Education is Critical to Guarantee India Future in Job Market
Our public education suffers from harms of infrastructure, class of teachers and poor management of the education method overall. Apart from the amount, there is also a mismatch between the capabilities of our graduates and the skills that the industry is seeking. The conventional solution of the government throwing more money at the problem has not worked. The not-for-profit sector, which has worked valiantly to fill the gap, has faced a major resource crunch to meet the balance requirements. Philanthropic capital, which has helped build some of the best educational institutions in the West, is not easy to get in India. Market-based approaches that demonstrate affordable and sustainable innovative solutions, is the only option left in our armour.How will market innovation answer this problem? Market forces are driven by areas with true and fair needs. Use of mobile technology, for instance, will allow us to solve the problem of poor quality teachers and last-mile access. A creative fusion of our ancient practice of educating through aural and visual mediums, our creative film and cartoonmaking abilities and mobile technology will provide a new mass market way to educate large numbers centrally using existing wireless networks.
All these approaches will also need an innovative and collaborative working between the government, society, industry and educational institutes. New tools and mechanisms for assessing the effectiveness of the various programmes will also have to be thought of. A transparent way for students and employers to gauge the real quality of a programme or an institution will have to be developed.
Rethinking the behavior we speak to education in this context, thus, becomes critical. To ensure India"s future making is equipped with the right skill-sets, educational institutions must increasingly be geared to first unlearn the ways of teaching and learning, as we have known it. In short, reinterpret and reinstate the Nalanda society that attracted the brightest intellectual pioneers to come together in a knowledge-centric environment.