India has the largest number of young people in the world. 55 per of the Indian population is below the age of 25. While the population across the developed countries is aging, having such a great number of young people is of great advantage to the country which looks forward to become the largest economy in the world. Even though India has the largest pool of young people, they cannot contribute to the development of the nation if they are not educated. Recent surveys conducted by various organizations has found that majority of the school going children cannot read short sentences or so simple mathematical problems.

Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) survey

The Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) survey has placed India at the bottom of the rank list, just above Kyrgyzstan. It was for the first time that India had participated in the survey. The states that came under the study were Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh. It is claimed that these states have the best government run schools in India.

Parents now choose private schools

The standard of education provided by the government schools is not considered that good and that is the reason most of the parents choose to send their kids to private schools which offer much better education when compared to the government schools. The political parties and the government officials are aware of the standard of education offered by such government schools, but do very little to improve the quality. The plight of Indian education

The Indian economy is the second fastest growing economy in the world after China, but unfortunately, the quality of primary education of India is comparable with that of countries such as Papua New Guinea and Yemen. This remark was made by some of the well known development economist. India has failed to convert the strong economic growth into enhanced quality of education for the citizens of India for the last 15 years.

High absenteeism in schools

The Indian government was successful in increasing the enrolment ratio of the students to over 95 per cent. But that alone is not sufficient. Many of the studies conducted by the nongovernmental organizations working for the improvement of primary education in the country has found that absenteeism in the schools is very high; at more than 55 per cent.

Survey by Pratham

A study conducted by Pratham, a voluntary organization working for the improvement of primary education has found a very disturbing trend among the students in the primary schools. The study has found that only 48 per cent of the students in the northern states of India in the 5th grade were able to read simple sentences from 2nd grade text book, in 2011. Only 12 per cent of the students in class 3 were able to read sentences from class 2 text book.

The study also observed that about 70 per cent of the students in 3rd grade were not able to perform simple two digit subtraction which involves borrowing. In the case of students from the 5th grade, 40 per cent of the students were not able to perform subtraction problems of similar kind.

Such an education cannot contribute to development

The outcome of such an education system will not be able to provide the required workforce that will help in achieving the developmental objectives of the country. The top institutes in India such as the IITs and the IIMs produce some of the finest professionals in the world, but when it comes to other institutes and primary education, the rank they hold when compared to other countries is way down the list.

They are ranked way behind the developed countries and even the developing countries in the case of education. The disparity between people from different states in India is also very large, in terms of employment, skills and incomes.  For instance, states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are among the most populous states India, but offer the worst schooling among the states in India and the least number of opportunities.

The gap is widening

According to Amartya Sen, India has to make steady progress in the field of education and health to get closer to China in terms of development progress. He says that the gap between the two countries is widening, even after making economic progress. It is observed across various fields such as life expectancy, average years of schooling etc. In India, the citizens receive an average of 4.4 years of schooling. It is found that the ratio of students to teachers is thrice when compared to China. In India, there are states where the strength of a class is about 90 students.

As a result parents go for private schools which is said to offer better education than government run schools. In some of the states parents belonging to some of the communities do not want their girl child to be sent to school. Such parents do not want to send girls out of their house. In such areas the literacy rate is very low as 13 per cent.

Government should take concrete steps

It is high time that the government should stop going after implementing policies and start taking concrete steps that would solve the problems in the field of primary education. The problems cannot be solved overnight, but measures must be taken immediately as the process of development in primary education is time consuming. So if the government does not take necessary steps now, the future citizens who are attending their primary schools will be unproductive and we will be forced to abandon the dream of becoming a developed economy in the near future. A small step taken today will have a large impact on the condition of the country, may be 10 to 15 years down the line. This requires committed political leaders and government officials who can bring about significant changes in the field of education.