GDP.
• Impact on other vulnerable sections: Vulnerable groups such as children with disabilities, ethnic minorities, refugees, and displaced populations are also less likely to access remote learning materials and to return to school post-crisis.
• School systems are not well-organized: When the child cannot read, it’s usually a clear indication that the school systems are not well-organized to help children learn in other areas such as math, science and humanities.
• Digital divide: Many countries including India had to close down schools and colleges and encouraged online classes, where digital divide is still very high.

Steps Taken

1. World Bank: World Bank launched a new operational global learning target to cut the Learning Poverty rate by at least half before 2030.
2. India: Multimodal approach includes multiple platforms.
   • DIKSHA portal: It contains e-Learning content for students, teachers, and parents aligned to the curriculum, including video lessons. It is also available for offline use.
   • e-Pathshala: A learning application for classes 1 to 12 in multiple languages.
   • Swayam: It hosts 1,900 complete courses aimed both at school (classes 9 to 12) and higher education (undergraduate and postgraduate) levels.
   • Swayam Prabha: A group of 32 direct-to-home channels devoted to telecasting of educational programs round the clock and accessible across the country. The channels air courses for school education (classes 9–12) and higher education (undergraduate, postgraduate), as well as for out-of-school children, vocational education, and teacher training.
3. Policy and Programme initiatives
   • National Education Policy (NEP): It calls for achieving foundational skills —- reading, writing and arithmetic —- for all children in primary school, and beyond by 2025.
   • NIPUN Bharat: Ministry of Education has already launched the National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat) mission.
   • School Education Quality Index (SEQI): By NITI Aayog aims to shift the focus to learning outcomes.
   • NISHTHA: To empower the teachers, a capacity development programme for teachers and school heads, NISHTHA was launched by the NCERT.

Best practices:

1. Kenya:
   • Education programming: In addition to radio and TV, education programming is made available as both livestream and on-demand content via YouTube.
   • E-Books: The government has made electronic copies of textbooks available for free on the Kenya Education Cloud for all students.
   • Internet: To provide wider internet coverage to all students and families, the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority, has deployed Google’s Loon Balloons carrying 4G base stations over Kenyan airspace.

1. Argentina’s Seguimos Educando program: It began broadcasting educational content on April 1, 2020. It airs 14 hours a day of television content and 7 hours a day of radio content specially produced for students as a result of school closures. For students without access to technology or connectivity, it is supplemented with “notebooks” packed with learning resources that have been delivered to student homes. It also has a section on virtual reality that provides a collection of videos in 360° format to give the user an immersive educational experience.
2. Egypt: The government has changed its curriculum and assessment systems, so students are evaluated throughout the year, with the key element of the reforms focused on learning, instead of getting a school credential.
3. Vietnam: The clear and explicit national curriculum, the near-universal availability of textbooks, and the low absenteeism among students and teachers are credited for contributing to the country’s outstanding learning outcomes.
4. Mongolia: In Mongolia, better access to books led to a 0.21 standard deviation improvement in student outcomes.

Way Forward

• Reopening of schools: There is need to reach every child (through aggressive enrollment campaigns, communication campaigns at the macro-level such as the national and State-level as well as community-level) to ensure that all of them re-enroll.
• Revitalization approach: Focus should be on ramping up catch-up learning and brushing up on the fundamentals so that the children can revise them.
• New assessment methodology: The teachers will require a lot of support to group students within the classroom not according to the grade or age, but according to where they are.
• Investment in education technology: Impact of school closures in India, the need for re-enrolment campaigns, and reassessment of learning levels as schools reopen after a gap of two years and calls for investment in education technology to complement classroom teaching.
• Digital literacy: The fact that education television and radio came back after being abandoned for many years is a good development. We need such resilient systems because we don’t know what the next natural disaster is going to be.
• Budgetary allocations: The first line of action is spending the money you have and being impactful and efficient in spending that.
• Use of vernacular language: Research shows that students who are taught in their home language in the early years have higher comprehension. It also provides the foundation to more easily learn a second language and study more complex topics later on.
• Political commitment: National goals should be set with an understanding of how students are currently doing, and systems should use the data as a baseline on which to develop achievable goals, interventions, and indicators of progress.

EDTECH SECTOR IN INDIA

The Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) defines EdTech as ‘the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources.’ Edtech is essentially a combination of ‘education’ and ‘technology’.

Key drivers of EdTech Sector in India

1. Need Induced by Pandemic: A major push came as Covid-19 shut down schools, colleges, and universities. From being a ‘modern’ choice, remote learning suddenly became the only alternative as institutions, students, guardians, and authorities switched to the digital mode.
2. Steps taken by the Government: India is well-poised to take this leap forward with increasing access to tech-based infrastructure, electricity, and affordable internet connectivity, fueled by flagship programmes such as Digital India and DIKSHA (Digital Infrastructure for School Education).
3. Growth of internet penetration in India: Wider penetration of both high-speed internets along with smartphones will create a sustainable network of digital users who are also consuming more and more digital content, beyond social media, online entertainment and ecommerce, creating wider opportunities for EdTech startups.
   • For example: According to the ASER 2020, smartphone ownership among government school student families increased from 30% in 2018 to 56% in 2020, whereas smartphone ownership among private school student families rose from 50% to 74%.
4. Advancement in technology: Adoption of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), AR and VR will empower teachers with valuable tools and platforms to ensure effective in-class learning.
5. Increase in disposable income: An increase in consumer disposable income is likely to improve the willingness of customers, especially in quintile 5, to spend on academic activities and leisure courses.
6. Increasing competition: With increasing competition in education market students are trying hard to learn as much as they can to fight against the odds.
7. Local first approach: The key EdTech players embraced vernacular languages as well as taken into account regional disparities while implementing solutions.

1. Use of demography: Though global in approach, this sector has been able to use both India’s demographic dividend to its advantage and leveraged the Indian consumers’ price elasticity for quality education.
2. Increasing demand side: The right tech skillsets and certification are the two most important parameters for tech employment and the demand side of edtech is robust in this regard thanks to the rising unemployment in India.
   • Ex: With a working-age population in India of more than 67% of the total population, the market offers great opportunities for reskilling, skill development and upskilling.

Potential Benefits of the Edtech Sector

1. In Education
   • Enabling greater personalisation of education: With personal learning experience, these platforms provide greater freedom of personalization which provide better adaptability according to needs.
   • Enhancing educational productivity: The flexibility of taking classes from remote locations enhances productivity by improving rates of learning.
   • Cost reduction: Due to low or no need of infrastructure there is a reduction in cost of instructional material and service delivery at scale.
   • Better utilisation of teacher/instructor time: Since on online platforms there is no bar on the number of students who can take the classes, there is a better utilization of instructor’s time.
     • For example: It allows the teachers to focus all their energies solely on teaching by taking care of mundane tasks like taking attendance and evaluating answer sheets.
   • Better conceptualization: It makes it easier for the students to hold a grasp of difficult concepts by using audio/visual tools for better conceptualisation.
   • Better analysis: Edtech will also provide in-depth analysis of student data for insights to teachers, something which was lacking in the traditional classroom system of textbooks and blackboards.
2. Economy
   • Contribution Economy: With the development of new sector in the economy there will be increase in contribution of country’s GDP which also enhance corporate tax base.
     • For example: As per KPMG, online certification courses and test preparation will continue to account for a large proportion of the online education market in India which was estimated to touch the $1.96 billion mark in 2021.
   • Employment Generation: The sector witnessed larger demand in the backroom, especially for software developers, support function, teacher, content writer, marketing professionals. Experience bracket which is larger in demand is 3-5 years and 6-10 years.
   • Better skilling: It makes it easier for working professionals to pursue certification to advance their careers as they don’t have to commute long distances while managing the work burden.
3. Social
   • Create level playing field: It levels the playing field and gives every student an equal opportunity to obtain knowledge despite any physical impediments that they might be struggling with. Screen readers for visually challenged students and speech-to-text for students who cannot write or type are a few examples of such helpful tools.
   • Eliminate geographical barriers: It eliminates the geographical barriers and allows students to access the highest quality of education from the best institutes, regardless of where they are situated.

Challenges

1. Social
   • Challenge of penetration: In a country like ours, where more than 60% of our population resides in rural areas, implementing the e-learning model on a national level is a bit of a challenge.
   • Increase pressure on individuals: The advent and proliferation of AI will mean that many jobs and skill sets will become obsolete and many new jobs and roles will evolve over time. Only those who are prepared for such a radical and sweeping change will survive in this brave, new, transformed world.
   • Lack of access to technology: Not everyone who can afford to go to school can afford to have phones, computers, or even a quality internet connection for attending classes online.
     • For example: According to NSS data for 2017-18, only 42 percent of urban and 15 percent of rural households had internet access. In this case, Ed-tech can increase the already existing digital divide.
2. Political
   • Contradiction with Right to Education: Technology is not affordable to all, shifting towards online education completely is like taking away the Right to Education of those who cannot access the technology.
   • Lack of Regulation: The lack of a regulatory framework in India could impinge on the privacy of students who now use educational technology (EdTech) apps for learning. Lack of regulation also leads to lack of real transparency and evidence available in the outcomes claimed by EdTech startups.
   • Lack of credentials: Most jobs still demand an educational degree recognized by a designated board/authority. Since most EdTech players lack recognition from such designated authorities there is a lack of credibility.
3. Ethical
   • Paid-Unpaid issue: There has been cautioned against people enrolling for courses without careful evaluation, because many courses billed as free in advertisements were found to be paid.
   • Debt issues: Many customers had unknowingly signed up for loans arranged by these companies which end up making them indebted.
   • Targeting vulnerable families: Some ed-tech companies are luring parents in the garb of offering free services and getting the Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) mandate signed or activating the auto-debit feature, especially targeting the vulnerable families.
   • Unethical pressure on parents: Some ed-tech companies are involved in shaming promotion strategies, where parents were felt insecure about their child future and end up buying the course.
     • For example: White hat Jr. advertising Wolf Gupta employed by Google with a salary of Rs 20 crore, which end up claimed to be a fictional character.
4. Economic
   • Technology infrastructure: The technology stack and architecture of any EdTech interface is decided independently. There are multiple platforms built by the government and private players, but there is no integrated roadmap.
5. Other Major Issues
   • Implicit influence on career decisions,
   • Minimal historical data availability for efficient data modelling and machine learning leading to inaccurate profiling of students,
   • Increased unemployment of conventional educators,
   • Less upskilling and reskilling of educators and
   • Standardisation and moderation of content without regulatory approvals.

Steps Taken

1. Government
   • National Education Policy 2020: India’s new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is responsive to the clarion call to integrate technology at every level of instruction.
     • National Education Technology Forum: It envisions the establishment of an autonomous body, the National Education Technology Forum (NETF), to spearhead efforts towards providing a strategic thrust to the deployment and use of technology.
   • Ministry of education initiatives: Digital India and the Ministry of Education’s initiatives, including the Digital Infrastructure for School Education (DIKSHA), open-source learning platform and UDISE+ — one of the largest education management information systems in the world.
   • NEAT: The government has ensured full support to ed-based tech solutions in learning through the creation of National Educational Alliance for Technology (NEAT) to provide a platform for the use of technology to enhance learning, assessment, planning, administration, and so on.
2. Companies
   • Code of Self-regulation: The India EdTech Consortium has created a three-page code of conduct.
     • Need: The code is an attempt to address the government’s concerns; the majority of the sections refer to red flags that have been raised recently.
     • Commitment: BYJU’S, Careers 360, Harappa, TimesEdutech & Events Ltd, Scalar, Simplilearn, Toppr, upGrad, Vedantu, and WhiteHat Jr are among the companies that claim to have followed the maxim “what is told is sold.”
   • Rules under Code:
     • Openness: Emphasizing openness and cautioning against deceptive advertising
     • Use of legal name for courses: Organisations should only use legal names of qualifications such as MBA, BBA, and others in advertisements when they comply with UGC and AICTE norms.
     • Success claim validation: Statements made by edu-tech companies about students attaining success by 66tandardi their products must be “authentic with validated proof of effectiveness.”
     • Substantiate product and services: To provide credibility to the claim of success, every advertisement of successful candidates must substantiate the product or service they used.
     • Follow code: Industry players have been advised to follow the Advertising Standards Council of India’s self-regulation code.
     • Explicit mention: According to the rule of conduct, loans and other financing FAQs should be explicitly stated on the platform.

Way Forward

• Providing infrastructure for Ed-Tech: In the immediate term, there must be a mechanism to thoroughly map the ed-tech landscape, especially their scale, reach, and impact.
• Address digital divide: Special attention must be paid to address the digital divide at two levels — access and skills to effectively use technology and leverage its benefits.

• Cross-platform integration: The policy formulation and planning process must strive to enable convergence across schemes (education, skills, digital governance, and finance). There is also a need to foster integration of solutions through PPPs, factor in voices of all stakeholders, and bolster cooperative federalism across all levels of government.
• National EdTech Policy: Given the amount of investment that the sector is attracting, and the potential to scale-up and measure educational outcomes for large sections of society, there is an urgent need for an EdTech policy so that the investment and effort being put by the private players and governments is in alignment with the long-term goals of the NEP 2020.
• Vernacular language content: The content being developed by EdTech startups is predominantly in English. NEP 2020 has again re-emphasised the need to create content in regional languages. A comprehensive content guideline can be used to create standardised and multilingual content.
• Open license: An open license enables educational institutes, nonprofits, and public institutions working at the grassroots to have access to standardised and cross-functional technology at low cost.
• Awareness among Stakeholders: There is a need to educate, inform and increase awareness of end-users of the risks and challenges associated with app-based learning.
• Technology is a Tool, Not a Panacea: Public educational institutions play an exemplary role in social inclusion and relative equality.

BRAIN DRAIN IN INDIA

It can be defined as the movement of highly skilled and educated people to a country where they can work in better conditions and earn more money.

Major Causes for Brain Drain

1. Push Factors
   • Lack of Research: The research ecosystem in India lacks in encouraging those who want to pursue research and scholarship.
     • Data: India spends less than 1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on research and development (R&D), while South Korea spends more than 4.23%, and China 2.11%.
   • Competition: Extreme high rates of competition for seats and vacancies also push students to go abroad where competition is less severe.
   • Lack of Funding: Scholarship opportunities are poor and not regularised disincentivizing the student to stay back in India to pursue studies.
   • Higher Cost of Learning: Indian universities especially in the medical sector, charge disproportionately higher fees than in many Eastern European countries.
   • Example: Large number of Indian students studying medical in Ukraine, Belarus and Poland.
   • Non-recognition of talents: Despite the citizen’s academic or potential achievements, they don’t get the same name and fame as film actors and cricketers in India. So, talented individuals move to better places that recognise and respect their talents.
   • Emphasis on select institutions: There is a disproportionate emphasis and recognition given to only those from good colleges like IITs and IIMs thus marginalising those from rural and private backgrounds.
   • Social Status: Indian society values those living abroad and working rather than those doing the same profession in India.
   • Regional Imbalance: Many regions in India are not adequately developed and thus they seek opportunities abroad.

1. Pull Factors
   • Higher Salaries: Indian qualifications fetch higher salaries in the US and other European countries compared to that in India.
   • Policy Factors: Many nations welcome Indian professionals due to their diverse skill sets and global reputation.
   • Standard of Living: The standard of living also encourages many to move to the west and work.
   • English Speaking Population: A large English-speaking population also helps Indians integrate better into the west.
   • Favourable Migration: Many nations have started opportunities which favour migrant populations.
     • Example: Scandinavian nations having an ageing population are opening up sectors to immigrants.

Impact of Brain Drain

1. Social
   • Broken Families: Brain drain causes families to break apart and often results in cases of abandoned wives, husbands and parents.
   • Demography: It distorts the demography of regions with high outmigration rates and disturbs the economy.
   • Debt cycle: External changes related to currency devaluation and tighter immigration policies make it difficult for Indian students to recover their investment in overseas education.
     • Data: Consultants say over 80% of education loans have been taken with personal homes as collateral.
   • Domino Effect: With the drain of influential talents, many other potential talents also escape and migrate abroad.
   • Quality of Education: The quality of Education suffers as better teachers and professionals out migrate away.
   • Loss of recognition: Indian talents are striving in other nations and helping those nations with their expertise, while India loses out on both recognition and potential benefits.
     • Example: Nobel Laureates like Abhijeet Bannerjee, Amartya Sen, Hargobind Khurana are all of Indian origin and yet their Nobels were won as foreign citizens.
2. Economic
   • Tax Revenues: Brain Drain reduces the potential of tax revenues from such individuals and the enterprises they may have operated.
     • Data: Countries lose somewhere between US$3.5 bn and US$38 bn a year as a result of the excess deaths that brain drain causes. The countries exporting the greatest number of doctors incur the largest costs: India, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa.
   • Shortage of Human Resources: It induces shortages of manpower in key activities when engineers or health professionals emigrate in disproportionately large numbers.
     • Example: For several decades, India has been a major exporter of healthcare workers to developed nations which is one of the prime reasons for the shortage of nurses and doctors.
   • Decreases Economic confidence: Reduces confidence in the economy; people aspire to leave rather than stay.
   • Increased Technological Dependence: Without adequate number of experts in fields of technology, India will be dependent more on importing and technology transfers.

1. Political
   • Loss of Voter Base: Out migration also reduces voter base especially that under the youth categories.
   • Reduces political participation: Brain drain also reduces the potential qualified persons from entering into politics.

Some Government Initiatives

• The Ramanujan Fellowship: It is meant for brilliant Indian scientists from outside India to take up scientific research positions in India.
• Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship: The programme is to encourage scientists (Indian Nationals) working outside the country, who would like to return to their home country to pursue their research interests in Life Sciences, Modern Biology Biotechnology, and other related areas.
• Visiting Advanced Joint Research (VAJRA) Faculty Scheme: It aims to bring overseas scientists and academicians including Non-resident Indians (NRI) and Overseas citizens of India (OCI) to India to work in public-funded Institutions and Universities for a specific period of time.

Way Forward

1. Increasing Investment: The government should formulate policies with the goal of boosting total GERD to 2% of India’s GDP. To attract smart people back to India, the government must build more cutting-edge research institutions.
2. Cross border Mobility: Framing favourable tax incentives and perks for professions to set up base in India.
3. Increasing Salaries: Bringing salaries of professors and others at par with that in the West can help retain talent in India.
   • Example: In late 2008, the Chinese government launched what it called the “thousand talents program” to bring 2,000 such top-notch hires home in the next five to 10 years.
4. Circular migration or brain share: The government should focus on framing policies that promote circular migration and return migration i.e., policies that incentivise workers to return home after the completion of their training or studies.
5. Tax Reforms: There are a lot of reviews by economists who strongly believe that the taxation policy in India leaves much lesser scope for savings. Also, the allied issues remain in the dissatisfaction of taxes not being utilized to solve various issues in the country.
6. Tackling under-employment: The companies recruiting employees should take utmost care to resolve any form of underemployment in their organization. A person should be given a job-based on his interest, caliber and academic merit.