EDUCATION IS PULLING US BACK

Why do you think the demographic dividend, that our Prime Minister so often talks about, not bearing the expected fruits of success? The only reason that is keeping us mediocre is our dismal state of education. Learning deficits of as much as 5 years in primary schools, poor standards of teaching in middle and higher secondary schools, mass copying of shameful propositions in colleges and too much of interference in higher education by the government have all acted as our road blocks which refuse to budge.

We do not have a single educational institution in the first 300 in the world list. Our best performer IISc, Bangalore is ranked between 301 to 350 and we have just 5 other institutions in 350 to 500 list. In contrast,  our neighbour China has 7 of its institutions in top 200 and Tsinghua University occupies the 23rd spot in the list!

So what did China do that we didn't? They have appreciated the importance of education and have invested heavily in it at every level. 3 decades back they realized that they have to master the English language to compete internationally and they changed their school curriculum accordingly. We still feel English is a language of subjugation though most of us manage it petty well.

The dot com bubble gave us an opportunity to develop a vibrant service sector with BPOs flourishing like mushrooms and we were very happy. We were so contented with these mediocre jobs that we accepted them as our best options. China did not. It invested in research and development and acquired skills and patents which have today put it in pole position. Today it is the champion of 5G technology, Artificial intelligence and is many steps ahead of the world in the 4th generation of industrial revolution.

While China painstakingly adopted global best practices in its education we are still viewing education through the prism of patronage. Babus in the government allow very little autonomy to our universities. Add to it our socialist input in the form of reservations and our strange suspicion of foreign investment in the education sector. We have blindly agreed that the government knows best and we let it micromanage every aspect of this sector, though its record of last seven decades is dismal.

Please for once think, can the government tomorrow pass a law that mandates best quality education in its schools and colleges? Can such a thing be legislated? Just like the SEZs, the special economic zones, why can't we have a new generation of SEZs, the Special Education Zones for foreign universities and private Indian Universities with foreign faculty? Let them decide the price of education by competitive performance and let us have enclaves where meritocracy has an opportunity to flourish. Don't burden them with government rules and regulations and let them respond to the demands of the market - both domestic and international.

I look forward to a day when Harvard, Stanford,  Oxford and Cambridge will have universities in India. Only then will our own universities stir out of slumber and strive to achieve similar status. Government should facilitate education and not end up getting entangled with its micro management. This is important, otherwise the demographic dividend will become a demographic nightmare!!