Education Pyramid
The #EducationPyramid is where large amounts of money change hands in the name of education.Though very little of real education happens. The vast majority of our population merely ends up getting shortchanged with no acquisition of knowledge or skills despite their best efforts and intentions.
These persons who are going to run our country tomorrow and compete with our neighbors TECHNOLOGICALLY, MILITARILY, educationally.
On paper, and by law, a school should be available within walking distance to a village child if he/she wants to learn the basics of READING, WRITING, AND ARITHMETIC.As a result, school buildings have sprouted at enormous speed, swelling up the figures for government statistics to be flaunted in websites and press releases.
Requirement of Qualified and Committed Teachers
Alas the vast majority of such schools had – and still have – no #Qualified and #Committed Teachers in enough numbers to impart education.Teachers wouldn’t live in the same village as the students, as their own children would rather be educated in a city school, forcing the family to live in cities and the teachers to make the long daily commute, which they don’t like.End result? Ghost #ZillaParishadSchool buildings in Villages with neither students nor teachers in sight. Sounds exaggerated? Not really.
Students are “passed” with minimal or no examination so that the flow of students is kept up for administrative purposes without stagnation.Though the #KNOWLEDGE AND #SKILL LEVELS of the students remain horribly low.Soon enough, the students get their certificate of passing the 10th standard as a mark of completing their mandatory education, thus swelling the numbers in the educated work force, all on paper.
What after the 10th standard?
Most students simply discontinue their studies as they cannot commute to junior colleges nor can they really afford to study and pass the exams. They pretend to undergo technical education/job skills training. Mere possession of a certificate of skill training does not get them a proper job, nor can they stay on in the job for want of skills.
The majority strays away from the work force and takes up whatever means of livelihood they can manage instead of Farming which has been their Livelihood. Driving an auto-rickshaw or running errands or joining the loose political groups that exist at the local level becomes their priorities.
No doubt, a few smart ones climb their own ladders, but the majority are left high and dry. They either cannot or will not return to agriculture that was the family’s traditional source of livelihood for reasons of pride and unwillingness to toil in the hot sun.
#Migration is attractive
Migration to the nearest city or even a distant metropolis is an attractive way out, but it adds to the burgeoning urban chaos and creates a whole new set of problems. While the middle to upper middle classes somehow manage to get their children admitted to “good” schools by paying disproportionately large tuition fees bordering on cheating. The family support to these children in Urban Areas ensures a decent job with regular monthly payments for them but their percentage is too low to make an impact on the overall job scene. Clearly, the unorganized way in which rural education is being managed in India today is a CAUSE OF GREAT CONCERN to social and political leaders. Merely introducing fancy gadgets in the name of E-learning may not “educate” the children in an employable manner…says Dr. Srinivasan a well-known WELLNESS COACH and Executive Editor-Indian Practitioner.
KNOWLEDGE AND #SKILL LEVELS
Presently and for the foreseeable future, unemployment numbers will rise across the board. The quality of teaching, as well as knowledge imbibed, will keep going down more than ever before.
We desperately need enhancement of knowledge and development of skills in the rural population, especially in the youth. There is also a need to develop an infrastructure in the rural India exclusively for the skill development of the youth of these areas. This will churn out a big workforce of skilled youth every year.
A wide range of aesthetic and unique products like HERBS, HANDLOOM, KHADI, HANDICRAFTS, AND TEXTILES etc are being exported from India to various countries across the globe. It should be made compulsory for these industries to set up their manufacturing units in rural India alone.
The rural youth in India are not at par with their urban counterparts on account of following reasons:-
- Low quality of education standards and high dropout rates in rural schools create learners with low educational qualifications.
- There exists a major gender bias toward women in obtaining vocational training.
- Even though a significant majority of the employment exists is in the informal sector, training and other related interventions are not geared to the needs of this sector.
- Rural youth miss out on the opportunity on industrial training sponsored by various local and government agencies of urban areas.
Inadequate number of training institutes in rural areas
Rural youth are less equipped with job-related information or skills that are currently in demand
- Lack of guidance and counseling for skill development amongst rural youth
- Lack of qualified trainers
- Lack of rural broadband network, which can assist in skill training for rural youth
There are a lot of challenges being faced by the government in imparting the skill development training to the youth of the country.
Urgent need to work on the following area
- Maintaining the quality and relevance of the skill development programs
- Striking a right balance between school education and the government’s skill development efforts
- Putting in place the institutional mechanism for research & development
- Ensuring the quality assurance, examinations, certification, affiliations, and accreditation
- Mobilize adequate investment for financing these skill development programs #Rural Education, #EducationPyramid, #Migration, #TrainingInstitutes, #SKILL LEVELS¸ #CommittedTeachers, # rural youth
