IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION IN THE CHANGING SCENARIO

Development of a Strong Nation:

Quality Life of the People:

The development of a strong nation requires that the human resources of the country are endowed with higher level of education, skill and specialization. The recently released United Nations Development Report 2011 ranked India 134 out of 187 countries. It also presents a strong case for governments all over the word to encourage human mobility. Migration, including those of low skilled workforce pays dividends all around. While economic growth is extremely important, it has to be accompanied by improvement in the quality life of the people for the development process to be sustainable in the medium to long run. More importantly it has to be inclusive in a nature. Ultimately, a healthy, educated and an empowered population contribute to improved productivity which, in turn sustain growth. Literacy as a qualitative attribute of the population is one of most important indication of the socio economic and political development of a society.

Education- pre-request to Indian long term development:

Education is the single most important instrument for social and economical transformation. Education has been well rooted in India Society since times; with several well –known centre of learning that no longer exist today. Changes to the system and a joint effort of governments and the development partners in the last decade resulted in improvements in the educational system. Although a number of problems remain, Education today is not only seen as a pillar of economic growth but also as a pre-request to Indian long term development, empowering individuals to become fully active citizens. In the recent budget, education and health are the key development indictors did not fare too well. Central govt. Total allocation for education is 0.73 percent of the GDP, marginally up from 0.69 percent in 2011-12. Finance minister provided rupees 25,555 crore for implementing the Right to Education through the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan which is 21.7 percent higher from the last year.

Primary education is a basic human right, Both Transformative and empowering. Beyond this intrinsic importance it is also indispensable for the enjoyment of other human right and is a means for accessing broader social, economic, political and cultural benefits. Education contributes to building more just societies through reduction is a powerful driver for the realization of all the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and for sustainable development more broadly.

The achievement of universal primary education, which is the second of the MDGs and the subject of one of the education for all goals requires that every child of primary schooling. A lack of primary education in recent decades has led to high levels of adult illiteracy. Overall one sixth of the world population, approximately 760 million persons, cannot read or write.

Working age population:

India is a nation of young people – out of a population of above 1.21 billion; 672 million people are in the age-group 15 to 59 years, which is usually treated as the “working age population’. It is predicted that India will see a sharp decline in the dependency ratio over the next 30 years, which will constitute a major ‘demographic dividend ‘for India. This young population should be considered as an invaluable asset which is equipped with knowledge and skill, can contribute effectively to the development of the nation as well as the global economy. Our vision is to realize India’s human resource potential to its fullest in the education sector, with equity and inclusion .The three pillar of education are expansion, inclusion and excellence.

Although the Indian census were conducted since 1881 and the data series on literacy was available since 1901 census, one can notice that only 5 people out of 100 were literate in 1901, 18% in 1951. It has taken another 50years for literacy to increase from a meager 18% to 65.4% in 2011. Female literacy has increased from a very low of 8.9% in 1951 to only 65.46 in 2011, an increase of six times while male literacy increased by three and half time during the same period.

Educational disparity:

Further it is essential to note that educational disparity is starting between various states and regions of India. While the state of Kerala is exceptional with 93% literacy with low gender disparity, and the least state is Bihar with only gender disparity, and the least state is Bihar with only 63.82% of its citizen are educated.

Various Education schemes started by govt. are;

1. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
2. National Programme for education of girls at Elementary Education
3. National Programme of Mid day Meals in school:
4. Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidalaya for SC, ST, OBC and other minority communities.
5. Thrust for female literacy (Saakshar Bharat) : The National Literacy Mission has been launched recently as Saakshar Bharat in which at least 7 crore non-illiterates will be made literate to achieve 80% literacy and to reduce gender disparity in literacy from 21% to 10 %. 365 districts in the country, with adult female literacy rate of 50% or less, have been identified for the implementation of Saakshar Bharat.
6. Rashriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan: The Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) at the secondary level is currently around 60percent which is woefully low. To improve this ratio, this scheme with the scheme of model schools was launched in the Eleventh plan to improve Enrollment and quality in secondary education.

Gender deprivation:

Despite rapid growth in literacy in post independence India, gender deprivation still exists and needs to be overcome. Despite the gains in female literacy only 2011, 65.46 percent of females are literate against 82.14 percent males as shown in recent conducted census. It may be seen that it took almost five decades for male-female disparity to reduce to half of what it was in the 1960s.

Education in India comes under the concurrent list and thus both the central and state governments are involved leading to multiple control and regulations by the Govt. and statutory bodies. There is an urgent need for replacement of bureaucratic controls in education by professional regulation along with Private-public partnership to ensure universal primary education literacy gap which was 21.2 percentage point in 2001 has come down to 16.1 percent points in 2011 There is improvement in female literacy than males in both rural and urban areas. The gender gap in literacy has come down from 24.6 in 2001 to 19.8 in 2011 in rural areas from 13.4 in 2001 to 9.8 in 2011 in urban areas.

Challenges

The landmark legislation giving every child the fundamental right to have compulsory elementary education is just one stew towards setting right what is wrong with the sector. The emphasis on education in the eleventh plan, the setting up of acknowledge commission, and Yash pal committee to advise on revamping and rejuvenating higher education have all helped to discuss the more reality to education that need to be advanced urgently.

The challenge of quality in Indian education has many dimensions for e.g.

• Providing adequate physical facilities and infrastructure.
• Making available adequate teacher of requisite quality.
• Effectiveness of teaching learning processes.

Besides the need to improve quality of our education institute in general, it is also imperative that an increasing number of them to attain world class standards and are internationally recognized for them, quality and skill development is also a major area that needs attention. In the present context, education policies and strategies have to reckon with emerging challenges and opportunities that come from increasing globalization. The task of nation building has to take into account increasing demand for certain professional skills and Knowledge that is linked to the labour market. A globalized world will ultimately require the outsourcing of human skills in regions which will witness a’ demographic deficit’ skilled human capital will have to be improved to certain regions to sustain economic growth. This can offer tremendous opportunities for employment and growth provided the young are equipped with requisite knowledge and skill.

Faced with the complexity of current and future global challenges, institutes of education have the social responsibility to advance our understanding of multifaceted issues, which involve social, economic, scientific and cultural dimensions and our ability to respond to them. To do so, institutions must increase their interdisciplinary focus and promote innovative thinking which contributes to the advancement of peace, well being and development, and the realization of human right, including gender equity.

Compulsory Education a Right of every Child:

In line with the goal of nation building, India has been committed to providing free and compulsory education to all children. Towards this end, Indian parliament has enacted a legislation making free and compulsory education a Right of every child in the age group of 6-14 years which has come into force from 1st April 2010, the act mandates all teachers need to complete and meet training requirements within three years of legislation.

Conclusion:

Even when the Government is luring poor people by giving them free food, books and even uniforms to send their children to work so that they can earn some bucks for the family. This is the problem of our education system where even higher education does not guarantee employment. So there is a need to improve our primary as well as secondary education system.

Education is no doubt an important tool of Human development, and improved Human Development plays very important role in improving living standards of the people. Improved education and health facilities can also help in economic development of the country. No doubt the entire education sector is expectedly buzzing with activity. The HRD ministry is taking steps to improve education standard in India. Indian national policy since 1968 wanted to raise public expenditure of education to 6% of GDP. On the other hand outlay of Central and State Government for educations amounted to about 3% of GDP. Thus the gap allocation for education is still substantial, and need to be urgently addressed. To make India one of the major knowledge countries in the world in the near future, it is important to continue the current level of focus and commitment, along with the right amount of resource in an improved governance and service delivery framework.

Source:Kurukshetra