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Dileep Ranjekar, CEO - Foundation
Dileep Ranjekar, CEO - Azim Premji Foundation
By 2025, India should be a knowledge superpower - a creator, not just a receiver, of knowledge. An outline of what that vision should look like 

Sixty one years of independence and about 18 years since we entered into a liberalised era, is India emerging? Do we really have a vision for 2025? Where are we headed? Who knows of this vision and is it a shared vision?

What role does the development sector play in this vision? Is this a vision for all or a vision for the liberated? Will we have a miniscule population below $2 a day or will we just have a larger middle-class? What factors will change these statistics? What role do education, health, livelihoods and infrastructure sectors have towards developing our utopia?

The reality is that we do not have a well-thought out and comprehensive plan. And, we will not be able to reach out to that better tomorrow unless we focus on these four critical sectors: education, health, livelihoods and infrastructure. Of these, education is something that cuts across the other sectors. 

A few things to unlearn

After 60 years of independence, here is the performance of India in key aspects related to the quality of elementary education:

  • India accounts for 16% of the global population, but contributes just about 1.16% of the world’s GDP.

  • Close to 20 million children are still outside the schooling system.

  • Attendance of children and completion of education cycle is a major challenge. For instance, if 100 children get enrolled in Class I, only about 52 complete the education cycle upto Class VIII.

  • Over 33% of children are unable to read or write in class V.

  • Our literacy level is 65%, as against the world average literacy level of 80%.

  • Only about 8-10% children pursue higher education.

  • In only about 10% of schools, over 60% children achieve the expected competencies in learning.

Clearly, India has not succeeded in bringing about change at the national level. This is not only true for education, but also in other development areas such as health, nutrition and poverty. In elementary education, we are referring to a system that consists of 200 million children in the age group of 6-14 years in 1.3 million schools.
A peek into the future

Here’s my vision for education in 2025: High quality access. Since over 85% of elementary education happens in government schools, the state holds the key on the supply or access side. I envisage that by 2025, access and infrastructure issues would no more exist, and everyone will be talking of the possibilities in a system that allows world-class access for all. The current major inequity in quality of access would vanish, and the concept of neighbourhood would be the prevailing practice.

Quality of learning. The single most important aspect that we have not been ableto change in schools is the quality of education. The biggest problem is that education is equated to ability to ‘rote memorise’. The system has forgotten the goals that are articulated by the National Education Policy. I envisage that, by 2025, India will once again be a knowledge creator—a knowledge superpower, not the mere knowledge receiver as it is today. ‘Rote learning’ will be a thing of the past and we will have people who will develop our own software operating platforms and languages, unlike today when we are largely doing software coolie work. The textbooks will be so designed to facilitate understanding, comprehension, application, analysis and innovations that are so critical to building a knowledge society.

Accountable, empowered and developed teacher force. Recruitment and education of teachers, and in-service teacher development, will be revamped. Teachers will be enabled to perform with progressive people practices and well-developed risk-reward systems that encourage their high performance. Each of the six million teachers will have the necessary vision, requisite competency—both in subject matter and pedagogy—and a passion to bring about change. The focus will be on the child and on democratic, participative and interactive classroom culture and processes. The salaries of teachers will be equal to or better than those of some of the best professionals in society, and the profession will attract some of the best talent in the country.

Accountable, empowered and developed education administrators. There will be a cadre for developing education officers. The officers will have a shared vision of education, with a belief that education is a change process. They will be completely focused on serving children and parents, will carry out administration with utmost transparency and great governance practices. Decisions will be based on facts, data and relevant information, and research will form the soul of administration. India will be the center for excellence, and will be a guiding force in education for the rest of the world.

Examinations will assess the achievement of curricular goals. Examinations will be reformed so as to assess understanding, comprehension, analysis, higher order thinking, creativity, psychomotor skills, arts, sports and overall development of the learner, as opposed to assessing mere rote learning. Continuous, comprehensive assessment will be the order of the day, and all schools and teachers will practice sound assessment methods to nurture and develop the learner. Examinations at all levels, including those for admission to professional courses, will be aligned to assess phase-wise development of students. In fact, examinations will be necessary only for those who want to obtain certificates for completion of particular level of education, and will not be necessary for others who continue education.

Budgets and finances. There will be no budgetary constraints for education at all levels. The country will have budgets for education of even up to 10% of GDP. Appropriate systems for prudent spending of budgets will be put in place, and transparent and good governance practices will ensure that accountability for spending money in a qualitatively superior manner is with the administration.

Equity in education. Opportunity for high quality education will be available to all, irrespective of their gender, caste or socio-economic status. In fact, every conceivable effort will be made to make education available to disadvantaged children in a special way. The education process, in turn, will promote erasing all divides based on the factors of caste, religion and economic differences.

Political will to change. This is critical in a democratic set up. Our politicians will be sensitive to the needs of constant renovation and overhaul of the educational system to explore and discover newer meanings in the education considering the ever-changing requirements of the society. They will institute mechanisms to analyse the future requirements of the country and enable the education system with appropriate legislative support to reflect such changes in the system. They will study the issues regarding quality education, and accord the highest priority to education that will be at par with the other three priorities—electricity, roads, and water. Accept that the quality of education is fundamental to India’s status as a developed nation. We ought to be knowledge creators, and not mere knowledge receivers.

Accountability for quality education. Teachers, administrators and political masters will feel accountable to parents and students for the learning outcomes of the children based on the review of the performance of several institutions.

Our past heritage and glory as an education nerve center for the world will be fully restored by 2025.

This article appeared in Outlook, issue dated 23 August, 2008

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